Ready to setup an emergency fund? Whether it’s on or off the grid, having an emergency fund money for just-in-case moments is not only responsible, but non-negotiable if you are planning for the future.

Set Up Your Crash-Proof Emergency Fund Before It’s Too Late

I’ve seen a lot of debate among investors about having a gold and silver emergency fund. Some swear by it while others claim that you shouldn’t bother.

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US dollars are fine for an “everyday” emergency, but let’s face it – it’s likely you are prepping in the first place because the dollar is failing. Let’s cut the hype and I’ll show you how real emergency savings can save you in a crisis.

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1. Keep it Accessible.

An emergency fund won’t work if you can’t get to it. That means no banks or safety deposit boxes. In a financial crisis, your bank will be the first place to close. And last I checked, you can’t get gold from an ATM. So store your gold and silver emergency fund at home or at another trusted, accessible location.

Your fund must also be portable. If you have to bug out, don’t try to carry 75 pounds of silver on your back. For one to four people, 100-200 ounces of silver and a few ounces of gold should do the trick. Scale up for larger families.

2. Keep it Valuable.

One question for your gold and silver emergency fund – how much? The total value (in today’s dollars) should be about $5000 to $10,000, depending on family size. And you’ll need both gold and silver. Silver is the workhorse and will be used for everyday purchases, like food or fuel. Gold will be used as a store of wealth and portability (1 oz. gold = 5 lbs. silver).

3. Keep it Secure.

Don’t hide it under your mattress. A quality burglary-fire safe is the best protection. Don’t buy a cheapo model from Home Depot. And most gun safes aren’t up to the task, either. Good ones have a UL security rating.

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For more information, check out this safe ratings guide. Even a heavy safe can be removed by a couple of strong thieves. So bolt your safe to the floor in a concealed location. Avoid the master bedroom – it’s the first place thieves look.

4. Keep it Expendable.

If you hold a large amount of gold or silver, you may become a target for thieves… or government confiscation. So keep your emergency fund limited to what you can afford to lose.

Remember, the crisis won’t last forever and it’s not worth being murdered because you wouldn’t give up $100,000 in gold sitting in your safe. Lower the stakes and stay alive.

5. Keep it a Secret.

The best protection from thieves starts by not letting them know what you have. Usually it’s the wrong person overhearing an innocent conversation that tips a thief off. So don’t talk about your emergency fund out in public or with anyone outside your most trusted circle of family and friends.

And when you do tell someone, maybe because you are trying to help them do the same, emphasize the importance of secrecy.

6. Keep it Spendable.

A common mistake among preppers is to buy gold and silver at the lowest possible cost. Bullion bars may have a slightly lower premium than bullion coins, but you will pay the price later. Bars often require an assay to verify purity and weight. And bars are also easy to counterfeit by silver or gold plating low cost metals like tungsten.

So set up your emergency fund with 1-ounce bullion coins minted by large governments and purchased from a reputable dealer. Examples are the American Eagle, Canadian Maple Leaf and Austrian Philharmonic. These are recognized worldwide and are more difficult to counterfeit (though there are fakes made in China – check out Mike Maloney’s video on how to avoid fakes).

Another option is so-called “junk” silver. Most US coins minted prior to 1965 contain 35%, 40% or 90% silver (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_silver). In an emergency, you want to keep things simple. So my first recommendation is to stick with 1-ounce bullion coins. But if you want some “junk” silver to supplement your fund, get a bag of 90% coins.

7. Keep it Easy When You Buy.

Do some research to find a reputable, competitive dealer. Don’t buy on price alone. Some dealers hound you with pushy sales calls and are just not worth the hassle. Others may be out of stock, putting your order on hold for weeks… or even months.

And worst case is they may have counterfeit coins. You can buy locally or online. Reputable online dealers (like Kitco.com) will ship in discreet packages that are fully insured with verified genuine coins. If you are unsure about a local dealer, test them with a small order first, then ramp up if they do well.

Looking for More Prep Tips? You’ll love 43 Off The Grid Hacks.

Originally posted on November 2, 2015 @ 1:11 AM

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Looking for something to make out of those old palettes lying around your homestead? Why not make a rustic coffee table! This diy project has handy craftsman written all over it!

Rustic Reclaimed Wood Coffee Table

Isn’t it always better when you can find a way to repurpose something instead having to throw it away? We love this pallet coffee table that is made using only three wood pallets. The unique design of this table is sure to be a conversation piece. The top of this table is stable, smooth and flat, unlike many pallet furniture projects we have tried. This piece is a statement, but definitely still useful and would make a great addition to any rustic space.

