20 Inexpensive Items to Stockpile Before Prices Rise

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

If you're new to prepping and on a tight budget, you should take a look at this list. The survival items listed here aren't just inexpensive, they could be very useful in a disaster scenario.

Tarps, for instance, have at least 25 survival uses such as building shelter, patching leaks, collecting rainwater, and so forth. Duct tape has even more uses. You can use it to fix worn-out shoes, patch a leak in your tent, make a butterfly bandage, and more.

By stockpiling multipurpose items, you won't have to spend as much money on things that only have one function. This will save you some cash and make you more prepared. Here are some more useful and inexpensive items you should stockpile now.

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Aluminum Foil

Depression-era families saved aluminum foil because they knew its many uses. It can be folded into a small pot for boiling water, used as reflective signaling material, fashioned into improvised fishing lures, used to patch small holes, or wrapped around electronics as a basic Faraday cage to protect them from an EMP.

Baby Wipes

Whether or not you have a baby at home, baby wipes belong in your stockpile. When running water isn't available, they're the next best thing to a shower. They can be used to clean your hands, wipe down your body after working outside, clean wounds, and maintain basic hygiene during an extended emergency.

Baking Soda

Baking soda is one of the most underestimated multi-use items you can stockpile, and a large box costs less than a dollar. It can be used as a cleaning agent, a deodorizer, a mild abrasive for scrubbing, a fire extinguisher for small grease fires, a toothpaste substitute, a treatment for minor skin irritation and insect stings, and many other things.

Bar Soap

Bar soap is one of the most underrated stockpile items out there. It's cheap, lasts a long time, takes up very little space, and can be stretched even further by shaving it down to make a soapy solution for washing clothes or surfaces. Dollar stores usually carry it. If you've never used it because you prefer liquid soap, toss a few bars in your supplies anyway.

Batteries

Even if you have hand-crank or solar-powered devices, a solid supply of batteries is still a smart backup. The key tip here: standardize. Pick one or two battery sizes and stick to them across all your devices. Energizer lithium batteries are a great investment for long shelf life and high performance, but standard dollar store batteries work perfectly well for flashlights and radios.

Candles

Candles are one of the cheapest and most practical forms of emergency lighting you can stockpile. You can find them at dollar stores, yard sales, and flea markets for almost nothing, and a shoebox can hold dozens of them. Taper candles and pillar candles are both fine, but wider, low-center-of-gravity candles are safer since they're less likely to tip over.

Coffee Filters

Coffee filters have a surprising number of uses beyond the coffee maker. They work excellently as a pre-filter to remove sediment from water before running it through your main filter, which extends the life of your filter considerably. They can also be used as fire starters, food wrappers, makeshift funnels, and strainers. They're stackable, lightweight, and thousands of them fit into a small container.

Cooking Oil

Cooking oil is a basic necessity for preparing most meals, and it's easy to overlook until you don't have it. Vegetable oil and olive oil are needed for frying, baking, and sautéing, meaning a huge portion of your food storage will be less usable without it. Buy a few extra bottles whenever you shop, and it'll add up quickly without breaking the bank.

Disinfectants

Sanitation becomes critical fast when normal infrastructure breaks down. Hand sanitizer and alcohol wipes are cheap, easy to store, and can prevent serious illness in unsanitary conditions. Liquid bleach is also useful for disinfecting water, but keep in mind it has a short shelf life. After about a year it can lose up to 50% of its effectiveness, especially if stored in heat.

Duct Tape

The uses for duct tape in an emergency are nearly limitless: patching gear, making first-aid splints and slings, improvising rope, repairing clothing and shoes, sealing drafts, and much more. Don't cheap out here; bargain-bin duct tape often barely sticks.

Gorilla tape is worth the extra few dollars. For sealing windows and rooms against airborne hazards, metal plumber's tape (also called foil tape) is actually superior since it forms an airtight seal against surfaces where duct tape may not fully adhere.

Face Masks

After 9/11, people in New York City were paying $50 or more for a single face mask because supplies ran out instantly. At normal times, they cost almost nothing. N95 masks offer solid protection against airborne particles, smoke, dust, and illness, but even standard surgical masks are worth stocking in quantity. They're useful during pandemics, wildfires, debris cleanup, or any situation where air quality is compromised.

Gloves

You'll want more than one type. Heavy-duty leather work gloves are great for physical labor, but don't overlook vinyl or latex disposable gloves. A box of these runs about $4–$5 and they're invaluable for treating wounds, sorting through debris, handling contaminated materials, or doing anything where you'd rather not have direct skin contact.

