How to store your items.

[bczoom]

A few things I've found quite handy for storing items.

Rubbermaid tubs. Great for holding bigger items. Stack nicely.

Space-bags. Suck the air out and it shrinks things down quite a bit. Great for blankets, clothing, coats...

5-gallon buckets. Great for food or other things that are heavy and/or you need to keep air-tight. I don't get food-grade bags as I keep the bulk foods (rice, sugar, oats...) in their original packaging. I may optionally line with a mylar bag. Lowe's and Home Depot have 5-gallon buckets for about $3. They also have the lids. It's getting harder to find them at those stores but they had lids that were easy on/off and reusable. Worst case, you get the ones with the tabs. You may want to consider a lid removal tool as it makes opening easier.

Backpacks, duffel bags... I keep my eyes open at places like Cabela's bargain cave for bags. Quite often, they offer nice stuff at very reasonable prices. I use backpacks for the BOB's and larger bags for consolidating clothing and other larger items.

Label, label, label... Especially the items in the 5-gallon buckets. If it's food, I tag them with the contents, date packed and expiration date(s) of the contents. I try to color-coordinate things. E.g. Food is in orange buckets, other items in gray. For the rubbermaid tubs, blue is kitchen/bath, green is utility and outdoor.

Where to put your "stuff". Obviously, garages are nice but be careful if your items could freeze. If you have some low rubbermaid tubs (the ones that are about 6" tall), they can fit nicely under a bed. Stacked on top of each other, 5-gallon buckets will stand up nicely in the back corner of a closet. If you want to get really creative, you can make furniture out of your totes, buckets or whatever and cover with a cloth or whatever.

If you have a bug-out location already, consider putting 1/2 of your stores there. If you need to leave the homestead for a period, you would be surprised how much stuff you'll want/need to take. BTW... it probably won't fit in a single truck-load. I also found that even if everything is in containers that are ready to go, it may take longer than you want to get it loaded and get out. If you have to bug-out, you may want it done in a matter of a few minutes as opposed to a few hours. Also, if you're bugging out, you may not want to be going down the road with a truck visibly loaded down with everything needed for an emergency. It makes you a prime target. I want to be able to keep the tonneau cover closed, keeping my "stuff" protected from the elements and out of sight from prying eyes.

 

[bill w]

all very good ideas..we have probably a years worth of dry goods already out there.we would still attract attention when we pulled out,no way to avoid that with the tucker and skid behind my powerstroke..if it falls out fast then you have to improvise.i could take to the trails right from here and avoid the major clogged roads,and undesirables...but it would add a lot to the travel time.still could be done..just add at least four days travel.i carry seven days worth of fuel for a three day out &back trip now. bill w

 

[Treefriend]

I've got to get a couple of those space bags.

 

[Melensdad]

I'm considering moving some things out to my remote garage/workshop. Its on the property, but about 150' away from the house. That way if the house burns down there are still things to help us get by that are available and handy. Space in that garage is an issue. I built it too small!

Here in this part of Indiana we worry about fire and secondarily about tornados. While only 150' away from the house, having stores in 2 buildings even just that far apart would be an asset.

 

[bczoom]

I'm considering moving some things out to my remote garage/workshop. Its on the property, but about 150' away from the house. That way if the house burns down there are still things to help us get by that are available and handy. Space in that garage is an issue. I built it too small!

That's what I did Bob. Another thing I put out there was one of those small (big enough for a couple hard-cover book) fireproof safes. I then bought one of those 1 Terabyte external drives and back up all the computers to that. If I can't grab the laptops in an emergency (ie. fire), I do have backups remote. Taking farther away is probably a good idea but if it's too remote, I wouldn't bring it in to do current backups quite as often.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

As far as emergencies go, if something tragic were to happen such as a house fire, we've got a good supply of pretty much everything we need to survive packed away in the camper. There's no food in it right now but I keep it well stocked as far as clothes and bedding and such. During the summer months, I keep it well stocked with food out at our seasonal site. We do spend allot of time out there during the summer months but up here, it's always in the back of my mind during the summer "What if there was a forrest fire and we had to leave in a hurry?" So, I keep everything at the camper ready to go at a moments notice so if something like that did happen and we had to get out in a hurry, it takes me 5 minutes to drive out to the camper and probably 15 minutes to hook up and get out of there.

We did have a close call 3-4 yrs ago with a forest fire. Lightening struck close to town(when I say close, I mean like 200 ft into the tree line near some houses) It was really windy that day and a fire broke out into the tree tops and within 10 minutes, had covered a mile along the edge of town. We were so close to being evacuated. Thankfully, our airport is the central location in this area that houses a small fleet of CL-415's and forest fire fighting camp full of crews ready to be dispatched at a moments notice. Within 15 minutes of the fire starting, 2 CL-415's were making runs at the fire and ground crews were being put into place.

Below is a picture taken in 1998 when a small town within our municipality was nearly lost due to a fire.