Supplies for this wood pallet project:

• 3 Wood Pallets (amount will vary based on your size and number)
• Hammer
• Chisel
• Nail Remover (or a reciprocating saw if you know how to use one)
• Circular Saw (or a handsaw if you’re old-school)
• Basic Drill
• 4 Clamps (C-Clamps or any other variety)
• 5/32 inch drill bit
• 2 ½ inch screws (small box)
• Wood Glue (see tutorial for recommendations)

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You can watch the video tutorial here from DIY Ready:

Step 1 – Deconstruct Pallets

First, get yourself some pallets. The more pallets you have, the bigger the table you can make. We only had three pallets lying around, so we decided to make a low sitting coffee table.

Start by deconstructing the pallets. You could use a power saw for the fastest deconstruction. But if you don’t have one, then you can use a hammer, a chisel and a nail remover to pry the boards apart.

Select the board you want to remove from the pallet and place the tip of the chisel in the crevice between the board and one of the side rails. Lightly tap the back end of the chisel with the hammer to wedge it between the two pieces of wood. Get the chisel in deep enough so that it will stand on its own without your support.

Now, using the rail as leverage, pry the board from it.

Repeat this process for the middle and the bottom sections of the board until the board detaches completely.

Once you have a pile of boards on the floor with nails sticking out of them, use the nail remover to pull the nails out.

Use the hammer to strike the tip of the nail until you create enough space to fit the nail remover between the nail and the board.

Insert the nail within the notch of the nail remover.

Use the bar for leverage to pull the nail out. The nail will bend as its being removed.

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When all of this is complete, you will have a pile of nail-free wood to make your table out of!

Step 2 – Prepare legs for assembly

Set aside the four best looking boards and two rails. These are going to be used later on to make the legs of the table.

Glue two of the boards together to make a single board with double thickness. Do this with the other two boards as well. When the glue dries, you will have a pair of double-thick boards that you can cut your legs from. You’re going to need some clamps and some glue. For our table, we used Gorilla Glue, but any high quality wood bonding agent will work.

Place glue on the inside edge of one of the boards and stack the other on top of it. Repeat this with the other two boards.

Place the two glued pieces side by side and clamp them together.

Step 3 – Cut the rest in half

While the legs dry, take the rest of the wood and cut it in half. Use a measuring tape to find the midway point of the board’s width and mark that spot with a pencil. Make another mark at the same length somewhere further down the board.

Connect the two dots by making a line between them with your pencil. You can use another board as a straight edge to guide you.

Once you have your line drawn, you will need to cut the board in half along the line. We used a power saw to cut our board in half, but if you don’t have one then you can cut it with a handsaw. If you’re using a power saw, you can stack the boards and cut many at one time. Repeat this step for all of the boards. The cuts do not have to be perfect since they will be on the underside of the table.

Step 4 – Glue the table top together

Once all the boards are cut, arrange them by color and size. Position them into a configuration that you like – this is going to be your table top.

Flip the boards over so that your tabletop is now facing the ground. The part facing you may look uneven, but don’t worry. The other side is flush with the ground and will look great after you glue the pieces together and flip it over.

With your vice grips, determine how many boards you can clamp at one time and split the table top into the least number of sections that you will need to get all the pieces glued together. With our vice grips, we had to break the table top into four sections.

Once you have the tabletop partitioned, take one of the sections and glue all of the touching pieces together. Keep in mind that if you’re gluing two pieces that are different sizes, you should put the glue on the smaller piece.

When the table legs have finished drying, remove the clamps and use them to clamp the first section together. Start your clamping at the middle and work your way outward, spacing the clamps as even as you can throughout the piece. This will help you to get a straight and tight fitting chunk that should hold shape after the glue has cured.

Flip the clamped piece over and wipe all excess glue away. If you used Gorilla glue like we did, it will continue to seep out and foam up even after you’ve wiped it away. You can wipe the glue away periodically, or chisel off after the after it has dried.

Step 5 – Assemble legs

Once the glue has cured, repeat the same steps for the remaining sections of the tabletop. In the meanwhile, you can assemble the table legs.

Begin by taking one of the rails that you’ve set aside and measure out a length that’s approximately the same width as the table. Repeat this with the other rail. Our table was narrow enough that we were able to cut both sections from one rail, but you’ve set aside two just in case.

Cut these sections from the rails with your saw.

Take the two boards that you made and measure out how tall you want your table to be. We decided to cut ours right down the middle which was at about 19 inches.

The legs can be whatever length you want. However, they all need to be the same length and so making additional cuts may be necessary until you get the lengths as close to perfect as you can.

Take one of your legs and screw it into one of the rail sections that you’ve cut. To ensure that the leg is properly aligned with the rail, you may use scrap pieces from the pallet that you didn’t use (or even one of the other legs) to do this. Just make sure that the leg and the rail are flush with the surface of the scrap wood on both sides. Use the other rail section to prop up the foot end of the leg so that it is level with the rail you are fastening it to.

