Posted on 05/06/2011 8:20:22 PM PDT by Kartographer
At Red Dawn: Hunting, Survival, Recreation, they specialize in homesteading, emergency preparedness and first-aid.
Owner Gaylon Cornsilk first dreamed up this concept about a year ago.
The doors have been open just six months and business has exploded.
Cornsilk says, "This was kinda born out of a passion to see people prepared for any kind of emergency, natural or man-made. We are growing exponentially everyday. Obviously there's an air of people starting to notice and want to prepare for what's going on around them."
Donna Harper manages the store's long-term storage food section.
Some of the pre-packaged emergency food rations last five to 25 years; the rations sell out so quickly they cannot keep enough on premises.
(Excerpt) Read more at kfor.com ...
Things haven’t changed much if you read some of the post here there are several FReepers who would drop a dime on you in a minute that or rob you of your stores.
hear ya on the wood heating.
We cut our propane bill down 1,000 bucks a year by going to the woods < with property owner permission of course> to cut the fallen tree’s for our fire wood.
Yeah, it’s work but that xtra 1000+ bucks in our pocket was priceless ~
Another thought I shared with “She Who Must Be Obeyed” the other day. An easy way to stash some extra water for emergencies.
Most chain grocery stores have the 5 gallon polycarb water bottle exchanges. $14 for a new full jug. $7 with exchange. This water is good for something like 12-18 months I think. Buy two and once a year dump the water and get new refills. $14 a year. Or more if you want to up it.
Exactly. It is not possible to think through and provide for EVERY possible scenario.
However I view at least a minimal amount of preparedness as being necessary to provide me with OPTIONS that I otherwise might not have had.
There's just so much everybody can do to be more efficient & cut costs, thus allowing more bucks to go for toys, savings, or whatever.
No joke, fuel is quite expensive in rural Alaska, but we don't use nearly as much as urban people use. It's $4.60 a gallon here now but I don't go through $150/month in fuel and most of it goes into atvs, snowmachines. Common for us to put 2k miles a winter on snowmachines.
We mostly use stihls out here, everybody buys 250's. Last year I picked up a 260 pro, like almost 600 bucks; so much more the saw than 250 stihl; better built, will last a lifetime; get one with the money you save.
Yea, I wouldn’t put it past our government to do such a thing. Especially if they did that back then, disgusting by the way. I’m sick of busy body government sticking it’s big ugly nose in my bidness. If I remember correctly it was also illegal to have gold coins.
When my wife and I sold our last place our number 1 concern was water. The place we bought 12 years ago is 6 acres sitting between 2 year round streams and has 3 fulltime springs feeding small ponds and a thirty foot well. Compared to our last place which was 80 acres on the high plains with an 850 foot well into the Ogallalla aquifer. I sleep better at night knowing I’ve got a good source for water.
“Still, I think $1k is a worthy goal. And one that most people who could meet it, won’t. My nephew and spouse are always tight for money, yet she regularly stops at Starbucks on the way to work.”
I think it’s a good amount also, it will be tougher for people to strive for now with everything jumping in price. Although it would probably have to be kept in cash - in a natural disaster the banks would be closed of course. Heck, even half that would go a really long way in the short term.
Most people, including the well prepped, would be helped out by a bit of a stash - city dwellers especially. The type that only eat “fresh” daily, and never have more than an organic yogurt occupying their fridge.
The last time we had a big flood here, there were whole sections of the local villages and towns that were completely closed down. Most businesses were flooded and had their doors closed for weeks. LOL - I remember getting annoyed about a week and a half after the flood because a McDonalds the next town over was still closed! I just wanted coffee.......(I can’t see paying starbucks prices)
That's what I meant. When we had the ice storm winter before last, where there was no power you couldn't conduct transactions without cash in some areas. And it's not hard to conceive of a scenario where an entire city could be without power.
I highly recommend everyone here watch an old movie. Panic in the Year Zero (1962). Ray Milland.
Ping.
