Last week we made a new addition to the family–a Remington 870 Wingmaster, with an 18.5″ barrel.

I bought it used for $250, from a guy that had it listed on a local gun classified site (shoutout to my buddy Seth and the guys at UtahGuns.com).

A shotgun was always going to be the 2nd kind of firearm I purchased, for a handful of reasons. And if you’re a prepper, there are at least 5 solid reasons that you should have a good home security shotgun as well.

1. They’re Cheap. Without going through every disclaimer, you can pretty much count on being able to get a sturdy, pump-action shotgun for $350 or less. Mossberg and Remington both make some very affordable shotguns that people have been shooting for years with a high degree of reliability. If you’re willing to look used and do a little negotiating, you can usually find one for even less. This is cheaper than probably 80% of the rifles and handguns out there.
2. The ammo is cheap. Not only is the gun itself incredibly affordable, but the ammo isn’t gonna cost you an arm or a leg either. As of writing this (May 2013), shotgun ammo can be had for roughly 20-25 cents a round in bulk. So if you’re purchasing 100 rounds, you can probably get them for roughly $25.00.
3. The ammo is available. As we are all acutely aware, perhaps even more important than having CHEAP ammo is having AVAILABLE ammo. After all, what good is the nicest gun if you don’t have ammo to shoot? Absolutely none. The fact that you can get ammo for a shotgun when ammo for other firearms is completely unavailable, is really big. Not only is ammo availability important for stocking, but it also means you can shoot and train more.
4. They are extremely versatile. Shotguns can shoot several different loads, with different sized shot, different amounts of powder, and through different length barrels. An 18″ barrel is a great length for a home security shotgun, but if you wanted to use it for hunting let’s say, you could easily swap the barrel out for a longer one, or even a rifled barrel that shoots slugs, giving you lots of options in one cheap gun.
5. They are easy to handle. Due to the nature of “scatterguns”, the simple truth is that you don’t have to be as accurate with them to be effective. This makes them ideal for relatively new and inexperienced shooters (wives, older children, etc). In a home defense scenario, a more experienced shooter could arm himself with a handgun or rifle, and allocate the shotgun to a lesser experienced family member with 1 area to monitor. Reloading and chambering rounds are also made very simple with shotguns (particularly a pump-action or semi-auto).

The post Daily Prep Episode 310: 5 Reasons You NEED a Home Security Shotgun appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.

If you’ve watched my videos for any length of time, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve seen guest appearances from my friend and fellow prepper Financial Ben.

We’ve done mock bug outs (MBOs) together, met Jack Spirko together at an expo a couple years back, and generally keep each other posted about any new preps or self sufficient goodness that we’re getting into.

Last week, I met up with Ben for a couple hours to check out the progress he’s making on his “mini homesteading survivalism.” Some of you may remember the last time we met up, it was snowy and a lot of his projects were on hold. Since then however, he’s made a TON of progress.

I got him to briefly show us around and explain some of what he’s been up to, including:

• Raised beds
• Irrigation
• Fencing
• Chickens
• Ducks
• Rabbits
• Fruit Trees
• even picked himself up a little puppy! Welcome to “Beans.”

Being on Ben’s property makes me jealous that I don’t have my own little plot of earth to begin working at the moment, but it also reminds me just how much work it can all be. Big cheers to Ben for all he’s been able to accomplish.

Don’t be fooled–Ben often surprises people because he looks so young, but the guy has legitimately accomplished a lot. He has a degree in Economics and is a pretty savvy investor. In addition to being a real estate agent by day, he also has 5 rentals of his own.

Hope you enjoy a little peek at the beginnings of one prepper’s homestead!

-Dan

What questions do you have for Ben? Put them in the comments below.

Resources:

Follow Ben’s homestead progress on his YouTube Channel

Check out more of Ben’s articles on how you can be financially prepared on his site Financial Survivalist

The post Daily Prep Episode 309: Tour of Ben’s Homesteading Survivalism Setup appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.

For today’s “Best of Web Monday”, I wanted to share 5 free permaculture videos with you (along with their PDF downloads!).

