Pantries and Preparedness. Quietly getting others started.

Almost every week someone tells me that they wish their adult children, family or friends were better prepared for emergencies.  It is a source of worry.

Over our long weekend three banks online systems were down and the banks were shut. Interestingly this happened twice before in the last few months.  This time it lasted about two days. People were caught in all sorts of trouble. On the St. George Bank face book page I did a little reading. This was on day one and maybe half a day in. There were so many comments from desperate people. One I will give as an example was a mother of a young baby. She was telling the bank she was furious, she had no nappies and did not know what they would be doing for dinner that night without access to her money. Over the weekend there were hundreds of messages like these. Now she wrote that after six hours of the online system going down. Can you even imagine after a few days? What about a week or several?
They cannot imagine their credit cards not working, ATMs not working, they cannot conceive it is even possible. Complete dependance and cannot get through one day.
Is this a worry? The mind boggles at what would happen in a major computer glitch, power failure or any other event that closed down these systems.

Possibly systems going down for a few hours here or there is a good thing, letting people know it can fail and to have back ups. You would hope these things would be teachers.

Anyway, we cannot make anyone prepare. And with family and perhaps especially our kids saying too much can be counter productive. We can teach and encourage and set an example. A great thing is when they ask how to do something and even better when we see them doing well, being wise and thinking things through. Lately I have heard some good stories of this especially when they reach an age that they are noticing things like job insecurity and are planning for the future.

One thing we can do is think about the gifts and help we give. Kind of helping with preparedness by stealth!

I have a couple on the go at the moment. Firstly candles. Lovely candles are a great gift. Useful and you have just helped someone have light in an emergency.

Rather than buy super expensive ones I am buying inexpensive packs that look like this...

Then making them over to look like this...

A couple of ladies mentioned that many people do not have matches anymore! This is true. Once matches were given out as freebies with business names on them and so on but not anymore. So people may not have matches. Again these are necessary in preparedness.

However matches are pretty ungiftable. (I don't think that's a word!)

I got packets of the really giant long matches... yep they are ugly... but to go along with the candle gifts...

I simply made them over in a Christmas theme...

These have been fun to do. Like card making kind of.

Thinking on this some of my sneaky-by- stealth -adding -to- someone -else's- preparedness -gifts are...

For a family gift a BBQ. Then they have an alternative way to cook, boil water etc. Plus a lot of great outdoor times.

Others for a family could be:

Camping equipment.

First aid kit. 

First aid training.

Picnic blanket, car blankets.

A water purifier.

A hamper of preserves.

For a man a Swiss Army knife. Chloe and I went in together and got one for Kato. He loves it. I know that gives him a handy and helpful thing especially in emergencies.

Some more for men....

Tools.

A chainsaw.

A fishing rod, lures etc.

Car phone charger or solar phone charger.

A good radio that takes batteries.

An excellent torch.

Stainless steel drink bottles.

An esky. (cooler)

A good winter coat.

Protective gloves.

Some for women: 

Lovely candles.

Winter coat, gloves, scarf.

Soaps.

Preserving kit.

Pantry items.

Storage tins and jars.

Some for teens:

A great torch.

Cool drink bottles.

Solar phone charger.

First aid training.

Self defence training.

A good sleeping bag.

This is over to you! What would be good ideas for gifts that have a preparedness and general helpfulness factor? Gifts that are useful and could be very handy.

I have been thinking a lot about this. In my preparedness I try to have things to help the whole family. But there are limits to what we can keep and how much we can store! Getting everyone thinking about taking care of themselves is the best thing we can do. And slip a few handy things into gifts! 

I hope you are having a good week. I have fruit for Christmas cakes soaking and all sorts going on! xxx