Poverty Prepping: How to Stock Up for Tomorrow When You Can't Afford to Eat Today Paperback – November 3, 2012

She has some good ideas but is extremely myopic.1. She thinks there will be electricity, and she can afford to pay for it when there is triple digit inflation.2. She thinks she will be able to stay in her home. If hurricane Katrina taught us anything; it is the fact that when people who have NOT prepared get desperate they form roving bands looking for ANYTHING they can eat. Staying in the house is painting a big red target on your back. So you need to get out of your house, and as much food as you can carry with you.3. She completely overlooked the idea of cooking on something other than her range.If you burn wood to cook food; again you are putting a target on your back.Wood fires can be seen at night, and the smoke from a wood fire can be seen for miles during the day.A Coleman camp stove and fuel for said stove will be about all one person can realistically carry. Personally I would rather carry 30 pounds of food, an alcohol burning cookstove, two bottles of Heet (gasline antifreeze) in the yellow bottle as fuel for the stove.Alcohol burning stoves are perfect stoves to use in an emergency situations.1. Alcohol burns with a blue flame: so there is very little light to be seen, and 0 smoke to be seen in the daylight.2. Most alcohol burning stoves weighs 1 ounce or less. Several companies like minibull designs. Zelph stoves, batchstovez, Rucas stoves, whitebox stoves, and many others. you can find them with google, or on you tube where people review assorted stoves andn you can see if they will work in your situation. the companies i listed earlier make stoves out of aluminum budweiser beer bottles, and energy drink aluminum cans that are much thicker than pop cans. Most of these stoves can be bought for $15-$25 not including the cost of shipping. the a stove made out of an aluminum beer bottle can hod more than 200 pounds of weight without crushing. If you do not have the money for $18-$30 to buy a stove; you can find instructions to make a plethora of alcohol stoves on YouTube.The easiest, and cheapest alcohol stove to make is the super cat stove.Buy a three ounce can of cat food like fancy feast. Feed your cat or a neighbor's cat then punch air holes beneath the rim.You can make the holes with a paper punch, or start holes with a sharp and strong knife blade then enlarge the holes with a nail, knitting needle, or expand the holes with a rosary pliers if you have them.The Super Cat stove only weighs about 1/5th of an ounce. If you cannot make holes in the catfood can for one reason or another; set the super cat stove under a pot stand like a bent clothes hanger, or between two rocks. Light the alcohol, and set the pot on the pot stand.Now you have an idea for alcohol stove. You can use a lot of different types of alcohol.The best ones to use are ethanol, methanol, or denatured alcohol. If someone distills moonshine; that would work too.I would not recommend isopropyl (rubbing alcohol because of three reasons.1, most isopropyl alcohol is only 40-70% alcohol so it will not burn well. Earlier I told you to get the HEET in the yellow can. The yellow can is 99% methanol. The red can is made of isoproponol alcohol.2. Isopropyl alcohol burns with a yellow flame and can be seen over greater distances.3. Isopropyl alcohol burns dirty and will soot up you pots, and smokeWith any alcohol you will need to burn it where there is plenty of ventilation. ie cook outside or if you are in your home open a door or window for ventilation.Now that I have talked of stoves, and fuel, I need to talk about pots to use when you are hiding from the desperate roving bands.If you are alone you can cook a can of soup or a serving of rice in an empty coke can, or a empty food can.If you are with another person use a 24 ounce beer can or a Dinty Moore can. For a larger group choose a larger can or have two stoves going with two can pots.My cook set inside my bug out bag weighs less than 7 ounces, and has the following items.24 ounce Heineken beer can potMinibulldesign BIOS4 stove wrapped in a bandanaA measuring spoon so I know how much alcohol I put in the stove. Usually 3-4 tablespoons of alcohol will burn for 15-20 minutes.A windscreen to keep the wind from messing with the flame too much. You can buy a windscreen or make one out it aluminum foil or those throw away aluminum pans people cook turkey in,A pipette or a medicine dropper so I can put alcohol on the fiberglass wick outside the stove,A bic lighter . The bandana keeps the sharp edges of my stove and windscreen from scratching the pot, and it keeps the assorted materials from making a lot of noise.I also made a pot cozy out of a $1 car sunshade I got at the dollar store. Cut to size and tape the sides and bottom. If you are cooking something like rice; burn 2 ounces of fuel the put the pot inside the cozy, and it will keep the food piping hot for another 20-25 minutes so the rice can complete cooking. you will want to make a cover for the cozy. to keep the heat from escaping through the top.Lastly I found a small nylon bag made to cover a water bottle. And it holds the pot inside the cozy, and the beer can pot holds everything I need to cook with except the food and fuel.Lastly you may need to use water from questionable sources like ponds, or streams.You can treat the water with Clorox or iodine to kill the pathogens.Four drops of Clorox will treat one quart of water. Shake the water to blend the Clorox and water then allow the water to set 30 minutes or more.If you use 2% iodine use five drops to the quart.Both methods of treating water kills Giardia and almost all other pathogens.