“Permaculture”, for those who haven’t heard of it, is essentially the discipline of using passive landscape technologies to achieve maximum productivity. In particular, permaculture design seeks to control the flow of water across your land to quite literally change the area’s microclimate.

I think a lot of preppers may have heard the word “permaculture” before, but dismissed it as being some fluffy, green, tree-hugging, leftist, agenda 21 initiative. While it may have some appeal to these types of people, don’t be mistaken–permaculture is about growing food.

Why Permaculture Matters to Preppers

To put it simply, “permaculture” is to land what “off-grid” is to houses. It’s being able to get the most output from your land, for the least amount of active input. It’s designing land to take advantage of every natural resource, so that it essentially manages itself and you don’t have to.

For the prepper, this means: more fruit and veggies, aquaponic systems that produce large quantities of fish, chickens, livestock, water running to your house, and a million other good things–all happening “naturally” (i.e. because you’ve designed them to happen that way).

Geoff Lawton, one of the top experts on permaculture in the world, recently put out this 5-part series of free permaculture videos, exposing people to just a handful of the many interesting facets of the discipline. As a bonus, each video also has a free PDF download, that goes into greater detail of the video’s topic.

1. Surviving the Coming Crises-presents a broad overview of permaculture, and takes a look at some interesting case studies where permaculture principles have been used to achieve some amazing things (including one example of some desert land in Jordan that was made productive in just a few months!)
2. Permaculture Property Checklist-goes through a checklist of items to look for when considering a property for purchase. Things like solar exposure, slope, altitude, latitude, proximity to the ocean or major lake, etc. Shows case studies of properties being evaluated for purchase, covers ideal locations for building structures and more.
3. Urban Permaculture: The Micro Space-takes an in depth look at the yard of one of Geoff’s student’s who is getting some amazing abundance from his 640 square foot space! Growing over 30 varieties of fruit trees, tons of veggies, berries and more. Doing it all pest free, and on a small scale in the middle of Melbourne, Australia.
4. 5 Acre Abundance on a Budget-this video takes a look at one of Geoff’s former properties that he designed on a budget, and got some amazing results from. On a budget of roughly $17,000, he added a series of dams and 7 water features. He got some incredible abundance, and was able to significantly increase the value of the property for resale.
5. Absolute Abundance-is a whiteboard video where Geoff breaks down the multitude of permaculture “tools” at our disposal. He sketches out a diagram of the potential slope on a property and shows where there are opportunities to be had. Good review of what is discussed in the other 4 videos.

The first time I saw these videos, I sat down and watched them all in one sitting! And it was time well spent.

Learning how to design your land to work for you has an incredibly high “ROI.” This knowledge can help you increase the production of your land–no matter what the size.

To get access to these permaculture videos, simply enter your name and email. Geoff does offer paid courses (some of which are roughly $1000), but you don’t need to sign up for one of these classes in order to get these videos.

Any of you guys doing permaculture design on your own property? Let me know how it’s coming in the comments!

-Dan

Resources:

Check out the 5 part permaculture video series here.

Credit where credit is due-my first exposure to Geoff and permaculture in general came from Jack Spirko of The Survival Podcast. Check out his podcasts on permaculture here.

The post Daily Prep Episode 308: 5 Free Permaculture Videos appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.

For those of you who have been with me since the beginning, you have already seen me attempt 2 summer gardens. This year, I thought I would make a quick video showing how to start a raised bed garden, using what I’ve learned from the last two years.

It started when I was up at my buddy Ben’s place (may know him from his posts or videos on Financial Survivalist), and he offered me some free dirt. Not just any dirt–Mel’s Mix.

1. Get Some Quality Soil. Step #1 is to get some good soil that you can grow in. For those of you who may not be familiar with “Mel’s Mix” soil, it’s a 3-part mixture of vermiculite, compost and peat moss, specifically designed to maximize a square foot garden. Together, these 3 ingredients ensure that your soil is nutritious, stays loose and broken up, and will retain good amounts of water.

