Be Prepared*

Today I actually lived my old Girl Guide motto: Always be prepared.

As I am an avid CBC.ca reader, the constant news about the economic situation of the U.S. has been on my mind quite a bit of late. And just for the record– if you are not yet a person who reads the news at least on a weekly (preferably daily) basis, I urge you to reconsider. I know it can sometimes be depressing or time-consuming, but I’ve learned that it’s really important to stay informed about what is going on in the world. So find a media outlet you enjoy (internet, newspaper, TV, radio, etc) and make an effort to stay informed. I hiiiiiiighly recommend it. Reading the news has become one of the highlights of my day.

Anyway. So I’ve been reading a little into the U.S. and their economics. I am no scholar on the subject, but even without knowing all the minute details, it’s easy to see that things are changing. For example, look at the way that gas prices have risen–most especially in the past few weeks. In some places gas has risen to $1.30 a litre and is expected to continue to rise. When the Hubster and I got married, we were paying 0.79 a litre and thought that THAT was expensive. Also, the price of flour has risen immensely. While a 5kg package of flour was only $1.99, they have now risen to $5, and again, are expected to rise. There are talks about even rationing out rice, which you used to be able to buy in massive amounts for next to nothing. It’s really kind of scary.

I don’t necessarily believe that we will fall into any sort of drastic recession like that of the 1930s, but I do really believe that it’s important to be prepared. So, tonight Too Kool took the Hubster and I shopping and we decided to build up our food storage.

We have always tried to keep bottled water in our home (especially as our water is ALWAYS turned off… haha) but other than that, as we live in an apartment and have limited space, we tend to shop week to week and haven’t kept much here. Well, over the past weeks and months we’ve tried to increase our food storage so that should we ever need it, we’d be ok. For example, we watched the sales at Canadian Tire until we found a cute little pantry shelving unit on sale and picked it up so that we’d have some extra shelving space. I’ve also learned to be creative and have found new places to store things so that they aren’t completely out in the open.

Tonight we didn’t buy a lot, but we bought some things to get started. We bought 2 cases of water (to add to what we already have stored), 2 bags of flour, a big bag of rice, 18 cans of Habitant soup (the kind that you don’t need to add water to), and about 48 cans of stew. It doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but they are all things that we can use in an emergency. We plan to continue to build it so that we can be self sufficient!

I also want to complete two 72-hour emergency kits for us as one of my summer projects. Our church leaders have been counseling us for years to have them, and after watching the thousands of people who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina, and even now with all the flooding in Northern Ontario and New Brunswick, I realize how important it is to have something that you can grab in an emergency should you need to leave your home with little to no preparation time. If you’re interested in this stuff I’ll blog about what I am including in them as I build them!

So, that was my project for tonight. It was actually the Hubster who was smart enough to start buying extra things tonight and I’m really grateful that he did. Being a student, it’s really easy to live inside a safe little university bubble and forget that the real world is out there. But I believe that it’s really really important to be prepared. Scout’s honor. :)

Shop Girl*