This little book has gotten some great reviews and some very poor reviews. I am a "prepper". I'm not fond of that term, but it is a term that can be applied to my family. I'm not a beginner, but I'm not over the top "fishing out of my swimming pool" prepper either. I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm also living off grid and close to the land. So let me tell you what, in my experience, this little book can do for you. It can get you started and it can keep you focused. We do have the money to make more extensive preps than what is discussed in this book. But, why spend money where you don't have to? I bought this book knowing that I probably had most of the information in it. However, I recognize it as a good resource; a plain spoken, to the point plan that I wish I'd had in the beginning. I threw some money "at" prepping before I got the hang of it. I wish I had that money back! In terms of keeping focus, we all lose sight of the initial goal. Whether you prepare for a pink slip, an EMP, or a natural disaster, it's easy to get sidetracked with all of the information and products that are available. Books like this remind me of the basics. Some of the reviews gave this book one star because you can find most of this information FOR FREE online. That's true. You can find every bit of this info online. But, to do it, you've got to read and assimilate A LOT of trash info first. You're going to read A LOT of doomsday, wacko stuff to get to the heart of the issue. And that is, how do I start a food storage plan? Ms Gregerson has boiled this question down and given simple and easy to understand help on, what can be, a fairly complex issue. This book is most useful for short term prepping and long term offset of the rising cost of living. All of these measures can be used to offset inflation.I gave the book four stars because it is simple, it stays on point, and she does what she says she will do. I'll reread this from time to time to remind me of my basic set of goals. I don't get the idea that Ms Gregerson actually preps for an impending catastrophe like an economic meltdown, but rather for life's bumpy road and/or a way to live more simply. So, if your outlook on the future is gloomy, you'll have to supplement this information. If you just want to be prepared for the next bump in the road, this is a good place to start. When she said poverty, she meant it. People without excess income make a set of choices. I found her guidelines to be consistent with choices available to people who have less. I've lived both sides. So, this book is a short, concise beginning guide to food storage telling you both what to store and how to store it. Don't underestimate the power of a beginning point.

A whole lot of common sense in easy to read format. I know a lot of people might think 'Oh it's just everyday stuff you'd think about' but it's surprising how much is missed when you actually sit & think about it. This little book tells it how it is and in my opinion everyone should keep a copy of this with their emergency plans by their bedside and they should read and digest the information contained therein. If teenagers are leaving home for the first time to set up on their own then every responsible parent should give them a copy of this book as they go out of the door. I would really recommend this to all

I recommend this to all preppers as it gives you a detailed outlook on how you can afford to start putting essential items away for emergencies. I did however find it not relevant to myself as it was american based so I just adapted to that to england. Still worth a read i think.

I love it. Been trying to get into prepping but gbis is a way to start modestly.

A good beginner's book to guide you towards prepping even if you only have a small apartment. Easy to read.

This book said a lot about nothing in a long list of words! Not worth wasting one's time on!