If you’re not going to use a mixture like this, you can also get amazing results from learning to enhance your soil with nutrient rich compost from your organic waste, such as grass clippings and vegetable pieces.

If you are going to use a mixture like Mel’s, the only downside is that it can be quite expensive. So when Ben offered me a couple cubic yards for free, I had to jump on it!

I first had to get the soil from Ben’s place to mine. Its roughly 20 miles, and since I don’t have a truck, I had to get it all in my Toyota Camry! haha Together, he and I shoveled it into boxes and lifted it into the trunk and back seat of my car. Some of the boxes were close to 200 pounds, so it was definitely a 2-man job.

2. Build Some Boxes (don’t have to be fancy!). The next step is to create the box (or boxes if you’re doing multiple). On the way home, I grabbed a couple rough cut 2×8′s from Home Depot and some weed barrier. I bought (2) 10-foot long 2×8′s, and had them saw 2 feet off each piece.

I was now left with perfectly dimensioned pieces for an 8 foot by 2 foot box. I probably put the box together in the least fancy way possible–just nailed it together on the 4 corners, and then stapled the weed barrier on.

After that was put together, I roped my upstairs landlord into helping me carry my soil from the Camry to the box in the back, and was finally ready to plant.

3. Planting your seeds and seedlings. I divided up the new boxes into square foot sections (there were 16 of them), and referred to the “blueprint” I hastily sketched out of which veggies were to be planted where.

Almost all the veggies I am planting like as much sun as they can get, so one thing I did to try to facilitate this, was to plant the shortest plants on the south end of the boxes, and the tallest plants on the north end of the boxes, so that no plants would be overly “hidden in the shadows.”

4. Give it a good watering!!! The last step in starting my raised bed garden was to give everything a good watering. Pre-soaking your soil  ahead of time, and then watering right after you plant ensures that your seeds and seedlings will have the best possible chance of getting situated in their new home.

I’m excited about trying to do things better this year. I’m already getting a 2 month earlier start than either of my last 2 seasons, and I’m planning to keep a much more watchful eye on the watering this time around as well.

Another thing I’m doing this year is companion planting my vegetables with Marigolds, to see if I can attract the right kind of bugs.

There will be many more garden updates to follow this season, but for now, we’re officially off!

Love to hear what your plans are for gardening this year! Any new veggies? New location or methods? Let me know how it’s coming!

Prep On,

-Dan

The post Daily Prep Episode 307: How To Start A Raised Bed Garden appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.

I got a question a week or so ago from fellow Daily Prepper Alex, from New Zealand.

He writes:

“Hello Dan and fellow preppers,

I have a question about long term food storage. In New Zealand the
prepper movement is slowly taking off, largely due to the recent
earthquake in Christchurch. However, mylar bags and oxygen absorbers
are still hard to come by, so i was wondering can you still get
significant shelf life (10+ years) out of food, such as rice and pasta
if stored in 5 gal plastic buckets with lids?”

What do you guys think?

When it comes to storing pasta and rice, my wife and I have everything in #10 cans, mylar pouches, or else the original packaging from the store, so I really don’t have a ton of experience with this kind of stuff.

I’ve heard of people using “Gamma lids” for 5 gallon buckets, which presumably makes them air tight, and seems like it’d be a great option for storing pasta and grains of all kinds.

But again, I don’t have any firsthand experience using anything like this for my food.

Love to get your thoughts and suggestions for Alex!

Resources:

Check out Gamma Lids on Amazon here.

The post Daily Prep Episode 306: Storing Pasta Without Mylar Pouches-How Long Will it Keep? appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.

Have any of you guys seen the “Utility Flame” gel packets yet?

I got my hands on a couple of these a few weeks back, and wanted to see how long they would burn for.

The information from the manufacturer says that they should burn for 14-15 minutes, and I found that to be true. I got a full 16 minutes out of mine, which I felt was excellent.

A few reasons why I like Utility Flame:

• conveniently packages to fit perfectly in pockets, packs, glove boxes, purses, and more
• flame burns hot without having to be huge
• they can be found online for roughly $2 a pack–perfect for a backup fire prep.

