Top 10 Things to Do to Be Ready for a ROCKY 2024 (According to Josh and Carolyn)

wow can you believe 2023 is over I it's gone so fast this year has been such a fast year and now we're looking at a brand new year welcoming in 2024 it uh buckle up looks like it could be a very interesting year there's a lot of things rumbling out there you know the world continues to just be looking to destabilizing a little bit things is getting a little less secure yeah there's of course Wars going on in multiple places around the world that a lot of countries are kind of getting involved in well and they're going to have an impact they're not going to go away quick Israel doesn't look like this is a six- week Skirmish yeah and it's going to have some impact if nothing else between Russia and in the mid east oil is probably going to continue to go up and that's going to affect INF lot of things yeah a lot of things yeah which is already super high and while we get all these great headlines out there that inflation rates are coming down that doesn't mean that things are getting cheaper it just means they're getting more expensive more slowly right it's getting it's getting worse more slowly more slowly and it's already hard like the prices at the grocery store are amazingly high so it is getting hard for the average family to just make it eating good food yeah challenges continue to mount and I want to say we kind of started off on a different tone we don't just use dive into Doom and Gloom you guys know that if you followed us if you're new we're all about Solutions y but it is a new year and there are a lot of things on the horizon that have us motivated to just continue to be living this life to be prepping a little bit and learning more to live prepared and we want to encourage you guys to be doing the same thing so today we have our top 10 things that we think you should be thinking about this coming year make sure to get in order so and and when we say top 10 there there are 10 things that we think are really important there's probably a lot more but these are kind of up there on the scale and some of it's a little prepping which we don't talk a whole lot about but it is important yeah and some of it is just learning more to live prepared so let's Jump Right In number one and this is one of the top ones even though we're not necessarily ranking all of these from least important to more important but water you have to have water and you need water storage we are so used to being able to flip the switch turn on the knob and get water and water obviously is absolutely essential to life and so there's a couple of Basics it doesn't need to be super complicated just a couple of things you need to know at a bare minimum you should have one gallon of water per person per day for however long you think you need to be able to go now that's a bare minimum that's that is like getting by that's a half a gallon a day of drinking water and and a half a gallon for cooking and washing 2 gallons a day is a better Target that's going to allow you to drink more water which if you're hot if you're working outside you're going to need more water than that half a gallon a day and still have some cooking and washing if you can do more than that that is great but those are some bare minimums how long should you store water for well ultimately I want 6 months or more which we have here but you got to make it doable so maybe you start with a week and you figure out how to store up enough water for each person in your household for a week and then maybe a move to a month look you can go get one of those totes those Food Grade Totes if you've seen the kind of square looking things they're plastic metal frame I think they're called an IBC Tote and they hold 250 to 300 gallons of water that could get the average family a four through an emergency for a month no problem there's lots of ways you have to figure it out for you but get your water storage handled the second most important thing that we think you guys should be doing this year is filling up your pantry making sure that you have everything on hand that you usually consume and starting to get ahead of that idea of like buying what you need just the week that you need it start working to get a week ahead and then two weeks ahead and then three weeks ahead and see how far ahead you can get while starting to store your Staples and the basic things that you eat every single week that doesn't just mean food that also means household supplies uh should I say toilet paper but anything else that you might need toothpaste any other cosmetic or toiletry sort of thing that you might need cleaning supplies for your house extra light bulbs just the things that you know that you go through regularly instead of just purchasing one of those things when you go to the store how about get two or three double or triple what you need right now and start saving up and stocking up it's a great way to make sure that you're actually filling your pantry and your household cabinets with things that you actually use and will continue to need the worst case scenario is that you're saving money by buying it now and not having to buy it later when it's more expensive but at the best you'll have it on hand when you need it in case it becomes unavailable number three today is power backup and again lots lots of different systems uh that you can put in from large expensive elaborate systems so just some basic portable generators but you need to get your Essentials down and have some power backup for them in this case right here I'm standing by our pump house where we have our water storage if we lose power we can fire this up and it's going to power the water system we also have generators that power the essentials in the house and in the garage we've got a few Portables as well so what you want to do is just look at your system what are the things you absolutely have to have going if you're storing any food you probably got freezers so you need freezers to go right you're going to need some lighting that can come in a lot of Portables but you're going to need a way to charge the batteries you need to think about cooking you need to think about heating uh both your house and your water you're