I've briefly written, in the past, about stocking your pantry. This is important, not because I necessarily think the end of the world is coming, but for more practical reasons. For example, what if your husband loses his job, or gets sick and misses a lot of work? What if an emergency comes up, and it sucks your financial resources dry? Or, perhaps a natural, public, or governmental disaster occurs, and grocery shopping is out of the question?

I am a child of God, and the Holy Word tells me that if I seek righteousness in God, then Heavenly Father will provide all I need. However, I also have a push to stock up on some essentials. I'm glad I have followed that urge, because there was a time when my husband was between jobs, where we lived off of my stock. There have also been other unexpecteds that have come up, over the years, where we needed my stock, so I've been happy to have had it.

Some people stock up on stuff they get from coupons. I am not one of those people. Many coupons largely get you junk food, and chemical laden body products. I'm just not interested. I believe that if you have basic skills, there's not a whole lot you need to stock up on.

Below is an annotated stock up list. Let's keep this simple, shall we?

NOTE: I give example uses for some of the following items, but these are just some examples, and are not exclusive. Many of the below listed items can cross over into cleaning, medical, and cooking. Many recipes can be made from the oils, grains, vinegars, salt, oats, legumes, etc. I only give a few examples, but there are a LOT of delicious meals that can be made from these things.

Body Care

Out of shampoo? Washing Hair and Scrubbing Scalp - Baking soda and water (2 tablespoons mixed in one cup of water)

Out of conditioner? Conditioning Hair Rinse - Apple cider vinegar (2 tablespoons mixed in one cup of water)

Washing the Body - Obviously, soap - if you have it. Otherwise, forage the roots of yucca cactus or prickly pear cactus. The roots have natural saponins and will mildly suds. These can be used as natural soap. Or, if you have the stuff and skills, make your own soap from leftover fats from cooking, collected rainwater, and ashes. If you can't get the roots or make soap, then you can clean yourself with wood ash, or baking soda and water. I suggest you stock up on a LOT of baking soda, for various reasons. You can also wash with ground, dried chick peas.

No toothpaste? Teeth Care - Brush teeth with a paste of baking soda and water (this is salty tasting). If you have no floss, then floss with available string, yucca cactus string, or thick, clean head hair. No mouthwash? Rinse with a very small drop of oregano oil in water (this is spicy tasting), or my favorite - a cap-full of hydrogen peroxide with a cap-full of water.

Out of deodorant? Mix some cornstarch and coconut oil together, and pat onto armpits, or mix lavender oil and water in a spray bottle - 15% - 20% lavender oil, and the rest water. Shake it well, then spray on.

Baby Powder - use corn starch.

Cleaning

Multi-Purpose Cleaner - Half white vinegar, and half water, in a spray bottle.

If you need to make your own toilet cleaner - A paste of baking soda and water.

Scouring Powder - Baking soda

Wood Oil - A very light layer of extra virgin olive oil.

Washing dishes with no dish soap - If you have it, rub a bar of soap onto your scrubbing cloth. Otherwise, roots from yucca or prickly pear, or use baking soda to scrub and scour, in addition to hot water. Place dishes in hot, just boiled water before drying and putting away, if possible.

Powdered Laundry Detergent - Use heat to convert baking soda into washing soda, then mix that with grated soap, if you have it, and borax, if you have it. Else, wash in very hot water with converted washing soda, and use some white vinegar in the rinse.

Medical

(Do this at your own risk. You decide what you do. I don't decide for you. Do your own research.)

Skin Issues - Eczema, bacterial, fungal - topically apply coconut oil several times a day, or oregano oil twice a day. Sometimes only one or the other will work.

A Natural Antibiotic, Anti-Fungal, Anti-Viral, and Anti-Parasitic - Oregano oil - drink several drops in a bit of lemon juice, three times a day (spicy!), and/or use topically. I've successfully used this for a UTI I had, and a double ear infection. For the ear infection, I took the oil internally, and also mixed it with olive oil, and gently dropped some into my ears several times a day. Both the UTI and double ear infection were fully cleared up within a few days. DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH ON THIS STUFF. Oregano oil can also be diluted and applied to wounds.

Headaches, etc. - Stock up on aspirin and children's ibuprophen. Learn to relieve headaches via relaxation, and handle pain without the aid of painkillers, whenever possible. One way that often works well, is breathing fumes from peppermint oil, while relaxing. I've gotten rid of headaches by taking a hot shower, with the hot water beating on my head, while I breathe the smell of peppermint oil that I dripped down a few walls in the shower stall. If you are a lady, and in her late 30's or older, track your headaches, and see if they are related to your hormone cycles. If so, consider taking wild yam root on a regular basis.

Tummy Troubles - Drink some homemade whey, made from strained homemade yogurt, if you got it. Also, sucking on strong peppermint candies or breath mints have been known to help in many cases, as well.

