prep rehash

PREP REHASH
In honor of all my new loyal minions, I'm going to rehash the basics for frugal prepping. I'm sure my long time readers could care less. I had originally planned on a rehash on bolt guns instead of semi's, sure to generate howls of protest from troll section. I'll include that here, just so I can slog through fifty friggin comments about what an idiot I am. That is sure to brighten my day and focus my disapproval.
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Every time I bring up the backbone of your survival diet being wheat, I get assorted complaints. Bland, boring, less nutritious. The basic frugal preparedness plan is a bare bones, better than nothing plan. It contains no bells or whistles. It is what will keep you alive if the world ends tomorrow. It is not meant to be purchased and then forgotten. Ideally, it will be added on to. If the ideal is not met, at least it will keep you alive. Survivalism is about surviving, not about continuing a modern luxury existence without interruption. Buy four hundred pounds of wheat kernels per person if you want a years worth of food. Go to the feed store and buy bags of whole wheat kernels. Not flour, not flakes. And not treated with any vet medicine. Then buy yourself a grain grinder. A corn mill. Google 'corn mill' or 'corn grinder', or go to the link for Amazon products at my web site www.bisonpress.com to buy a $25 grinder. It is a cast iron grinder. It will outlive you if not left in the rain. It is meant as a rough grinder. Not a fine flour grinder. So with wheat you start at a course grind, run it through, grind again a little finer. It takes three or four times through the grinder to get nice wheat flour. Shut up and do the extra work, it is cheaper than spending $300 for a fancy mill.
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The wheat should have a little diatamacous earth ( food grade, not pool grade ) sprinkled in it to control bugs ( also at my Amazon store ). Half a cup per five gallon bucket is good. You put in with the kernels and roll the sealed bucket around to distribute. Buy food grade buckets. Wal-Mart used to have them in the paint section. I wrote an article about, but damned if I can find it ( anyone? a little help here ). Wheat has the highest protein content of commercial grains, although it is not a complete protein like meat is. For that you need to supplement it with beans. If it is all you have, you will eventually suffer from lack of protein, assuming you can't kill some rabbits or something. Again, this is bare bones, better than nothing.
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You will need three five gallon buckets per hundred pounds of wheat. If bought new rather than used from the bakery or BBQ joint ( take them to the car wash and hot water pressure wash them if dried on food inside ) you will spend about $20 per hundred pounds on buckets. About $200 per person for four hundred pounds, wheat and buckets. A lot more expensive than it used to be. Failing all of the above, just get rice and beans at the market. Next up, for water. If you live in a wood abundant environment, just boil all your water. It doesn't have to be boiled, just brought to a boil. All the germs are killed by then. Everyone else needs to buy a ceramic filter. Buy a Berky replacement filter, about $50. To make your own Berky filter unit ( the one with the multiple stick looking filters in a big bucket ) take one poly bucket and drill a hole in the bottom the same size as the filter spout. Set it on top of another bucket with lid on and that lid also having a hole. Fill the top, it filters through to the bottom. Good for 10k gallons. You can quibble all day about plastic chemical leaching, thus needing to buy $10 food buckets and $300 stainless steel water filters, but this is in a calamity, total collapse situation. You'll be dead from warfare long before you might get cancer from plastic buckets.
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Now get yourself a rifle. Not a $1,500 battle rifle that take $20 magazines and sixty cent .308 ammo. A World War Two surplus bolt action rifle. They are dirt cheap and built like a tank. I like the Enfield, but the Russian 91/30 ( don't get the 44 carbine ) is three quarters of that price. I don't recommend the Russian gun, as it has no gas escape feature. But no one else, including long time users and reloaders, share my concern. Up to you. The Mauser family has much more accurate rifles than the Enfield ( the 303 is great for dirty field conditions but suffers in the accuracy department. The Mausers are accurate but jam with dirt ) and cost somewhere between the $150 Enfield and the $100 Russian. Now, you could buy an SKS for just $25 more than a Enfield, but I discourage semi's in all categories ( pistols, rimfires and rifles ). You can't assume a continuation of ammunition. And you are too poor to stockpile 20k rounds. Either Obammy taxes ammunition much more, supplies stay scarce, imports from Russia are outlawed, or after a collapse no more ammunition is produced. When poor, the only option is to use much less ammunition. Under the stress of combat, semi's are sprayed and prayed. With a bolt action you must be much more careful before you fire. Because you aren't covering yourself with a wall of lead and because it will take valuable seconds to reload. Ammunition is high tech. It won't last forever and must be conserved.
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Buy as much ammo as you can. Even a hundred bucks worth is going to be far better than nothing ( a pile of worthless paper dollars being saved for a future semi purchase is not as good as a surplus bolt gun with bayonet and three hundred rounds of thirty caliber ammunition ). So far, you've spent about five hundred bucks. You have protection with food and water. You need a lot more, such as shovels or saws or other tools, camping cookware, wool clothing and blankets, knives, etc. But this will get you far down the road towards a preparedness stockpile. Which is far better than 99% of the population.
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