Matches and Lighters

Fire-starting is a fundamental survival skill, and matches and lighters are the easiest, most reliable way to do it. Boxes of matches are cheap and stackable, and lighters don't cost much more. While it's worth learning to use a Ferro rod as a backup, having a generous supply of matches and lighters means you won't have to rely on skill under stress.

Over-the-Counter Medications

A lot of preppers invest heavily in trauma kits and tactical gear but forget entirely about basic OTC medications. A headache, an upset stomach, an allergic reaction, or diarrhea can be debilitating during a disaster when you're already under stress. Stock pain relievers, antacids, antihistamines, anti-diarrheal medications, and cold medicine. Dollar stores and Walmart carry these inexpensively in smaller quantities.

Paracord

Paracord is one of the most universally useful items you can have in any emergency kit. A 100-foot hank costs just a few dollars and can be used to hang a tarp shelter, lash gear together, create clothesline for drying clothes, build a snare, replace broken shoelaces, or serve as an improvised belt or tourniquet. The inner strands can be separated for even finer uses like fishing line or sutures. It's compact, lightweight, and practically indestructible.

Small Flashlights

You don't need to spend $100+ on a tactical light for your stockpile. Inexpensive LED flashlights in the $1–$10 range are perfectly serviceable for household emergencies, bug-out bags, and barter. The key is having enough of them that you're not scrambling to find the one flashlight in the house when the lights go out. Standardize on one battery size to keep things simple.

Tarps

A basic plastic tarp is one of the most versatile items you can own. Use one to collect rainwater, cover a broken window or a hole in your roof, build a makeshift shelter, or protect gear from the elements. They're lightweight, easy to fold down for storage, reusable, and available at dollar stores for just a few dollars. Keep a couple of different sizes on hand.

Toilet Paper

Few things will feel more like a luxury the moment they're gone. Toilet paper is easy to take for granted, but it belongs in every stockpile. Skip the dollar store on this one. Instead, buy in bulk from warehouse stores like Costco or Sam's Club where you'll get better quality at a lower per-roll price.

Trash Bags

Standard trash bags have obvious uses, but in a survival situation they become much more. They can serve as makeshift rain ponchos, ground covers under a tarp, carry-alls, or temporary patches for windows and roofs. For heavy-duty applications, look for compactor bags rather than contractor bags. They're made from significantly thicker plastic and are far more versatile.

Zip Ties

Zip ties are one of those items you won't think to stockpile until you desperately need one. They're dirt cheap, store in almost no space, and can serve as makeshift shoelaces, attachment points for gear on a pack, temporary fence repairs, bundle wraps for blankets and sleeping pads, and countless quick-fix applications.

Final Thoughts

The beauty of this list is that almost none of it requires a major investment. You can walk into a dollar store with $20 and come home with a meaningful haul that covers several of these categories. Start with whatever gaps you have, buy a little extra each week, and you'll be surprised how quickly your preparedness level improves.

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The post 20 Inexpensive Items to Stockpile Before Prices Rise appeared first on Urban Survival Site.

from Urban Survival Site

Norovirus: What Is It?

Norovirus: What is it? If your stomach has ever suddenly turned on you, leaving you hunched over a trash can with no warning, there is a good chance norovirus was the culprit. It’s one of the most common illnesses in the world, yet many people have never heard its name. Understanding what it is, how it spreads, and how to keep your household safe can make a real difference, especially during the winter months when outbreaks peak. Oximeter (pulse oxygen monitor)

When I Got the Norovirus

This post is for general informational purposes only and doesn’t replace professional medical advice. If you have concerns about your health or a family member’s symptoms, consult a licensed healthcare provider. Please note, I’m not a doctor, nurse, or someone in the medical field. I got the Norovirus back in April 2024. I had all of the symptoms listed below. It came on so fast, I didn’t know what hit me. Some family members had some of the symptoms but hadn’t told Mark and me. They assumed they may have eaten some “bad food”.

On April 12, 2024, I started having trouble catching my breath and told Mark to take me to the ER immediately. I’m sure I was very dehydrated, but this is when it was discovered I needed oxygen after being sent by ambulance to a regular hospital. I thought I had the “flu.” Then all the medical personnel started wearing hazmat-looking outfits. I asked, “What’s with the door sign that says ‘Do Not Enter Without Protective Gear?” No one told me what I had, so I finally asked the young girl drawing my labs why everyone was dressed in these blue outfits.

I was hooked up to oxygen and never told why. We all need an advocate with you when you go to the hospital. I was there 3 days and never saw a doctor. The nurses showed us how to turn the beeping buttons on and off.

