Challenges on Preps and Training

[Matt In Oklahoma]

Preps and Training
Many times in our pursuit of preparing I hear I

[610Alpha]

It cost me zero, I did most from my 5th point of contact and the chore is done.
Being broke and time challenged is a mere obstacle not a wall, stay positive.

5th point of contact? I thought it was the fourth? That's what I remember hearing the Drill Sergeants saying..."boy get your head out of your 4 points of contact"

That's not to say I didn't misunderstand them in their yelling...they seemed to yell a LOT. :)

The point you are making is that you can learn/train for things that don't take $ or a lot of extra time i.e. you trained/learned while doing something that you were going to do anyways.

[Karen]

Some preps cost very little and some don't cost anything at all. Here are some of my most recent low cost preps.
I let one of our hens keep some eggs to hatch. They started hatching this morning. I'll have some wonderful farm-to-fork chicken in the spring and I'm learning about setting hens and hatching chicks. I'll have to pay for chick starter feed for the first few months, but after that the chicks will be allowed to free range/forage for food like the rest of our flock.
My husband and I are working on sectioning off an area inside the hen house for the hen and chicks to stay in until the chicks are big enough to introduce to the rest of the flock. This isn't costing us anything since we are using scraps that my husband has laying around in his barn.
I also rendered some beeswax yesterday from an old bee hive that died out. Free beeswax and I learned another skill :-)
Last week I used the leftover wax from old candles to make some firestarters. That cost me a whopping $1.36 to make about 75 firestarters.
My husband and I went to a hide tanning workshop Saterday. This cost us a total of $30 but it was priceless since I also made contact with some other homesteaders who have a nice bull that I can breed to my cows.
My husband is going hunting with Matt next weekend, but I'm planning to go to a free preppers fair Saturday. It won't cost me anything more than the gas to get there and hopefully I will learn a few new ideas for prepping.
There are many skills to be had for little or no cost. Go get you some!

[jimmycthemd]

If you want to start out VERY basic:

1) A while ago I dehydrated some veggies (carrots, peas, green beans). My wife makes REAL good beef stew. Instead of going to the grocery store to get some fresh veggies, I rehydrated some and we made it out of the home dehydrated ones. I don't have room for a garden, so I buy already dehydrated ones (from JHR). Thought it'd be nice to know how to cook with them.

2) Went 'camping' (in quotes because it was R.V. camping) with my sister-in-law's family last weekend, had fires two nights. First started with magnesium/flint/steel the second with just flint/steel. They thought I was nuts, but it worked.

3) It's getting to be winter so it's time to drain the rain barrels. Took a 5 gallon bucket and 'broke in' the MSR water filter...finally. Also 'broke in' my home-made higher volume water filter. A ceramic filter in a 5-gallon bucket. Both worked well.

just practice with what you have :-)

[blackhawk]

This would be a good topic on the main page (what ever its called) make a list of differnt thing to try that why we can see how others do good or bad. what a learning tool this would be. its to easy to download pdf's and say oh i can do that, armchair and all. plus it will lead to new questions and comments.