So we've been home a while...What have you found lacking in your planning?

[Ronald_55]

Just checking in as we have all had a while to deal with the closings, shortages, and other difficulties of the situation.

Just like any plan, until you enact it you fail to see certain shortcomings. What holes or shortcomings have you found in your bug in .. I mean "Shelter In Place" plan?

[Raoul]

Less bourbon than I would like.

[Ronald_55]

2 minutes ago, Raoul said:

Less bourbon than I would like.

Be honest... is there ever enough? lol

[Raoul]

But seriously, I grew up a poor kid without a father and we always had a big garden. To this day I still do some canning and a lot of freezing. This last go round with covid I topped off my supply of TP and wine along with a few other items and I'm set for months. I even order my coffee in bulk and freeze it by the pound.

If anybody hasn't purchased a vacuum sealer like the Foodsavers do it now. I freeze everything from leftovers to coffee.

[TomInMN]

A finished basement.

[jgradyc]

We don't eat a lot of meat, but the one thing I would like to have for sheltering at home would be a freezer.

I had always assumed that any disaster would include a lack of electricity so I had assumed that a freezer would just be spoiled food in a few days.

The other thing is that I had planned to go shooting and then planned to replace my ammo afterwards. Now, I'm limited in how much ammo I can use in practice.

I was surprised that our propane was so low. We've since topped it off.

I haven't organized my offline survival ebooks. I do have them, but I really need to move them to a thumb drive and an old smartphone that I can recharge with my solar panel.

I've been putting off surrounding the house with motion sensors. I've ordered some to arrive next week. I still don't have any night vision optics, but I just can't justify springing $2,000 for something that will depreciate as new generations of optics come out. Any suggestions for night vision?

[RED333]

23 minutes ago, jgradyc said:

I've been putting off surrounding the house with motion sensors. I've ordered some to arrive next week.

How do you handle animals, it world keep me up all night with 3 outside cats, and the varmint going by from time to time.

 

24 minutes ago, jgradyc said:

I still don't have any night vision optics, but I just can't justify springing $2,000 for something that will depreciate as new generations of optics come out.

The very reason for me as well, have not even looked at night vision for a few years.

[RED333]

10 hours ago, TomInMN said:

A finished basement.

No basement but do have a an above ground storm shelter.

[RED333]

27 minutes ago, jgradyc said:

I had always assumed that any disaster would include a lack of electricity so I had assumed that a freezer would just be spoiled food in a few days.

Yep, just a waist of good food is my worry, even with a genset, fuel wont last for ever.

[jgradyc]

10 minutes ago, RED333 said:

How do you handle animals, it world keep me up all night with 3 outside cats, and the varmint going by from time to time.

It will happen, but I can limit the false alerts by placement of the sensor. I plan to set up one by my gated driveway to let me know if UPS or someone is just sitting in a car and checking out our house. Another sensor will go on the main steps leading up to the front door. Another will face the main downstairs door. 

My neighbor has a videocam security system, but my gate is too far from the house to transmit the signal. Maybe I should get a video security system for closer to the house. His system was about $600 so I'm not sure I want to pay that much.

[maroonandwhite]

Honestly for me it’s been eye opening that I need to have more savings. Something I’ve always known but you know how that goes. Luckily my wife and I are both still working but if we were both sent home it’d be tough. 
No debt but the house but still.....

I keep seeing people in tears because they are scared to go to work in places open to the public . I’m sure most of them don’t have the option to just take off and go home. 
 

On the material side. I want to get plenty of propane stocked up for my dual fuel generator along with a decent plan to manually pump water from my deep well. 

[BHunted]

Adding more cameras and lights.
Have generator in garage instead of shed. Too muddy to drag out and found out just how muddy red clay is. Yeesh, what a mess.
More vigilant starting it for maintenance. Make sure starter battery is charged. Need I say more lights?

Staged weapons, plenty of ammo. Teaching wife what to do in case of emergency. You'd be surprised what they don't know like how to turn off the gas and water main... 

Seriously, if you need security, the Ring system is perfect. $100 a year for unlimited devices and 24hr monitoring. Easy installs. Takes minimal effort to make your home like Fort Knox if you choose to. Whats nice also is you can build on it as needed or as affordable. Start out with basic system, doorbell cam and maybe one other ca, some door contacts... add over time. Its not as painful. Buy direct from them and they support Affirm which is more like a loan where you pay no interest. If you subscribe to the monitoring, they discount some of their equipment.

 

[BHunted]

2 minutes ago, maroonandwhite said:

Honestly for me it’s been eye opening that I need to have more savings. Something I’ve always known but you know how that goes. Luckily my wife and I are both still working but if we were both sent home it’d be tough. 
No debt but the house but still.....

I keep seeing people in tears because they are scared to go to work in places open to the public . I’m sure most of them don’t have the option to just take off and go home. 
 

On the material side. I want to get plenty of propane stocked up for my dual fuel generator along with a decent plan to manually pump water from my deep well. 

I use gasoline right now on my Generac, but I want to get a whole house gen and run it off natural gas with a backup for gas or propane. Pricey though but it will happen when it reaches top of my priority list.

[gregintenn]

We’re good, but I would like a well. I don’t think there’s much water where we live.

[Erik88]

24 minutes ago, maroonandwhite said:

Honestly for me it’s been eye opening that I need to have more savings

I honestly think that money is the number one thing that most people are lacking for this pandemic. I'm not going to discourage anyone from stacking food and supplies since that's not a bad idea, but the reality is that this situation isn't likely going to deteriorate to the point where stores are not selling food. 

[abusfullofnuns]

More puzzles. We’ve already gone through both 1000 piece puzzles and just finished a 2000 piece this weekend. 
 