I’ll try to remember to ping you to these threads, if you like. Thanks for the pings you sent before.
Yeah, she said it was fun eating and acting appreciative at the same time.
That year she lived in Korea, backpacked through all of SE Asia (ate locally, not in hotel restaurants), went to China, Taiwan, and spent a week in Mongolia. To this day she says Mongolia is the one place she would not return to. Said Ulan Bator was so depressing with the 50s and 60s Soviet architecture. Also, the personal property crime in the city was over the top, just about steal the shirt off your back.
Making the ASSumption that everything will bounce back to normal next time is as foolhardy as they cone.
This is the type of self-absorbed, spoiled brat who thinks that someone will always be around to bail him out and expects them to do it. Entitlement mentality personified.
These people are going to be the biggest danger and drain on resources going when we see TEOTWAWKI. And I’ll bet he doesn’t even have any marketable skills to trade for food and shelter, but just expects a handout.
He’s got another thing coming if he comes here.
Let me guess, you live/lived in New Orleans......
And what you seem to fail to realize is how self sufficient people can be even in urban areas.
Living in urban areas doesn’t automatically mean that they can’t cut expenses by hunting, gardening, canning, sewing, heating with wood they get, and you can find it in urban areas.
People in urban areas don’t need two jobs to make it, simply a husband working and wife being thrifty. Your friend’s problems are not a result of where they live so much as HOW they choose to live. Their problem is bad lifestyle choices and lack of self-control in spending.
Your attitude is pretty snotty.
The biggest problem you face is not canning, stocking up, hunting, or gardening. It's the increased costs that you face concerning taxes (local, state in every form they come), costs of transportation, fees & permits, utilities, vehicles, housing, and most importantly everywhere you look you see a place begging you to come here and spend your hard earned bucks. Most people I know in urban areas have their kids into this and that, wanting to give them more than they had. They are to some extent keeping up with the Joneses and working hard long hours to stay in the game; no joke. My buddy can't figure how we had our place paid off in 8 years, but when I show up in my 1990 ford truck that gets 22mpg, he always asks when I'm getting my antique plates, ha ha; all the while he makes several vehicle payments and wonders where it all goes. I lived that way too once many years back, hard as it is to admit I did too....
You see, it's pretty hard to find a place with no local govt and no taxes other than Fed Income Taxes. I'm 500 miles from the nearest mall or Sams or MacDonalds. So I really do see the difference; way cheaper living where I do than any other place I have lived here in Alaska or the lower 48.
When we first moved here from back east 20 years back, our family saw an immediate savings of around 20K in just state taxes and revenue costs (from Pa to Ak). We thought we were pretty self sufficient back east; boy did the local Indians give me a schoolin on living subsistence, ha; I knew so little. Now we set nets for kings & chums, trotlines for burbot & sheefish, kill a bunch of caribou and a sheep and moose if the Good Lord so sees to it and grow much of what we eat; way more than we ever did back east. But the biggest difference & savings comes from no local govt or taxes and costs buying things at wally world.
Snow is about gone and should start planting tatoes nx weekend if everything drys out. We always put in 400 lb seed taters, get 3500 lb by end of august. Indians help hill them and they always get around 1500 lb. I also send 500 lb upriver to Indians I know from Dawson to OLd Crow. Neighbors get all they need and I always have 1000 lb in basement. We have the biggest garden around and I don't sell a one. In the last year, we have been ordering in paper products, coffee, sugar, things that don't go bad that I can't grow here. Trying to build up a 5 year supply of whatever. Spices & cocoa nx month. I'm bringing in 40 of them fletcher honey hams end of this month from costco; will freeze and last 2 years for soups.
The one thing you are way ahead of me on is the ability to get milk cows from local family farmers. So much more meat on a cow than a moose. 12-15 lbs, 90 minutes, good stuff. Hope that you are already canning meat.
So stop and think how much you spend on taxes, costs, living expenses and then consider if you can decrease them. Good luck and no offense meant.
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