I don’t think you need to stock up on enough of these so that you can have one for every fire, but I do think it’s a good idea to have a couple in each family member’s BOB.

In particular, these guys could come in REALLY handy for spouses or older children who may not be as proficient at making fire.

Anybody else seen these in action yet?

-Dan

Resources:

Complete details and specs on Utility Flame here.

Buy Utility Flame gel fuel packets on Amazon here.

The post Daily Prep Episode 305: Utility Flame Fuel Gel-Good Prep or Not? appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.

Most people would agree that a good prepper should stockpile ammunition.

But as we know all too well, ammo is hard to come by these days. In particular, 9mm is an especially rare goose!

So if there was any doubt in your mind before as to why you should stockpile ammunition, check out my experience for a quick refresher…

-Dan

PPU 9mm. After searching high and low, this is the stuff I ended up with.

The post Daily Prep Episode 304: Why You Should Stockpile Ammunition appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.

A few days back I got a question from a viewer about how she could find survival groups. She writes:

How do I find prep group? Would one take 62 yr. old woman? Just starting to put food aside and think what next. No guns…Glad I found your site, any ideas for books? Doing what I can.

So clearly there are a few different questions here, but I wanted to throw the first one out to you folks. What have you found to be some good ways to find survival groups? I thought of a couple suggestions right off the top of my head.

1. Meetup.com is a great place to find groups of any kind, and survivalists are no exception. Simply use the search tool to find groups within a certain mile radius, by searching relevant terms, such as “survival”, “preppers”, “emergency preparedness” and more.
2. Another great way to find survival groups is by searching the local chapters of survival forums. Forums like Zombie Squad, Survival Monkey, Survivalist Boards, The Survival Podcast, and others have local chapters of folks trying to prep.

What other ways could you suggest to this lady?

The post Daily Prep Episode 303: How To Find Survival Groups appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.

Through a mutual acquaintance, I met the guys from PowerPot last week. If you guys haven’t heard of them yet, they make a really cool thermoelectric charger for preppers that charges phones and devices using the heat from a fire.

Thermoelectric sensors in the bottom of the pot transform heat into electricity and then interface with a variety of different devices to meet your power needs.

If your devices don’t need charging at the moment, it can also be configured to charge a 1800 MAH battery (enough for roughly a full smartphone charge), to be used later.

Thought I’d just give you a quick look and my initial impressions for now, but I’m really excited to get out and put this puppy to some real use!

-Dan

Resources:

Complete details and specs on the PowerPot here.

See who else is talking about the PowerPot here.

The post Daily Prep Episode 302: PowerPot Initial Impressions appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.

By now, most of you guys know that I’m originally from San Diego, and still have family there.

It’s a great place to have any kind of connection, and we frequently make trips back. A couple weeks ago we made a quick trip down to see some fam and show off little baby Penny.

This time however, I found myself feeling really conflicted about the “land of my nativity.”

Why?

Because it’s a terrible place on paper…. but my heart loves it so much!

Just like a bad ex-girlfriend (you know the kind I’m talking about…). The kind that you are WAY better off without, that were bad for you, that your parents hated and all your friends told you to leave.

But also the kind you have shared a million laughs, jokes, and memories with.

That’s exactly how I feel about California (and San Diego in particular).

The prices are high, the taxes are high, the congestion is terrible, the politics are socialist, the government is bankrupt, the racial tension is volatile, it’s full of military targets, it’s built on major fault lines, and has devastating wildfires every couple years.

But for some reason, it’s hard not to think of it as home. When you have:

• surfing
• baseball games
• balboa park
• restaurants
• close to 300 sun days a year
• dog friendly parks and beaches everywhere
• plus friends and family

…the negatives have a tendency to get pushed to the back of my mind.

I’m really conflicted on this one folks…

-Dan

The post Daily Prep Episode 301: California, The Prepper’s Bad Ex-Girlfriend appeared first on THE DAILY PREP.