Hospital Discharge Time

The next thing I know, I have a case worker checking me out of the hospital. She asked why my oxygen was turned off. I was wearing an oxygen tube in my nose. I said I didn’t know it was turned off. She said your oxygen level is 84 and that you need oxygen. My daughter called the hospital from California and said, “You are not sending my mom home without oxygen.” The caseworker took notes, and oxygen was delivered to my home before I got there. Of course, I drove home attached to oxygen. I’ll never be off oxygen living at this altitude. It’s not fun. I’ve never smoked or vaped. Life changed for me big time. But I’m glad I have a great husband who helps me with everything. Although it’s frustrating to use the oxygen, who knows when I would have found out it was necessary if I hadn’t sought treatment for the norovirus?

What Exactly is Norovirus?

Norovirus is a highly contagious virus that causes sudden inflammation of the stomach and intestines, a condition doctors call gastroenteritis, though most families simply call it the stomach flu. Despite that nickname, norovirus is not related to influenza at all. It belongs to its own viral family and is responsible for roughly 685 million cases of illness worldwide each year, making it the leading cause of foodborne illness.

The virus is extraordinarily resilient. It can survive on surfaces for days, withstand many hand sanitizers, and even linger in lightly treated water. A person can become infected by swallowing as few as 18 viral particles, a dose too small to see, smell, or taste.

Note: Norovirus is not the stomach flu. Influenza is a respiratory illness. Norovirus is a gastrointestinal illness caused by a completely different virus.

What Are the Symptoms?

Norovirus symptoms come on fast, often within 12 to 48 hours of exposure, and can feel overwhelming at first. The good news is that most healthy people recover completely within one to three days. Here is what to watch for:

Nausea that comes on suddenly
Vomiting, often repeated
Watery diarrhea
Low-grade fever
Stomach cramping
Fatigue and body aches
Headache
Loss of appetite

Dehydration is the most serious concern, particularly for young children, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems. Watch for signs like dry mouth, dizziness, dark urine, or a child crying without tears. If dehydration becomes severe, medical care may be needed.

Keep this product stocked: LMNT, Liquid IV, or Sugar-Free Liquid IV.

How Does Norovirus Spread?

Norovirus travels in several ways, and all of them are remarkably easy to encounter in everyday life. Understanding each route helps you interrupt it before it reaches your family.

Person-to-person contact is the most common route. When an infected person uses the bathroom and then touches shared surfaces like door handles, light switches, or faucet knobs, the virus can transfer to the next person who touches those surfaces and then touches their mouth, nose, or eyes. Caring for a sick child or family member puts you at heightened risk.

Contaminated food and water are also major culprits. Raw or undercooked shellfish, particularly oysters, are a well-known source because they filter large volumes of water and can concentrate viruses. Leafy greens, fruits, and other ready-to-eat foods can be contaminated if an infected food handler touches them. Buffet-style settings, cruise ships, and shared kitchens are environments where outbreaks often occur.

Airborne particles play a surprising role as well. When an infected person vomits, tiny droplets carrying the virus can travel several feet, landing on surfaces or being inhaled. This is one reason norovirus spreads so rapidly in enclosed spaces like schools, nursing homes, and cruise ships.

How To Keep Your Family from Getting Norovirus

There’s no vaccine for norovirus, but consistent, everyday habits can dramatically lower your family’s chances of getting sick. The following steps are practical, family-friendly, and backed by public health guidance.

Wash your hands with soap and water

Hand sanitizer alone is not enough. Norovirus resists alcohol-based sanitizers. Scrub with soap for at least 20 seconds, especially after using the bathroom, changing diapers, and before preparing or eating food.

Rinse fruits and vegetables thoroughly

Wash all produce under running water before eating or cooking, even items with a peel you’ll remove. Cook shellfish like oysters to an internal temperature of at least 145 degrees Fahrenheit (63 degrees Celsius).

Disinfect surfaces the right way

Use a bleach-based household cleaner or a product labeled as effective against norovirus. Wipe down high-touch surfaces like toilet handles, faucets, and counters, especially when someone in the home is sick.

Wash contaminated laundry immediately

Handle soiled clothing and bedding carefully, avoid shaking them, and wash on the longest, hottest cycle available. Dry completely before reuse.

Stay home when sick

Anyone with norovirus symptoms should stay home from work, school, and shared spaces until at least 48 hours after symptoms have fully resolved. The virus sheds in high quantities even after a person starts to feel better.

Keep everyone well hydrated

If illness does strike, focus on fluids. Oral rehydration solutions work well for children. Water, clear broth, and sports drinks can help adults replace lost fluids and electrolytes. Avoid sugary or caffeinated beverages.

When Should You Call The Doctor?

Most norovirus cases resolve on their own without medical treatment. However, call a doctor or seek urgent care if a child under one year old is vomiting, if anyone can’t keep liquids down for more than 24 hours, if there are signs of severe dehydration, if there is blood in the stool, or if symptoms last longer than three days without improvement.

