Thanks for all the help Carole in Sacramento CA

We also played horseshoes, badmittion and volleyball during the day, all the games we would play when we go camping. My two sons, would go through the neighborhood helping neighbors clean their yards and they would sleep very good each night tired from all the work. At night would listen to our emergency radio that broadcast local television stations. I listened for 6 days, straight and never needed to change batteries.

Gather Your Ingredients

1 cup aloe vera gel
1 tsp rubbing alcohol
2 tsp vegetable glycerin
8-10 drops tea tree essential oil or lavender essential oil

Simply blend all of the ingredients together and store.

Decide Where You are Going to Store Your Sanitizer

Be creative! You can recycle old liquid soap or hand sanitizer dispensers. You can also purchase a beautiful glass jar with a pump top to store and display your sanitizer. Think out of the box. If you find some nice glass jars and then add your own label, you can give home made sanitizers as gifts to family and friends!

Choose Essential Oils Carefully

The original recipe calls for tea tree or lavender oil, but you can be creative and use other types of essential oils as well. I like to pull out a list of oils that have antibacterial AND antiviral properties and make a blend that suits the season. Look at the properties of citrus oils, especially. Use oils that suit your likes as far as scents are concerned but will still add the cleansing properties appropriate for a hand sanitizer.

Use Sparingly

Your home made hand sanitizer will not dissolve into your hands as quickly or effectively as the commercial hand sanitizers you buy in the store. It is better to err on the side of too little than to end up wiping excess sanitizer off of your hands later. Waste not – want not!

Light bulbs are an odd thing to save for emergencies – if there is no power, wouldn't light bulbs be kind of moot?

Add:

Pet Care Items:
*Pet Health records, (including vaccination info)
*Pets favorite toy(s)
*Pet carrier near main exit door

HTH,

Don’t forget to have something to do, and something for the kids to do. A couple decks of cards, bean bags – non-electric games for entertainment. A few years ago we had one deck of cards; now we have several board games and a few more decks of cards. When the power goes out, we turn on the scanner and light candles, and hang out. I live in a hurricane area, so I tend to think emergencies involve the electric being off, too.

Between all of these sites, I haven’t actually paid for non-food items in about 3 years. I am also able to give away huge volumes of stuff to others at church and in the community. I rotate what we need into our own storage and then give away what we don’t use.

When considering non food items, don’t forget about the family pets. I have found that most dry dog food in the 25# and 50# bags have a shelf life of about 1 year when kept sealed. (I don’t believe that the dry canning operation would appreciate canning of dried dog food.) The other option is to use 1/2 gallon canning jars along with a vaccum sealer and oxygen absorbers for longer storage.

I do not have any pets, but my children do. My daughter has prepared for her cats, but my son has not prepared for his dog. I have measured and weighed the dog’s average daily consumption and have calculated her needs. I have added storage of dried dog food to my list.

THE TEST: I found this out by taking all of the TP out of each bathroom (even removed partial rolls and under sinks and in closet) and then put back only 4 rolls. I did this on a Saturday evening. Then, the next Saturday, I checked and did a tally and realized that we used roughly 1 roll per day.

Note that this is different if you have more people at home during the day OR if you have more girls than boys OR if you have more sickness . . . There can be lots of variables but this gave us at least a ballpark figure. Storing 365 rolls of toilet paper is totally doable in my garage.

Stock all the of the bathrooms with plenty of rolls. Record the date I placed the rolls and the amount per bathroom. End of the month I tabulate how many rolls are missing from the bathroom supplies when I go to restock. Subtract the number of rolls used from the number of rolls stocked and add it all up. Presto!

If you want to get more precise, multiply the number of rolls used by the number of sheets per roll that way you can take advantage of double or mega roll discounts whenever possible.

This is also handy to ferret out overuse. Also people should consider hand-held bidet as they are much more efficient. I agree with Amber on the Scotts 1000, we use the Marcal Fluffy Recycled 1000 One-Ply Tissue and it lasts much longer and is more economical than most other brands.

I havent really figured out how much we use here but it is alot!
Now imagine you have company or if there is an emergency elsewhere and you have another family living with you for a couple of weeks!

I store packages of toilet paper UNDER the kids beds.
It fits well and helps keep the kids from shoving all of their clothes, toys, etc under there.

I think ti is very important to think about storing these things and everything really by thinking…..
what will I need for the time my electricity is out, the trucks cant get to the store, my significant other wont be working.
If I-5 is flooded and closed and there is no easy or open route to go around how are the trucks going ot get the things you need to the store????
In Washington this happened and the people in Portland were effected because the trucks coming from Seattle couldnt get through.
SO it isnt just local emergencies that can effect us.
Some are long reaching.

And we NEED toilet paper LOL

In regards to toilet paper, I’ve read you need to store about 1 roll per person per week. I haven’t tried this yet, but it sounds about right for our needs.