Begin by drilling two pilot holes through the leg and into the rail section. We used a 5/32 drill bit for this.

Take your screws and use the drill to fasten the leg onto the rail.

Repeat these steps to attach the other leg to the opposite end of the rail. Then repeat these steps to build the other leg section.

Step 6 – Attach legs to tabletop

Once your legs have been assembled and all of your tabletop sections have cured, place the tabletop sections in the order that you want to assemble them in.

Push them together so that they appear to be a single piece.

Flip them over and place the legs on the bottom side of the tabletop exactly where you want them. Make sure that the table pieces stay pushed together.

Fasten the legs to the tabletop by driving screws through each rail and into each of the four sections of the tabletop, securing them into place. Start by attaching the two middle sections of the tabletop. Use a 5/32 drill bit to drill the pilot holes.

Fasten the rail with a 2 ½ inch screw.

For the corners of the tabletop, drill the screws through the rail at an angle as shown.

Drill a diagonal pilot hole.

Fasten a screw through the leg and into the tabletop.

Do this on the inside of the rail as well. If you did this correctly, you should have used 6 screws for each set of legs.

Repeat these steps for the other three corners until both leg sections are firmly secure. If the legs feel wobbly at all, don’t hesitate to add more screws for extra stability.

Now flip your table over and enjoy it!

If you want to remove any uneven sections from the table top, you can use a plane shaver to shave it flat.

You can hide the underside of the table if you want by taking a piece of scrap wood and screwing it to the front of the table.

Now you have a cool table with a staggered top made from pallet wood! Sand it and stain it for you living room, or stack tools on it in your garage.

Happy Table Making!

Now you can start using your gorgeous new reclaimed wood table once your stain, sealer, or paint has set. Enjoy!

LIKE this? I’m sure you’ll LOVE:

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Originally posted on December 9, 2015 @ 9:00 AM

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In a situation where you are looking to prep for maximum self-sufficiency, you are probably considering adding livestock to your plans. Properly managed and raised, livestock can provide generations’ worth of value to your homestead. Raising goats, chickens and other livestock is an essential part of homesteading.

To get the very best ‘bang for your buck’ (no pun intended!), an animal which can provide meat and milk, and which has a relatively short gestational period, with multiple births common, is the ideal. An animal which can give both meat and milk provides all you need in the way of protein for essential survival. This is a good explanation of why your body needs protein:

“Protein is in every living cell in the body. Our bodies need protein from the foods we eat to build and maintain bones, muscles and skin. We get proteins in our diet from meat, dairy products, nuts and certain grains and beans. Proteins from meat and other animal products are complete proteins. This means they supply all of the amino acids the body can’t make on its own. Plant proteins are incomplete. You must combine them to get all of the amino acids your body needs.

It is important to get enough dietary protein. You need to eat protein every day, because your body doesn’t store it the way it stores fats or carbohydrates. The average person needs 50 to 65 grams of protein each day. This is the amount in four ounces of meat plus a cup of cottage cheese.” (via Medicine Plus)

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Raising goats for preparedness

In my opinion, goats are the perfect stock for homesteading and prepping. They take the advantage over other options primarily due to their ability to subsist on very basic pasture and browse, unlike cows, who require significantly more grain, grass and additional forage in order to maintain optimum weight and output. While a cows will provide a greater volume of meat and milk, I believe the other disadvantages outweigh this. Cows can, and will, challenge fences for entertainment value, require a greater area for living space and shelter, and are far harder to handle for routine care.

Goats, however, are relatively easy keepers, and will be as happy and productive kept in a mostly wooded area as they will on acres of pasture. In fact, with access to woodland and browse, they will essentially ‘self-medicate’, finding plants and fauna to settle an upset rumen, or treat a parasite issue. They will, of course, require human intervention with medications if their issues become out of hand, but given the opportunity, they will often forage a solution alone.

Under correct conditions, with adequate pasture rotation, goats require little in the way of prepping for their keep, and can be maintained fairly easily without the addition of feeds or grains. Indeed, goats are happier with access to browse – leaves, branches, other ground growing plants – than they are when presented with acres of lush grass. The barks, leaves and rough stems of the plants found growing in wooded areas take longer to digest in the rumen and therefore help them to stay warm in cold weather and stay full longer. They are straightforward in their requirements for housing; a simple three sided barn with a soft floor, which provides shelter from the wind and rain, will keep them happy. However, goats do hate to be wet and production will drop significantly if they expend their energy, shivering and trying to keeping warm.