Older adults and people with chronic health conditions should have a lower threshold for seeking medical advice, as dehydration can become dangerous more quickly for them.

The Takeaway

Norovirus is unpleasant, fast-moving, and very easy to catch, but it’s also very preventable with the right habits. Thorough and frequent handwashing is the single most effective thing your family can do. Pair that with careful food handling, proper disinfection, and keeping sick family members at home, and you give norovirus very little room to take hold. When illness does strike, keep fluids flowing and rest up. For most healthy people, the worst is over within a couple of days.

Hantavirus: What Is It?

15 Essential Items For Your Hospital To-Go Bag

How To Tell If Your Child May Be Dehydrated

Final Word

Norovirus doesn’t discriminate. It finds its way into the cleanest homes, the best-run restaurants, and the most well-meaning families. Getting sick isn’t a sign that you did something wrong. What matters most is knowing what to look for, acting quickly when symptoms appear, and building a few simple habits that make it much harder for the virus to take hold.

Wash your hands well and often. Keep sick family members comfortable and hydrated. Give your home a thorough wipe-down when illness passes through. These are small steps, but they carry real weight.

The best time to prepare for norovirus is before it arrives. Now that you know what it is, how it travels, and how to stop it, you are already ahead of it affecting your family. May God bless this world, Linda

Copy Images: Norovirus Blood Test AdobeStock_191521166 By jarun011, Norovirus Lab Test With A GlovesAdobeStock_433224455 By luchschenF

The post Norovirus: What Is It? appeared first on Food Storage Moms.

from Food Storage Moms

How Do Chores Teach Life Skills? The Answer Every Prepper Parent Needs to Hear

Most parents give kids chores because the house needs to be clean. Prepper parents give kids chores because the world can fall apart, and a child who has never done hard work is a child who is not ready for it. The question of how do chores teach life skills has a simple answer: they do it by forcing kids to engage with real tasks, real consequences, and real effort. No simulation. No safety net. Just work that needs to get done.

From a preparedness standpoint, every chore your child completes is a building block toward competence. Self-reliance is not a personality trait. It is a collection of practiced skills. Chores are how you practice them.

Chores Build Functional Competence, Not Just Habits

There is a significant difference between a child who has been told how to do something and one who has actually done it under pressure. Washing dishes, hauling firewood, tending a garden, or cooking a simple meal are not busywork. They are core survival competencies dressed in everyday clothing.

When a child learns to cook by actually cooking, they develop knife handling, fire awareness, timing, and improvisation. When they haul and stack wood, they build physical endurance, spatial reasoning, and an understanding of how energy is produced and stored. These are not abstract lessons. They are the kind of know-how that keeps people alive when systems fail.

A child who has spent years doing meaningful household work is not going to freeze when the grid goes down. They already know how to work without convenience.

Discipline and Accountability Are Survival Traits

Prepping is a discipline game. You cannot stockpile food, maintain equipment, or execute a bug-out plan without personal accountability. Chores are the first training ground for both.

When a child is assigned a task and is expected to complete it, every day, without being reminded, they are building the internal structure that discipline requires. They learn that some things have to happen regardless of how they feel. The chickens need feeding whether it is raining or not. The water supply needs checking whether they slept well or not.

This daily repetition also teaches consequence. A garden that is not watered dies. A fire that is not tended goes out. Kids who are shielded from these outcomes grow into adults who have no instinct for proactive maintenance, which is one of the most dangerous gaps a prepper family can have.

Problem-Solving Under Real Conditions

Chores break. Equipment fails. The mop head falls off. The kindling is wet. The recipe is missing an ingredient. What happens in those moments matters far more than the task itself.

Research in child development shows that children who engage in practical household problem-solving develop stronger executive function than those who are sheltered from challenges. For preppers, executive function is another way of saying the ability to stay calm, assess options, and act. It is what separates people who adapt from people who collapse.

Do not fix the problem for your child every time something goes sideways during a chore. Let them figure it out. Ask them what they think should happen next. That friction is where the real skill lives.

Chores by Age: Building a Progression That Actually Prepares Them

Assigning age-appropriate chores matters. Too easy and there is no growth. Too hard and confidence breaks before it builds. Here is a rough framework built around preparedness value:

• Ages 4-6: Feeding pets, setting and clearing the table, picking up around the house, helping sort supplies by category.
• Ages 7-10: Washing dishes, helping cook simple meals, basic garden tasks, sweeping and mopping, carrying and stacking firewood.
• Ages 11-14: Cooking full meals unsupervised, doing laundry start to finish, maintaining a garden plot, basic tool use and maintenance.
• Ages 15+: Managing household inventory, making supply runs, minor home repairs, fire building and maintenance, leading younger siblings through tasks.

