Preparedness allows for self reliance.

What is Preparedness?
What does preparedness mean to you?  Emergency preparedness?  Survival preparedness?  What about earthquake, hurricane, tsunami or tornado preparedness?  Financial preparedness?  Family preparedness?  Or maybe you are just hoping to be prepared enough for dinner tonight?

All of those topics are covered here at Your Own Home Store.  Our main focus is helping you become self reliant and being prepared is what allows you to be self reliant in any situation.  Preparedness principles apply to all situations.

What Are We Preparing For?
Being prepared for an emergency allows you to survive it without the help of others if necessary.  Being prepared for your financial future is what allows you to be self reliant in our later years.  Being prepared with food storage should you need it in an emergency brings great peace of mind.  But, should you never need it that emergency, that's okay!  It will also help you be prepared for tonight's dinner should you not have time to run to the store.

When Should we Prepare?
The time to prepare is now.  You will never regret doing all you can to prepare for the events in your future: good or bad.  Preparedness makes you self reliant.

And to be self reliant is a wise goal.  Preparedness  provides the ability to provide for yourself and your family in any situation without having to rely on others.  The information on this site will focus on this principle in the following ways:

Preparedness Through Education:

Understanding the Who, What, When, Where and most importantly Why of preparedness and self reliance is your foundation for success.  You will find many educational posts at Your Own Home Store on a variety of topics:

• The need for and benefits of having your "own home grocery store" (aka food storage)and other quality emergency supplies in your home.
• Tips on storing your food storage
• 72 hour kit building, organization and tips
• Water storage education, ideas and tips
• Preparedness Plans
• World news on topics that relate to preparedness needs
• The types of products sold by Shelf Reliance that you can include in your own home store.
• Items not sold by Shelf Reliance that you can / should include in your "own home store."

Preparedness Through Food Storage 
It is important to build a "home store" of foods you will use.  Otherwise, your investment may just go to waste.  Part of food storage preparedness is understanding how to use the foods you store. As such, I regularly use shelf stable products from my "own home store" in my cooking.  I post:

• Recipes that I create.
• Recipes others have created that I convert to work with items in my home store (like powdered butter or eggs).
• Tips that I learn about using shelf stable products through trial and error.
• A regular highlight of the best recipes found on the internet that use items from "your home store:" or in other words, items that are completely shelf stable.
  

Preparedness through Specials and Discounts

It is tough to build a home store of food storage and other supplies if you can't afford to do so.  As an authorized Shelf Reliance independent consultant, I can offer substantial discounts on Shelf Reliance products.  I also strive to find the best prices on other "home store" products.

Shelf Reliance Discounts:

• As an independent consultant, I am authorized to offer the lowest available price on Shelf Reliance products.  You will not find a lower price at shelfreliance.com (even with a coupon code) or through any other retailer. 
• I offer regular monthly specials that are unique to my blog and available at my expense to just my readers and customers.
• In addition, as a couponer, I watch price trends and will let you know when Shelf Reliance products are on sale for a great price and when the prices will be increasing so you can purchase them before they do. 

Other Food Storage Sources:
Not everything in my "home store" is from Shelf Reliance.  I do purchase from other sources when I find a great deal / opportunity.  I will share those with you here.

Shelf Stable, but non "food storage" items:
Your Own Home Store should include many items not available through Shelf Reliance or other "food storage" sources.  Consider this quick (not comprehensive) list: toilet paper, shampoo, cereal, ketchup, crackers, spices / herbs, pasta etc.
I offer occasional couponing tips and links to great couponing sources to help you build a home store of these types of items.

Preparedness in other areas:
Your Own Home Store is still a young blog.  I have many goals for the future here.  Expect to start seeing posts about the following topics in the future. 

• Budgeting / Financial Preparedness
• Debt reduction / payoff 
• Canning
• Gardening
• Food Storage Checklists and Step by Step Guides
• An emergency (powerless) cooking course
• Food storage book reviews
• Tools (spreadsheets, printables, calculators etc) to help you increase your preparedness wisely.

Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions about your preparedness goals!  And please, join in the preparedness conversation by leaving comments and interacting with other readers!  I'd love to hear your experiences and opinions.

I am an independent consultant for Shelf Reliance; a company with a mission to empower others to become self reliant, prosperous and charitable.  You can learn more about Shelf Reliance, buying their products, earning free products, or selling their products on my Shelf Reliance website.