Raising Goats – Breeds:

While there are breeds that are generally intended for either milk (Nigerians) or meat (Boers / Pygmys), there are those which will provide a good deal of both. Saanens and Nubians are good and popular examples of such breeds; does are heavy milk producers, providing a family with up to two gallons of milk a day, which can also be made into cheese and other dairy products, and extra bucks can be wethered (castrated, an easy at-home, two minute process) and raised for meat. The wethering process helps to keep the meat tender and reduce the ‘bucky’ taste it can otherwise have if the males are left intact. Also, bucks tend to run to more muscle than meat, making the result tougher and needing a longer cooking time.

There is a third option, but you will likely lose out in the milk department: Angoras. This adorable breed, which is of medium size (bucks are around 125-175lbs, does generally 80-100), is both a reasonably sized meat animal and an excellent fiber producer. The fiber can either be felted or spun to provide the means to make clothing and even footwear. They can be somewhat more high maintenance than dairy breeds, with greater tendencies towards parasites, particularly external ones, and if you give them access to brush and woodland while they are in coat, you’ll be picking VM (vegetable matter) out of the fiber for days.

That or you’ll lose the entire fleece because you have to ‘field shear’ it from the goat who is irretrievably stuck in thorn bushes, deep in the woods. Ask me how I know this. However, in conditions designed to preserve their fiber, the Angora goat is spectacularly efficient at producing volumes of fiber which can then be washed, carded and spun for use in a variety of clothing and household items.

Gestation for goats is between 145-151 days, and the large breeds tend to be mono- estrus, meaning that they cycle, or come into season, during a fixed period, usually late summer through early-mid winter. Good quality stock will milk right through the next breeding, only drying up briefly during the last 30-45 days of pregnancy. With proper planning, and a large enough herd, milk can be ‘on tap’ all year. Does with good bloodlines and proven hardiness should be chosen, and preferably two bucks from unrelated lines. Having just one buck puts all your eggs in one basket, and I am a huge proponent of never having just one breeding male, be it chickens, goats or cattle.

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Twice now I have found myself losing a male to sickness or a predator, and been left trying to source a good quality breeding male in short order. It almost always happens when season is about to start, when prices are highest. In a non-survival situation this is irritating and expensive, and if you were in a time where travel and internet connection was not possible, it would be even worse. So plan ahead for those annoying occurrences. Also, while line-breeding isn’t the end of the world, and can even be beneficial in some circumstances, you will eventually see a decline in the quality of your milkers if you ‘wind it too tight’ for too long.

Therefore, having a couple of diversely bred bucks is helpful in the long term. Bear in mind that while registered stock is usually preferable, in a prepping situation, papers are worthless. Rather, for these means, choose heavy milkers, paying close attention to the dairy scores on their pedigrees. Herds who have participated in the DHIR or milk testing program through the ADGA (American Dairy Goat Association) will give you a good idea of the does’ production capacity. There is a significant and noticeable difference among various qualities of blood line as it regards milk production, and you will do well to do your research before purchasing.

Never skimp on the quality of your buck. Many believe that the dairy capacity of a doe passes down to her buck kids, and thus he passes it to his offspring as he breeds your does. He is the greater majority of your herd, and must be chosen carefully for the traits you wish to see in your herd – in this case, excellent mammary capacity in the dam, and a good size stature in order to produce kids which will give a good amount of meat. Goats tend to kid easily, with minimal assistance from human beings.

Single kids are more usually seen in first pregnancies, with twins and triplets being fairly common afterwards. Quads and quints are less usual, but are seen. In my experience they are mostly seen at 3am when you’re half asleep and you only brought three towels to the barn. You’re not a seasoned goat keeper until you’ve had to strip off your jacket and / or shirt to catch a bonus baby in!

While goats are pretty self-sufficient, there are a handful of medications you should probably have on hand in their very own prep box. A simple teat dip, to keep the milking process sanitary and to prevent ingress of bacteria into the udder, can be made with a mixture of water, rubbing alcohol and tea tree oil. To your box, also consider adding LA200 and PenG (antibiotics), ‘Today’ and ‘Tomorrow’ (mastitis treatments), BoSe (selenium supplement), Maalox (for upset rumens), C&D antitoxin (in case of plant poisoning or enterotoxemia), activated charcoal and Vitamin B complex. There are many other things that you would have in a perfect world, but these are simply the things I would have as a bare minimum.

But for all this to work, for the goats to fit into your prepping plans and to add real value to them, as opposed to creating more work, it is imperative to buy quality stock. Low quality animals may come with existing illnesses that cause them to have problems kidding, produce weak kids, bring sickness onto your property, or even transmit illness to your family through the meat or milk. Responsible breeders usually test for common illnesses such as CAE, CL and Johnes, and keep reliable records of antibiotics given and other medical issues. By reviewing all this before you purchase, you will give yourself the very best chance of having a thriving farmstead to add to your prepping arsenal.

Read more from Katy at Poppy Creek Farm!

Originally posted on June 10, 2014 @ 2:13 PM

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