 

[RED333]

1 hour ago, gregintenn said:

We’re good, but I would like a well. I don’t think there’s much water where we live.

Yall are way up on a big hill top, you would have to go deep to find water.

[TomInMN]

1 hour ago, abusfullofnuns said:

More puzzles. We’ve already gone through both 1000 piece puzzles and just finished a 2000 piece this weekend. 
 

 

Do them with the picture down. Or mix them together. Or both...

[TomInMN]

2 hours ago, RED333 said:

No basement but do have a an above ground storm shelter.

For us, it's less a safety and security thing and more just having the additional living space available/ comfortable.

[Ronald_55]

I for one will admit that I was less prepared for this slow moving situation. I had tried to plan more for things like no electricity or having to leave in a hurry. The simply fact that the family is home all day is weighing on things. Plus, I don't get a ton of support on my ideas for things like this. No one is in survival mode, so beans and rice don't cut it. Everyone wants to eat like I can stop at the grocery store any time. We have plenty but things that I never took into consideration like the wife needing pastry flour because she is making sweets to keep herself busy. She is home all day with both kids, 2 cats and a dog, so keeping her from going insane keeps me from catching an ice pick to the chest in the middle of the night. lol

We have septic, but I would like a well also. As I have said before, we do not have running water close to us. Even a well that was not used often could be outfitted with a well bucket (like this example https://preparednessadvice.com/well/make-your-own-deep-well-bucket/). No need to hook power to it at all. Though a good solar setup to run the pump would be nice. Not sure if any regulations limit me on my land. I am not in the city, but my little street is officially listed a a "subdivision."

Does anyone do any serious amount of rainwater collection? I have looked at it a few times, but a few barrels around the house seem limited. I would love to have a water tank (something like this https://www.backwoodshome.com/build-a-6500-gallon-concrete-water-tank-for-1500/) but my land layout and family's opinion will probably prevent that. 

I have pondered a generator, but it is low on the list. It is expensive to have one of any decent size and fuel storage is an issue, I do have a large propane tank to run the logs in the basement but not sure how long it would run a generator. I would have it plumbed to the gas grill on the deck above it before i worried about a generator. Other than the food in the fridge, I feel we could live without electricity. We might all have to move to the basement if it was too hot or too cold, but that is doable. I feel generators are just a stop gap measure in a long term emergency.

Savings, is there ever really enough? With 2 kids, the mortgage, a car payment, etc. life is expensive. If we both were out of work a while, I guess we could take the penalty and dip into our 401ks, but that 20% would hurt. That is if things were decent enough to be able to get to our 401ks. 

I have a Ring doorbell and spotlight cam. I would like more, I just have a hard time mounting them where I want. I have a kit from Simplysafe for windows and such that I need to get up. That will probably suffice for the moment. Limited entry points to my house unless you start breaking out windows. Plus, my house is the last one on the street that anyone would come into looking for anything good. The wife says we are the white trash house on the street. lol I tell her camouflage is key.

My wife is a board game addict, so we have 2 HUGE 5 shelf shelving units full of games. I think that will keep us when the family runs out of Netflix to binge. Though that may be a while. I am not sure how she and the kids sit that many hours in from of the TV or tablet. Older I get the harder it is for me to sit down that long. Too much to do. 

I am still going into work every day, so that is making it harder to work on things I need to at home. hard to get into doing reports and such that seem trivial when I am thinking about the extra stuff I could do to insure us against things if it keeps sliding downhill. 

 

[peejman]

33 minutes ago, Ronald_55 said:

keeping her from going insane keeps me from catching an ice pick to the chest in the middle of the night. lol

Marriage 101.   

We have one 50 gal rain barrel. The warmer the weather, the nastier the water in it. I'd have to be pretty desperate to mess with it mid-summer. There's a creek fed pond about a 10 minute walk from the house. I'd use that first. 

Id like to have a small inverter generator, but its low on the list because we live 1/2 mile from the city limits.  In 13 years, I think the power has been out less than 10 cumulative hours.  I'd also like to have a small solar panel. A 3kW solar setup would be perfect, but that's frickin huge. 

We have the internet and plenty of books to read. And the library does curbside now. 

I still go to work every day and we started home schooling the kids last fall, so this hasn't been huge disruption. And I'm very thankful for that.  

[RED333]

We have an above ground pool, that is my backup water supply. Then there is the creek on the edge of my place.

[Grayfox54]

So far, I'm doing just fine. There's something to be said for being single and having grown kids. 

[TripleGGG]

4 hours ago, Erik88 said:

I honestly think that money is the number one thing that most people are lacking for this pandemic. I'm not going to discourage anyone from stacking food and supplies since that's not a bad idea, but the reality is that this situation isn't likely going to deteriorate to the point where stores are not selling food. 

64% of the country lives paycheck to paycheck. Regardless of income level also. I know several people that make 100k a year and are paycheck to paycheck. I hope this is a wakeup call for many. If you add in how many have only 1-3 months of savings that number will scare you. 

[Ronald_55]

10 minutes ago, RED333 said:

We have an above ground pool, that is my backup water supply. Then there is the creek on the edge of my place.

If it is the drinking supply make sure you keep lots of pool shock and something like solar to keep the pump running. My neighbor has one and it takes no time to get nasty when she turns the pump off at the end of the year. Her ex-husband used to drain it every year at the end of summer, but she waits until spring to drain and clean it. Last thing you want is to get sick from the water. 

I have looked at the AquaPod Kits (AquaPod on Amazon) that fit in the bathtub. They might be a good option if you had nothing else. The idea though would be to fill it up at the last minute.