Wounds, Toothaches, etc. - Hydrogen peroxide. Can disinfect wounds, and 50/50 diluted with water can be swished around, over a sore tooth. Diluted oregano oil can be used, instead, for both of these things.

Foraging, Snaring, Food Growing Resources, and Homeschool Supplies

Search Amazon.com or similar, for the needed books on these topics, and obtain them. Invest in some science and history encyclopedias, and a good math book, such as "Math Made Easy," - the one written in the 1950s - it starts with basic arithmetic, and goes up to algebra. Consider having some of these books on an e-reader. You can get a solar battery charger for e-readers. However, have super-important books in printed, hardbound copies. THE most important book to own and read from daily, is the Bible.

Baking

Stock up on flour, or wheat berries if you can grind them with or without electricity. You can make bread from just water and flour, by making a sourdough starter from the flour and water, and then making a dough from some of the starter, adding more flour and water. The bread will be a fully risen bread, but will have a strong flavor. It takes getting used to. It is very healthy and hearty.

Water - You need water to live, clean, and to cook, bake. and clean.

Cooking

Dried pinto beans, black beans, split peas, and lentils. You can slow cook these in water in a crock-pot, or a homemade fireless cooker. You can also sprout these legumes for some quick, homegrown greens.

Brown rice - Add these to any of the above legumes.

Sea salt - Legumes and rice can taste a bit boring, but add some sea salt, and their flavor comes alive. You can also add great flavor to your flour and water bread, by mixing in a little bit of sea salt, and left over legumes and rice into the bread dough. Then, it becomes a bit closer to the bread Ezekiel made, and the protein content goes up, in addition to flavor.

Oats - Oatmeal is a hardy breakfast, and simple to make. If you have nothing to flavor it with, and/or no electricity or gas to cook it with, then soak the oats overnight in water with a bit of apple cider vinegar or whey. The next day, drain off the soaking water, add fresh water, and cook the oats over a fire - they will cook quickly, have a sour, but good flavor, and will be very healthy.

There is edible food that grows wild just about anywhere, whether you are in the city, or the country. Learn what seasons these foods grow during, and where to find them. Learn how to harvest, prepare, and preserve them. For example, in some areas of the country, late spring brings black/dew berries, the heat of the summer brings peaches, and the first autumn frost ripens persimmons. Supplement your diet with foraged fruits, nuts, seeds, tubers, veggies, and greens.

You may want to collect seeds from some wild foragables, and start a garden. Either way, you should have a garden, and grow edibles, whether from wild, or cultivated seeds. Learn to preserve your harvest, and stock up on that, as well.

Alternate Power, Lighting, Fireless Cooker, Iceless Fridge

Research alternate power, setting up solar power, a battery bank, a generator, etc. For short term,learn to hook up an inverter to a running car, converting the car's engine into a generator. We've had to do this on a few occasions - one of them being a very bad, complete white-out blizzard, with the electric being out.

Lighting - You can make a simple, homemade lantern, by putting a piece of small rope or string, attached to a paper clip or safety pin, in the bottom of a clear jar or glass. Then, pour in a bit of olive oil, but make sure the string is sticking out of the oil - like a wick. Light the string. This will last a while, and makes a neat little lamp. You should try this as a homeschool project, if nothing else.

Fireless Cooker - This cooker works much like a crock-pot, in that it slow cooks food. The concept is that you would get what you are cooking boiling hot in a pot over a fire. Then, you would remove the pot from the fire, and put it somewhere insulated, to trap in the residual heat, and leave the pot there for several hours. When you come back to it, the contents should be fully cooked, and taste like they were cooked in a slow cooker. This is an ideal way to make a crock-pot meal if you don't have electricity. Just do this in a Dutch oven, and then place the Dutch oven, covered, in a box or storage container, surrounded by towels and blankets, to insulate in the residual heat. This is a great way to make slow-cooked, overnight oats. If cooking meats this way, be sure to check the meat with a heat thermometer to make sure it is cooked through.

Iceless Fridge - This will only get to about 50 degrees Fahrenheit or so, so don't count on this for food safety. Basically, use some open backed bookshelves, or build a frame with shelves. Put this unit out on the porch, or right in front of an open window with a breeze. Cover the unit over with cloth, and then put a corner of the cloth into a bowl of water, and let the water get wicked up into all of the cloth. Keep the cloth damp, and near a breeze. This will create a swamp cooler effect on anything you place inside the cloth, on the shelves. This can also be done to help cool a house, but will make it humid, and will not cool it a whole lot - but it can take the edge off - Open windows on the side where a breeze comes from, and hang wet cloths over the open windows. Open the windows on the other side for a cross breeze. The breeze blowing in, goes through the wet cloths, and cools.