Each tier builds on the last. By the time your child is a teenager, they should be a functional contributor to household resilience, not a dependent passenger.

The Mental Toughness Component

There is something that happens to a person, young or old, who completes a hard task they did not want to do. They learn they are capable of more than they thought. That knowledge is not small. It is the foundation of resilience.

Kids who do difficult chores regularly develop what psychologists call a growth mindset in practical terms: the lived understanding that effort produces results. For prepper families, this is especially important because a crisis does not ask whether you feel ready. You either have the internal strength to push through or you do not.

Every time a child completes a chore that was hard or unpleasant, they are banking a small proof that they can handle discomfort. That bank account matters when the stakes get real.

Making Chores Count: Frame Them Right

How you talk about chores in your household shapes how your kids relate to work. If chores are presented as punishment or as something to endure, kids will associate productive labor with suffering. If they are framed as contribution and training, the mindset shifts.

Prepper families have an advantage here. You can be honest with your kids about why these skills matter. Not in a fear-based way, but in a straightforward, practical way: we take care of what we have, we know how to do things ourselves, and we do not wait for someone else to handle what we can handle. That is a value system, not just a chore schedule.

Tie the chore to the skill explicitly. “You are learning to build a fire because if we ever lose power in winter, you will know how to keep us warm.” That context turns a task into training. Kids respond to purpose.

Raise Kids Who Know How To Survive, Not Just Scroll

One thing the Amish understood long before modern parenting books existed is that children become capable adults by participating in real life early. They learn responsibility by doing meaningful work, not by being entertained every waking hour.

That is exactly why The Amish Ways resonates with so many prepper and homesteading families today.

Inside this book, you will discover practical old-world skills, self-reliance principles, food preservation methods, homestead habits, and family-centered traditions that helped Amish communities raise resilient, disciplined, highly capable children for generations — without depending on modern systems for everything.

If you want your kids to grow into adults who know how to work, adapt, solve problems, and contribute when life gets hard, this book is worth reading.

Get your copy of The Amish Ways and start rebuilding the kind of practical family culture that creates strong, prepared, self-reliant people.

Final Thoughts

The question of how do chores teach life skills is really a question about what kind of adults you are raising. Chores done consistently and intentionally build competence, discipline, problem-solving, and mental toughness. For preppers, those are not optional traits. They are the core of what it means to be ready.

Start young. Stay consistent. Raise the difficulty over time. Let them fail and figure it out. The child who has been doing real work since they were four years old is not going to be helpless when the situation demands something of them. They have been preparing their whole life.

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The post How Do Chores Teach Life Skills? The Answer Every Prepper Parent Needs to Hear appeared first on Ask a Prepper.

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11 Things You Should Never (Ever!) Add to Your Stockpile

When it comes to building a solid emergency stockpile, most advice focuses on what to store. And that makes sense – you want to be ready for whatever comes your way. But the thing is that knowing what to leave out of your stockpile is just as important as knowing what to put in it. Some items will go bad faster than you think, others will take up space without giving you much in return, and a few could even put your health at risk when you need to be at your best.

Let’s go through the few things that have no business sitting on your storage shelves, no matter how good an idea they might seem at first glance.

11. Whole Wheat Flour

This one is going to surprise a lot of people, because whole wheat flour feels like such a natural choice for a long-term pantry. It’s wholesome, it’s useful, and you can make bread with it – what’s not to love?

Well, the problem is that whole wheat flour contains the entire grain kernel, including the germ. That germ is packed with natural oils, and those oils go rancid over time, even when the flour is sealed up tight.

We’re talking about a shelf life of roughly three to six months at room temperature, and maybe up to a year if you freeze it. Compare that to plain white rice or dried beans, which can last for decades when stored the right way, and you can see why whole wheat flour is a poor choice for any stockpile meant to last.

If you want the ability to make this dandelion bread recipe, for example, or other baked goods during a long-term situation, store whole wheat berries instead. The intact grain stays good for years and years, and you can grind it into fresh flour whenever you need it using a simple hand-cranked grain mill.

10. Powdered Milk from the Grocery Store

Regular powdered milk from the baking aisle of your local grocery store is not the same product as the long-term storage powdered milk sold by preparedness companies. Grocery store powdered milk is typically non-instant and has a shelf life of about one to two years at best. It also tends to taste pretty bad, which matters more than you might think when you’re trying to get adequate nutrition during a difficult time.