probably going to need a power backup and there's different ways to do that you can get appropriate portable generators and just plug them in we've got several freeze freezers in the garage it's not tied to our house system so we have a couple small generators that will get us by and keep the freezers going if we're going to be out for a long time and we also have a generator that runs the essentials in the house it's going to keep the stove going it's going to keep for us the internet going if you're in town you in the city sometimes you have noise ordinances you want to know about some of these generators like this Honda here the Honda you use that will run very quietly so you're not going to have your neighbors upset at you they're a little expensive but they're very very valuable if you're in that kind of situation so make make sure you get your basic power backups in place this year thing number four that you should think about this year is to get serious about getting out of debt and getting your finances in order the economy is not going to be getting significantly better things right now are on a track where they're just going to keep getting harder and harder for the average family the worst thing you could be doing is going into debt right now in order to finance your current life style this is a moment to buckle down to get really really serious about saving money about paying off debt and about getting yourself set up to be in a great financial position moving forward for me getting out of debt is super important especially Consumer Debt things like credit cards credit lines things like vehicle payments try and get those down as hard as you can like Dave Ramsey says he's a great one to go learn from if uh you live like no one else now then you can live like no one else later so make the sacrifices now so that life is easier later number five on our list today is firewood you need to have firewood for heat now I know a lot of you may not have a fireplace or wood burning stove I'm going to suggest that you need to get one but let's start with those of you that do hopefully you're getting prepped up for at least a year my goal is always to have two years of firewood so I'm going to encourage you this year if you've already got wood heat get ahead and get 2 years of firewood that gives you a buffer when things get stressful when things get tough you've got extra very very helpful if you don't I really really want to encourage you to think about getting in a wood burning stove or something in your house where you can heat in your house you can heat water and you can cook without any electricity any generated power plus it's just it's just pleasing it's nice to sit by a fire now I know some of you live in places where you just can't do that the next best alternative is propane it's portable you can get it in five and 10 gallon tanks that you can move around you can use a barbecue to cook there are now portable water heaters that you can mount on a little dolly on your outside wall to heat water with and there are also indoor safe Heating units for propane so those are condensed systems with propane similar to Wood where you don't need any other power any other source where you can do your heating you can do your cooking very very good backup and that's a very very good source if you're in the city or you're somewhere where you just can't do wood you can store multiple propane tanks in your garage and you could have a full Year's backup of uh heat and cooking ability without any Reliance on the grid at all number six find a hobby that actually produces something whether that's gardening at home or making a craft or some sort of cooking or baking something that can be done at home because in times of turmoil in times where things maybe aren't so stable it's great to be able to shift your focus to being a little bit more home- centered so it's a really good time to find something that you can do at home that you enjoy and that actually produces something that you can do something with sewing might be a great example of that maybe crafting in a different way maybe woodworking something like that can really bring a lot of enjoyment to your life especially if you find yourself stuck at home a lot more than uh you were intending to be and number seven is fuel this is one I think people really really Overlook if you've got power generation to keep your house going but you don't have the fuel to keep it going for an extended amount of time then it's not going to do you any good right so you're going to need to figure out how much fuel do you need to keep going through a week a month we've gotten set up to where we can go for a year now you see behind me we've got various fuel containers from 5 gallons down here which is where we started lots of those back over there is a 50-gallon drum that's another uh option that's not very expensive you get a hand pump to Pump Fuel out of it we now have these larger tanks that we fill up because we've got diesel engines car engines with regular gas we've need premium for a lot of our Machinery around here and so we've moved over the years to having bulk storage but whatever it is you've got to have fuel backup for what you're using and what you're going to need to get through a situation if you do go grid down power down the other nice thing about this is as you are able to store more you can look for opportunities when you think the fuel uh costs are down you can bulk up right then make sure you have fuel to power your generators and side note think about propane propane generators what can you run a lot of you are on electricity all electricity oh man that's scary to me to have a full electric house but if you are if you do one think about changing some things over two think about propane as part of your fuel management for things like generators and whatnot cuz that propane lasts indefinitely but create a plan start bulking up for fuel for the things that you're going to need even for your car you guys look there's a lot of stuff going on in the world and Russia in the mid East that alone can do a lot to the fuel costs and so the more you've got ahead of that you can mitigate it a little bit bit and even get by if the prices Spike up for