Family Home Storage

An earthquake hits your town.  Power is down.  There is no outside communication available.  People are hurt, worried, and scared.  What do you do?

Church Leaders have told us for years that we need to have food, clothing, and (where possible) fuel for at least one year.  My family and I are working on following this council and commandment.  While we are not as prepared as we would like, we believe our research may help others.  This page is a collection of the tools, resources, and more that we have and are using.  They are presented in no particular order.  I am in the process of taking this page and dividing it into separate topical pages.

Top Picks

1. Food Storage Calculator (Basic) (3142 downloads) (Requires MS Excel or the free MS Excel Viewer
2. Bee Prepared Pantry Cookbook (3679 downloads) – With ideas for effective use of the commodities suggested in your Family Home Storage.
3. Storing food in buckets (4039 downloads) – A great article with pictures on how to store food in a 5-gallon (and other size) buckets, including how to seal mylar bags with an iron.
4. Debt Snowball Calculator for Excel (1791 downloads) – A great spreadsheet to help you get out of debt using a Debt Snowball
5. Your Family Still Matters Price List (3131 downloads) – Food Storage store in St George, UT (prices updated Jan 2009)
6. LVGrocerySmarts.com – Free classes on how to use coupons to purchase groceries.  A focus on this class is to use coupons to gradually build up your home pantry or home storage with a 90-day.
7. Preparedness Articles on Mike’s World News.

Storage Ideas

1. Parade of Homes (3436 downloads) – Where can I store all this stuff? (Requires MS PowerPoint or the free MS PowerPoint Viewer)
2. Stackable Water Barrel Holders (2941 downloads) – More pictures of creative home storage ideas.
3. Storing food in #10 Cans (2397 downloads) – A great article with pictures on how to store food in a # 10 can.
4. Storing food in buckets (4039 downloads) – A great article with pictures on how to store food in a 5-gallon (and other size) buckets, including how to seal mylar bags with an iron.

Food Storage Resources

1. LVGrocerySmarts.com – Free classes on how to use coupons to purchase groceries. A focus on this class is to use coupons to gradually build up your home pantry or home storage with a 90-day.
2. Food Storage Recipes (3854 downloads) Cookbook – Over 200 pages!
3. Everything Under the Sun - Solar Oven Food Storage Cookbook (3352 downloads)
4. Food Storage Calculator (Basic) (3142 downloads) (Requires MS Excel or the free MS Excel Viewer)
5. Food Storage Calculator (deluxe) (2743 downloads) (Requires MS Excel or the free MS Excel Viewer)
6. Your Family Still Matters Price List (3131 downloads) – Food Storage store in St George, UT (prices updated Jan 2009)
7. Blue Chips Group pricing – The Makers of Morning Moos and other Food Storage items
8. Obtain a 3 Month Supply of Food in 12 Weeks (2245 downloads) – 7 different meals you can rotated weekly, for 3 months.
9. Recipe Chic: Cooking with your Food Storage
10. Bee Prepared Pantry Cookbook (3679 downloads) – With ideas for effective use of the commodities suggested in your Family Home Storage.
11. Food Storage Inventory Worksheets
12. MRE Depot – When disaster strikes the time to prepare has past! (use code “ready” to get a 15% discount)
13. Heater Meals – A Hot Meal Anytime, Anyplace.
14. Essentials of Home Production & Storage (1100 downloads) – a great basic resource originally published by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1978.

Gardening

1. Growing Potatoes in a Trash Can (2254 downloads) – a fun, easy way to grow potatoes at your home; with very little room needed.

Water Storage

Visit the Water Storage Page.

Emergency Power

1. Sun Ovens International – Makers of the Global Sun Oven
2. NASA – Cooking with the Sun – Make a solar oven with your kids
3. Generator Calculator – What size standby generator system do you need for your home?

Communications

Visit the Emergency Communications page.

Emergency Preparedness

1. Recommended Items in a 72-hour kit (2178 downloads) – updated by Michael, originally by FEMA
2. Get free sand and sand bags at 2900 Ronemus Drive (Cheyenne @ Buffalo) and the corner of N. Mojave Road and Bonanza Road.  Make sure you bring a shovel!
3. Join your local Community Emergency Response Team (“CERT”) and get free training and supplies on what do do after an emergency!  Learn more at www.CitizenCorps.gov/CERT and get the Las Vegas Training Schedule at LVAlert.com
4. Emergency Financial First Aid Kit – A simple tool to help minimize the financial impact of a disaster

Medical

1. Where There is No Doctor– if you only have 1 Medical book in your house, make it this one.           Buy It Now on Amazon!

Family Finances

1. Mike's Declining Budget Template (3010 downloads) – Enter the amount available for the particular category and as you add items you spent, it automatically deducts from the available amount. Know instantly how much you have left to spend.
2. Debt Snowball Calculator for Excel (1791 downloads) – A great spreadsheet to help you get out of debt using a Debt Snowball
3. www.AnnualCreditReport.com – Check one check report free every 4-months and you’ll get all 3 checked each year.
4. www.CreditKarma.com – Check your credit score free!

Training & Videos

1. Preparedness Videos – Useful videos as you prepare for what lies ahead
2. Join your local Community Emergency Response Team (“CERT”) and get free training and supplies on what do do after an emergency!  Learn more at www.CitizenCorps.gov/CERT and get the Las Vegas Training Schedule at NVCert.org
3. My CERT training notes, posted each week during my 6-week training.

Home Defense

1. Front Sight Firearms Training Institute, located about an hour outside of Las Vegas.  I am a lifetime member.  So far, I have spent 7-days there in training and have 4-days scheduled in 2013 to attend.  I am able to go as many times as I want for the rest of my life at no additional cost.  If you are interested in learning more about Front Sight and/or in an awesome deal on a membership, contact me.
2. Importance of Dry Practicing.  Dry Practice fixes the problems that shooting a gun with live ammo causes! 🙂
3. GunBot – Near real time tracking of in stock ammo.  Don’t let your firearm go hungry.
   
4. Clark County Shooting Complex

Helpful Websites

1. Family Home Storage at ProvidentLiving.org – an Official Website of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
2. LVAlert.com – City of Las Vegas Emergency Information
3. NVCert.org – Community Emergency Response Team – Nevada
4. Ready.gov – Prepare. Plan.  Stay Informed.®
5. Got Lamp Oil Forum– Discussion forums to help prepare yourself physically and spiritually
6. Whats Your RQ? – Find out what your “Readiness Quotent is and what you need to do to improve.  Mine is a 7/10!

Do you know of other resources, tools, websites, training, etc that are blog worthy?  Let me know by posting a comment on this page or by using our Contact Page.

Check back often as I update this page *often*.
You can also check out my Blog posts about Preparedness.

To get directly to this page, visit http://FoodStorage.MikesWorld.org

Last updated: 18 August 2013 (download links corrected 15 March 2020, no other changes made)