How to Make Butter Last Forever

If milk is something you want in your stockpile – and it’s a solid choice because of the protein, calcium, and calories it provides – invest in properly packaged instant powdered milk that’s been sealed in nitrogen-flushed cans. These can last 20 years or more and actually taste decent when mixed with cold water.

9. Cheap, Off-Brand Canned Goods You’ve Never Tried

There’s a strong temptation to load up on whatever is cheapest when you’re building a large food stockpile, and that’s understandable. But filling your shelves with canned foods you’ve never actually tasted is a gamble you don’t want to take. 

Beyond the taste issue, some bargain-brand canned goods have questionable quality control. Dented cans, inconsistent seals, and poor nutritional content are more common when you’re buying from unknown brands. Always taste-test before you buy in bulk, and stick with brands you actually enjoy eating. Your future self will thank you.

That said, cheap doesn’t have to mean bad. I’ve spent a lot of time hunting for the sweet spot between price and quality, and I’ve found several cans at Walmart that come in under $1 each and have held up for years in my root cellar – still tasting good after long-term storage, which is the only test that actually matters. I put together a full 3-month food plan built around affordable but proven items, and you can check it out here.

8. Trail Mix and Granola Bars

These are fantastic for a 72-hour bug-out bag or a short camping trip, but they have no place in a long-term stockpile. Most trail mixes contain nuts and seeds that are high in oils, and those oils go rancid within a few months, especially in warm storage conditions. Granola bars tend to go stale and lose their texture relatively fast as well, even when they’re still within the date printed on the wrapper.

The chocolate chips in trail mix will melt and re-solidify into an unappetizing mess, the dried fruit can ferment, and the overall product just doesn’t hold up for more than six months to a year.

If you want calorie-dense snack options for your stockpile, consider things like this super easy hard candy recipe, honey, peanut butter in sealed jars, or commercially freeze-dried fruit, all of which last much longer and hold up far better in storage.

7. Brown Rice

Just like whole wheat flour, brown rice is often seen as the healthier option, and in everyday life, it absolutely is. But for stockpiling purposes, it’s a terrible choice. Brown rice still has its outer bran layer intact, which contains oils that will go rancid within about six months to a year, even under good storage conditions.

Try This Recipe: Long-Lasting Amish Chili Soup

White rice, on the other hand, has had that bran layer removed, which is exactly why it can last 25 to 30 years when properly stored in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers. When it comes to your emergency food supply, white rice wins by a landslide. You can always supplement the missing nutrients with other stored foods like canned vegetables or a good multivitamin.

6. Medications Past Their Expiration Date

This one might ruffle a few feathers, because there’s a popular belief in preparedness circles that most medications are still perfectly fine well past their printed expiration dates. And while there is some truth to that for certain drugs, the reality is more complicated than most people realize.

Some medications, like tetracycline antibiotics, can actually become toxic as they degrade. Liquid medications tend to break down much faster than pills. And critical items like EpiPens, insulin, and nitroglycerin lose their effectiveness in ways that could genuinely put your life in danger if you’re counting on them during an emergency. Here’s what actually happens when you take expired medications

Instead of hoarding expired medications, work on rotating your supply so that what you have on hand is always reasonably fresh. Talk to your doctor about getting a slightly larger prescription if emergency preparedness is a concern – many healthcare providers are understanding about this.

As a backup, you must learn how to make this DIY natural antibiotic recipe and make sure you have these 3 antibiotics stockpiled and rotated – because without them, your chances of survival drop fast. in a crisis. 

5. Vegetable Oils in Bulk

Cooking oil is useful, there’s no argument about that. But large quantities of vegetable oil (corn, soybean, canola) have a surprisingly short shelf life compared to what most people assume.

Once the seal is broken, most vegetable oils start going rancid within a few months, and even unopened bottles typically last only one to two years before the flavor and nutritional value start to decline.

Rancid oil doesn’t just taste awful – it can also cause digestive problems and contains harmful free radicals that you don’t want in your body, especially during a time when you need to stay healthy.

Better alternatives for long-term storage include:

• Coconut oil (which can last two or more years and is naturally resistant to going bad).
• Olive oil in dark glass bottles.
• Ghee, which has been used for centuries in the Amish community – Find the original recipe here! 

4. Bleach in Large Quantities

Yes, bleach can be used to purify water in a pinch, and it’s a great disinfectant. But people tend to go overboard and store gallons upon gallons of it, thinking it will last forever. It won’t. Regular household bleach starts to lose its strength after about six to twelve months, and after a year or so, it may not be strong enough to reliably purify water anymore.

On top of that, storing large amounts of bleach in a confined space creates a genuine safety hazard. The fumes alone can cause problems if a container cracks or leaks, especially if it’s stored near other cleaning products that could cause a chemical reaction. A much better approach is to keep a small, fresh supply and rotate it regularly. 

