Preparing for disruptions Food as part of an emergency fund

Current events dictate that it would be wise for every family to have a disaster recovery plan. Stuff happens all the time. Some of it not of your own creation. Whatever its source, it impacts you and forces you to regroup. What are you going to do when disaster strikes? How are you going to recover from it? One of the important aspects of financial capability is Protecting. You have worked hard to make gains to achieve financial well-being.
Resilience is an important part of financial well-being. As any world-champion prizefighter legendarily says, “it not just how hard a punch you threw; but also how hard a punch you took?” that matters. Being prepared and not just depending on luck or largesse to bail you out of a tight spot is a Money Smart Lifestyle. In the fight that is working-class financial life in 21st century America, a properly resourced emergency fund will help you absorb and recover from life's inevitable shocks. Your emergency fund can contain more than just cash.
​Prepping is a movement. The focus of this post is narrow. It is an overview discussion of food stores as a portion of an emergency fund, not a preppers guide. Prepper or not, it is prudent for every family to have a food security plan that anticipates disruptions. Also when properly integrated, a food store can become a cash flow resource. Let’s look at some basics.
Types of disruptions where everybody is affected by the same catastrophe.  You should be able to sustain your family for a minimum of 3-7 days in the event of a catastrophic event.

• Electrical outages often are short term but crippling to most lifestyles if more than a few hours. Imagine 5 days without electricity?
• Weather-related events are unpredictable in severity but nonetheless inevitable.
• Hazardous material or air quality alerts can be disruptive and prohibit travel.
• When you “shelter in place” it requires food plus fuel for cooking and heat.
• Evacuation go-bags stuffed to sustain your family if you have to leave in a hurry.
• Natural disasters are widespread and recovery can take days to reach you. 
• Terrorists or cyberattacks to the electrical grid or financial networks.
• Pandemics that require social distancing or self quarantine.
  

Types of disruptions where only your family is affected by the catastrophe. Being able to maintain your family’s food security for 30+ days can not only provide you peace of mind in the lean times but it also can be a cost reduction resource when your balance sheet is stronger. You should have a 30-day disaster recovery plan in the event that something happens to you. For example, you lose all or part of your income. Can your family survive for 30 days? No doubt big changes are required when this happens. However, food insecurity doesn’t have to exacerbate the trauma nor add to the drama. 
There is a chronic lack of cash when your income is routinely reduced through employment practices such as temporary layoffs, reduced hours, uneven or seasonal schedules, and lost hours due to unpaid sick or disability leave. Using a food store as part of your meal plan can reduce stress and the need for cash during such times.
Types of disruptions where society collapses for 90+ days by a zombie apocalypse or whatever is beyond the scope of this blogpost. Besides, you won't be using Money anyway, but your food stores may have some barter value. Good luck.
Here are some things to do to start prepping for disruptions. You don’t try to swallow the elephant in one bite, so to speak.

• Start and build your food stores relentlessly. Then treat it as a living resource that contributes to your family’s security. It is important to actively manage your food stores. You must have zero tolerance for waste. Make sure your store is prepared for a “best of worst-case” scenario.
• Medications Build a medicine surplus. Make sure you have a supply of all prescription and OTC drugs. A good way to get this is to let your pharmacy auto-refill your prescription. They normally will fill a monthly script every 3 weeks or so resulting in a co-pay approved surplus. Make sure to use the oldest meds first to keep your supply fresh. These are definitely items for the go-bag. A medicine surplus can also mitigate a loss of insurance from a job loss.
• Food, water, energy, and fuel These are the big 4. You’ll need heat to survive and fuel to cook your food. Using generators, cookstoves, propane, charcoal, etc., should only be done with a complete understanding of both ventilation and safety. Whether or not, you have a generator depends on your economic level and how long you can keep it running during an extended outage if you can't get fuel. Remember Puerto Rico. You really need a plan to quickly cook food that can no longer be refrigerated. Next, what will happen to the frozen food if the outage is longer-term?
• Cash on hand is always appropriate. When, if (yes I mean "when if" not "what if"), there are no ATMs or online transactions available? Make sure to have a mix of denominations and not just big bills. Also if you live near a border you may want to add the next country’s currency to your go-bag in case of an evac.
• Develop a sense of community, Now. Get to know your neighbors on purpose. You’ll need each other in a crisis. That includes neighbors on all sides.
• How will your family entertain itself for days with or without electricity? It helps a lot if people don’t “get on each other’s nerves” during a disruption. What will you do when the digital brain candy needs to recharge and can’t?

The holiday season is the perfect time to lay up food stores. Americans eat too much. The agribusiness-retail complex encourages this overindulgence in many ways. Some of the most flagrant consumption occurs during the Holiday season. This is the time that many staple items necessary to stock a food store go on sale.  So use that to your advantage to build and rotate your stock. Americans waste a lot of food, also.The average family waste about 30% of its food purchases, especially around the Holidays. Therefore if most families were merely conscientious about eliminating food waste they could redirect current resources from their garbage cans toward their financial well-being and food security. They could begin to build a food store through diligence and frugality without a lifestyle change.
Make sure the plan works by rotating your stores regularly. Rehearse emergency situations before the emergency arises. These dry runs can be made into fun family activities. They will let you see where your plan needs tweaks. Can you really make 7 days of interesting meals using only your food store? Don’t wait until you have to do it to find out if you can.

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