Would you be ready in an emergency?

You may have noticed that I've been posting some good deals that I've gotten at CVS and Food Lion lately.  After reading THIS POST  at Backwoods Home Magazine, called "Common Sense Preparedness", I realized I was well on the way to growing an emergency preparedness stockpile. 

But would we really be ready for a major emergency, or even a small one?  Probably not.

Stormy Sky

Reading this article really made me think about being prepared for big emergencies and small ones.  I hadn't thought about having some emergency supplies in the car.  At the very least a couple bottles of water and a snack in the glove compartment would come in handy sometimes.  I need to think about this some more to figure out what would be appropriate to have on hand. 

No matter where you live in this world, there are certain types of emergencies that can happen.  While, it would be rare for us to have a Winter weather emergency as described in the article, it does happen, even here in the Mid-South.   Of more concern in this area would be hurricanes and tornadoes.  Don't even want to think about all the things that could happen like gas shortages, terrorist attacks and the like. 

But, not to make this post all gloom and doom, I thought I'd share some of what we have on hand and what we don't have, but should have.

Toilet Paper:  You can never have too much toilet paper.  At our house, if there isn't at least one unopened large pack of toilet paper on hand, we start to get nervous!  Right now there are 3 packages of Charmin Basic on hand, that I bought at CVS earlier this week.  I took advantage of the Extra Bucks deal where you spend $30.00 on certain items, you get back $10.00 Extra Bucks.  With this deal I bought 3 large packs of Charmin Basic, 2 bottles of Pantene shampoo, 2 bottles of Dawn dish liquid and 1 bottle of Crest ProHealth Rinse.  After coupons and last week's extra bucks, I spent $11.00 out of pocket and got $10.00 back for my next purchase.

At Food Lion this week, large packages of Scott Extra Soft are on sale for $6.99.  Not as cheap as I'd like, but hey, toilet paper isn't cheap any more.  I would never pay the regular price, which is over $10.00 a pack!   I have a Food Lion coupon for $3.00 off  3 packages, so I intend to purchase 3.  I plan to put one of these packages in storage some where and try to forget that I have it.  That way it will be there for an emergency.

Batteries:  My mother bought lots of batteries and had them stored in odd places around her home.  As I was cleaning in her house, I would often come across unopened packs, partially used packs and loose batteries.  I brought them all home, not being sure if they had any life left in them.  Hubby has a little gizmo that checks the strength of batteries.  So, he checked all the batteries and we ended up with a pretty good stash of all sizes of batteries.  It would have been easy to just toss those batteries and assume they weren't any good.  I feel good that we are going to make use of them.

But do we have enough of the correct sizes that fit our radios and flashlights?  Probably not.

 We use rechargeable size AA batteries in the camera and other things that use that size.  This is a real money saver!

Water:  We are very lacking in this area.  We have lots of empty milk jugs and soda bottles that we have filled with water, but those wouldn't be suitable for drinking in an emergency.  So, one of my missions this week is to get some bottled water.  I'll be looking for the best deal.

Canned and other nonperishable foods:  We have a small supply of all this, but I need to look at this some more and I'm sure we need to add to it.  I don't think salad dressing and BBQ sauce count toward emergency preparedness!

After taking a look in the pantry......

I need to make a list of what we would actually use in an emergency and make an effort to stock up on those things when on sale and/or with coupons or extra bucks!

First Aid:  NOT READY!  We only have a some bandaids and are woefully lacking in any real first aid supplies.  ARGH!

So, how do you stand in your emergency preparedness?

I will re-visit this topic next week after doing some more serious looking into what we need to do to have at least a minimum emergency supply.  Of course I need to make a list!