Bleach works in a pinch, but after rotating bottles for years and never being fully sure the stuff was still strong enough to trust, I started looking into atmospheric water generators – and I haven’t looked back since. These devices pull moisture straight from the air and filter it into clean drinking water.

I tested mine during a long winter stay at a remote family cabin in the mountains, and even in cold, dry conditions, it kept producing enough water every single day. If water is the weak spot in your preparedness plan (and for most people it is), this is the one I personally use and recommend.

3. Tons of MREs

MREs are designed for soldiers in the field who are burning through thousands of calories a day during intense physical activity. They’re calorie-dense, compact, and require no preparation, which makes them sound perfect for a stockpile. But there are some serious downsides that get overlooked.

First, they’re expensive – building a stockpile of MREs for a family of four for even a month would cost a small fortune. Second, the sodium content in MREs is extremely high, which can lead to dehydration and high blood pressure. Third, anyone who has actually eaten MREs for more than a few days in a row can tell you that the digestive issues are real and unpleasant. They’re designed for short-term use in extreme situations, not for weeks or months of daily eating. 

So instead of spending a fortune on MREs that wreck your stomach and expire faster than you’d think, try making your own shelf-stable meals that actually taste like real food. This hamburger and gravy meal in a bag costs a fraction of the price, and with freeze-dried beef packed in Mylar bags with oxygen absorbers, it’ll last 5 to 10 years easily – sometimes even longer if you keep it cool and dry.

Here’s exactly how to make it: 

2. Fuel Without a Proper Rotation Plan

Stockpiling gasoline, diesel, or kerosene makes sense in theory – you might need to power a generator, run a vehicle, or fuel a heater. But fuel degrades over time, and most people store it and then forget about it.

Gasoline starts breaking down within three to six months and can gum up engines, clog fuel lines, and become genuinely useless if left sitting long enough. Even with fuel stabilizers like Sta-Bil, you’re looking at a maximum of about one to two years before it becomes unreliable.

Never Stockpile This Type of Fuel!

The bigger concern is safety. Improperly stored fuel is a fire hazard and a health hazard due to fumes, and local regulations in many areas limit how much fuel you can legally store on your property. If you do keep fuel on hand, keep the amount reasonable, use stabilizers, label every container with the date you filled it, and rotate it into your everyday vehicles on a regular schedule.

1. Seeds that Aren’t Suited to Your Climate

Growing your own food is a wonderful long-term survival strategy, and having a supply of seeds stored away is genuinely smart planning. But a lot of people make the mistake of buying pre-packaged “survival seed vaults” without checking whether the varieties included will actually grow in their specific climate and soil conditions.

If you live in the northern part of the country with a short growing season, seeds for crops that need long, hot summers (like certain varieties of watermelon or sweet potatoes) aren’t going to do you much good. And if you’ve never gardened before, a crisis situation is the worst possible time to figure it out for the first time.

The best approach is to buy open-pollinated and heirloom seeds that are known to do well in your specific region, and then actually practice growing them in your garden now, while the stakes are low.

One more thing about seeds that most people miss entirely – food is only half the equation. What about medicine? Chamomile, yarrow, echinacea, calendula – these aren’t just pretty plants. They’re the antibiotics, painkillers, and wound treatments that kept people alive long before pharmacies existed. This medicinal seed kit gives you all of them in one pack, ready to grow. Food crops keep you fed, but these are the ones that could save your life. I bought them from here.

If You Already Stockpiled These…

Don’t panic, and definitely don’t throw everything in the trash. If you’ve been reading this list and realizing that half your storage shelves are full of the items mentioned above, the good news is that most of them are still perfectly usable right now.

They just won’t hold up for the long haul, and that’s the key difference. The smart move isn’t to waste what you already spent money on – it’s to use it up, learn from it, and replace it with better options going forward.

Here’s a quick action plan, item by item:

