The Economy and Preparednessby Miriam Caldwell | More from this Blogger 10 Jan 2009 02:56 PM The economy has taken a turn for the worse, and this really illustrates the point of being prepared for hard times. Many people mistakenly think that we promote food storage for such events as the end of the world, but the food storage, and emergency preparedness goes beyond that. The people I know who have used their food storage did it turning times of economic hardship and unemployment. It is important that everyone is prepared to handle the trying times of life. Over a year ago the church came out with new guidelines that outline the priority of each part of the food storage program. Members are instructed to begin by storing three months of food that you would normally eat. This is as simple as writing up a menu for the month. After that you can work on purchasing the food when it is on sale. It is much easier to store this amount of food. You should also rotate your supply regularly. After you do that you should focus on storing a year's supply of water. This is a gallon per week per person in your family. You can use fifty-gallon containers. You can purchase these through an emergency preparedness site. You can also store it in smaller more portable containers. After that you should work towards building up a financial reserve. This would be an emergency fund, and many experts would recommend having three to six months of income saved up. This would help to cover expenses if you were to lose your job or cover major financial emergencies. Additionally you should work towards getting out of debt as quickly as possible. After you have accomplished all of these tasks you should then focus on your year's supply of food. This supply should be food that will store for longer periods of time, but you should also store food that you can eat. Your family needs to be used to this type of food before you begin using it all of the time. Work whole wheat into your diet slowly. Related Articles: Learn more about Miriam Caldwell  Miriam is a SAHM mom of three children. She has a daughter who is seven, and two sons, four and two. She loves being a parent and spending time with her children. Relevantlds tags User Comments foodstr2 (16) 12 Jan 2009 07:33 AMGood advise, Miriam. About water storage, there are issues with storing it in drums because of having to add chlorine or iodine solutions to keep it drinkable. I think a better solution is to get a quality water filter, like the AquaRain (which filters to 0.2 microns absolute pore size, the best there is). It's gravity-operated, so no power is needed, and it filters 16+ gallons/day....for 30,000+ gallons. Saves a lot of space. Plus, you can filter pond or lake water safely. You can see it, and read more, at http://internet-grocer.net/aqua.htm Just a thought.... Best regards, Bruce  Miriam Caldwell (8030) 12 Jan 2009 08:49 AMThanks for the suggestion. It is good to have a filter since it is difficult to move the water that you store. However, you can also use the stored water to wash clothes or flush toilets if needed. So a combination of both would be good. Community Tags emergency preparedness, economy, lds Discuss this article
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