a while and certainly get by if there are other circumstances out of your control stock up on fuel number eight is to get really good at practicing and helping your family practice the old adage use it up wear it out make do or do without try to challenge yourself to reduce the amount of things that you are purchasing ready made for you figure out how you can make it yourself with something that's already in your household or something that you can find resources for cheap or even free this is really good to get good at practicing it I know in our culture we are really actually very affluent and so it's really easy just to go buy the thing go let's just go buy it let's go grab that from the grocery store let's go get that from the store or even have it sent in from you know online somewhere but getting in the habit of not being so quick to purchase and thinking about is there a way I could make this or do I already have one or could I use something that I already have and make it work that is really going to be your best friend in the upcoming years number nine and my last tip for the day we're going to take a left turn talk about something a little different but it's still prepping and that is some cash and gold or preferably silver look you guys we're used to the bank just like we're used to that water spet and that light switch and we think it's always going to be there for us and there's going to come a time when it's not and if you're not the first one to the bank you're not going to get some of that cash out so it is always a great idea in any resiliency plan to have cash on hand how much I'd say at least a month's worth of your expenses is a great great start if you got to start with a week good go there and start to build up and work towards a month or two a long-term planning some people are going to move towards 6 months but get some cash on hand but here's the other side of the coin even that cash if we did start to have that scenario it's going to hyperinflate the value is going to just disappear fast in certain scenarios and so we want something that we can still use like cash that provides us some value and that is silver and gold they're both great I like silver better and the reason is is you can buy it in smaller denominations so it's easier to chip away at stocking up on it it's also in denominations that are going to be easier to barter uh trade with or to use as actual money if you need to just because of the cost of an ounce of silver versus the cost of an ounce of gold again how much for that uh same thing start with a week worth of expenses move toward a month and start stocking up to where you've got some cash you've got some silver you have these things on hand the cash is more of just a stop Gap if you can't get your money out of the bank and you need it an emergency the silver is that hedge again I'm not talking about it as an investment I'm talking about it as a hedge in case there are bigger problems that dollar does hyperinflate you've got something regardless of whether you have cash on hand you've got something that is going to hold against that dollar in that scenario so cash and silver or gold the 10th thing you should think about doing this year is a little bit different than most of the other ones but that is to think about starting a small business a side business with something that you're producing on your homestead whether it's your soaps or eggs that you are that you're raising maybe some extra meat animals that you're raising maybe it's your sewing or even the produce out of your garden this is a really great way to do a couple things one it gets you involved in the local economy if you're starting to sell in a local fashion like somewhere at your local farmers markets or local shops two it really starts to give you an idea of what you can do with a diversified income you may not make a whole ton of money from a side business but it's great to have some backup ideas in case you were need were to need to change your lifestyle significantly and support Yourself by something you can produce yourself but three it also really gives you a feel for what people are looking for out there and you might just be surprised I know several people who didn't intend to change their careers at all and then they started a smallside business from their Homestead products and their businesses took off and they ended up being able to switch to working completely from home and supporting their families from home based on what they were producing at their own home Homestead so it's a good time to start small and try to diversify your income with something that you produce and turning that into a small business all right did you get your five down we got our five how about you likewise yeah you know mine were mostly prepping yeah how about yours that's that's good mine not so much prepping mine's more to-dos and things that you need to to build up or to learn or to change lifestyle wise well and that's just it you know the prepping is important and I know we don't talk talk a lot about prepping but it is an important foundation you just don't want to leave it there you don't want to leave a foundation empty you want to keep going and we want to build skills right that's really where you want to get to right is keep building your skills those skills don't leave you they take you a long ways once you know a skill you learn a skill it changes I think with every skill that you learn it changes the way you think about things right you learn how to think a little bit differently and it really helps you to think more clearly through different things AB absolutely so while we want you to get prepared for 2024 um we also want you to continue to learn to live prepared right so keep building skills pick two or three this year and dive in yeah definitely you guys we hope you have a great year and we'll see you soon very soon next year all right goodbye bye

Channel: Homesteading Family

Views: 187,403

Keywords: Homesteading, Homesteading Family, homesteading channels, homesteading for beginners, emergency preparedness plan, homesteading 101, homesteading lifestyle

Id: Y7AF-vc3uXE

Length: 18min 54sec (1134 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 13 2024