• Whole wheat flour and brown rice – Open them up and do a sniff test. If the flour smells bitter, stale, or like old paint, it’s rancid and needs to go. If it still smells fine, move it into your everyday kitchen and use it up over the next few weeks. Same with brown rice – if it looks and smells normal, start cooking with it now. 
• Vegetable oils – Check the dates on every bottle and do a quick taste test. Rancid oil has a sharp, unpleasant flavor that’s impossible to miss. If it still tastes clean, move it to the front of your kitchen pantry and use it in your daily cooking before it turns. 
• Cheap canned goods you’ve never tried – This week is tasting week. Open a few cans from each brand and find out what you’re actually working with. If they taste decent, great – keep that brand in your rotation. Donate anything you truly won’t eat, and from now on, only stockpile products you’ve already tested and enjoyed. I’ve personally taste-tested these under $1 cans from Walmart and genuinely enjoy them.
• Expired medications – This one needs a careful sort. Look up each specific medication online to check whether it’s a type that simply loses strength over time or one that can become harmful (like certain antibiotics). Use what’s still good, and bring anything that’s too far gone to your local pharmacy for safe disposal – most pharmacies accept expired medications.
• MREs, trail mix, and granola bars – The easiest fix on this list: just eat them. Pack them for your next road trip, bring them on a hike, toss a few in your work bag for lunch, or hand them out to the kids as snacks. T
• Bleach and fuel – Check your bleach for its manufacture date. If it’s been more than a year, it’s likely too weak to reliably purify water, so use it for general household cleaning and pick up a fresh bottle along with some calcium hypochlorite for your long-term water plan. For stored fuel, pour it into your vehicle’s gas tank (as long as it hasn’t turned into a gummy mess), and going forward, label every container with the fill date so you can rotate it on a regular schedule.
• Seeds you haven’t tested – If you’ve got a survival seed vault sitting unopened in a closet, don’t just leave it there and hope for the best. Open it up this spring and actually plant a test garden with what’s inside. Find out which varieties grow well in your area and which ones are a waste of time. 

The point here isn’t to feel bad about what you’ve already bought – every single person who takes prepping seriously has made purchases they later realized weren’t the best use of their money or shelf space. That’s just part of the learning process, and the fact that you’re reading articles like this one means you’re already thinking more carefully than most people do.

Use up what you have, take note of what worked and what didn’t, and make smarter choices as you rebuild and improve your stockpile over time. 

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You may also like:

7 Stores Where You Can Buy Cheap Survival Food

How to Make “Frontier Penicillin” (VIDEO)

Read This Before Stockpiling Seeds

What Happens When You Eat Only Costco Cans For 30 Days?

Never Buy Garlic Again!

Hoarding These Items Might Get You Arrested

The post 11 Things You Should Never (Ever!) Add to Your Stockpile appeared first on Ask a Prepper.

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How to Make Your Own Garlic Powder

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Garlic powder is definitely one of the most important ingredients in my kitchen. I use it when making chili, meatloaf, spaghetti, casseroles, and all sorts of other dishes. It's one of those things that goes into just about everything I cook, and I'd hate to run out.

Why make it at home when you can just buy it? For one, you'll save money. You'll spend half as much on garlic cloves as you would on premade powder. For example, you can often find pre-peeled garlic cloves in bulk, something like 6 pounds for under $20, and that kind of supply can last you a couple of years.

Granted, we're only talking ten or twenty dollars either way. But the other reason is quality. Homemade garlic powder has a much better flavor, and you'll notice the difference when cooking with it. The taste is actually bolder than store-bought, so keep in mind you won't need to use quite as much.

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Plus, making garlic powder is fairly easy, as you'll see in this method I found on the Youtube channel, Brad and Christa. You can watch their video and read the instructions below.

Here's what you'll need:

• Peeled garlic cloves
• Food processor
• Parchment paper
• Food dehydrator
• Blender (or coffee grinder)

Here's how to make it:

Step 1 – Put the cloves into the food processor and grind them up. Work in small batches so the pieces come out nice and fine and uniform. This also helps them dehydrate faster.

Step 2 – Put a piece of parchment paper on the jelly tray of your dehydrator, and spread the ground cloves onto it. Make sure they're spread out evenly with no large clumps, so the air can flow through properly.

Note: The parchment paper is really important. Garlic gets sticky when dehydrating, and without the parchment paper, you'll have a mess on your hands.

Step 3 – Take the dehydrator outside so it doesn't stink up your home for weeks (trust me on this one), set it to 160°F, and leave it for several hours.

Don't even bother checking it for the first eight hours. You want to get all the moisture out, so make sure the garlic is completely, 100% dry before moving on. You can occasionally give it a gentle swoosh to break up any clumps that form.

Step 4 – Pour the dehydrated garlic into your blender and blend it into a powder. A coffee grinder or stick blender attachment works just as well. It won't be quite as fine as store-bought garlic powder, but it will taste better. Grind it as coarse or fine as you like.

Once you try homemade garlic powder, it's hard to go back to the stuff in the little jar at the grocery store. It's one of those small changes that makes a real difference in your cooking, and the process is simple enough that there's really no reason not to do it.

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You May Also Like:

• How To Make Bread In A Crockpot
• How to Make Mozzarella Cheese
• 25 Uses for Garlic (Other Than Eating)
• How to Make Powdered Milk
• How to Make Herbal Wound Powder

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