Author: Damian Brindle

  • 17 Great Ways to Use Your Foodsaver for Preparedness

    17 Great Ways to Use Your Foodsaver for Preparedness

    I’ve been thinking about my foodsaver again lately. After the post on Foodsaver Successes, Failures, and Tips I figured I would point out many of the positive ways you can and should use a foodsaver for preparedness. While I own the FoodSaver V2244 Vacuum Sealing System (which is a budget model) I’d say it’s served…

  • THRIVE Express Hearty Chili With Beans

    THRIVE Express Hearty Chili With Beans

    This week I got into Thrive’s Hearty Chili with Beans Express meal which was plenty for two adults or enough to have quite a bit of leftovers: Here’s the backside, though, it’s much easier to see the nutritional facts and ingredients here: Unlike the other Express meals I’ve reviewed which want you to boil water…

  • Rent a Home to Save Money, Don’t Buy?

    For the longest time the advice of nearly everyone, from your grandmother to your financial adviser is to BUY your home and NEVER to rent… after all, you’re just throwing your money away when renting, right? Well, I’m beginning to differ on this and I’ll explain why in a moment. Currently, you should realize that we’re…

  • 16+ Abrasives and Lubricants for SHTF

    16+ Abrasives and Lubricants for SHTF

    It’s easy to get focused on the items we NEED for survival and forget about everything else. Water, food, ammo, and so on are the easy ones to think about. But what about all the other stuff that makes life easier but just aren’t nearly as sexy when it comes to SHTF blog posts? There’s…

  • Winter Cold Poses Several Unique Survival Problems You May Not Have Thought Of…

    Since it’s been much colder around the Pacific Northwest than it should be for this time of year it got me to thinking about several of the troubles that we could face during an emergency situation due specifically to the winter cold. Though I’m sure this list isn’t exhaustive it will get you started to…

  • THRIVE Express Broccoli Cheese Soup

    THRIVE Express Broccoli Cheese Soup

    As you may have noticed there are quite a few Thrive Express meals and side dishes to choose from. This week’s selection is Broccoli Cheese Soup. Here’s the front of the package: Here’s what it looks like before being cooked… yes, not very appetizing, I know: Fortunately, it cooks up much better: The soup tastes pretty good…

  • Cancel Monthly, Yearly Subscriptions: Save Hundreds to Thousands of Dollars!

    I’m coming up on my one year anniversary of first signing up for Amazon Prime. Thus far I’ve been fairly happy with the service as I feel like I got more from the subscription than I ever intended. FYI, my entire interest in joining was so that I could get two day shipping on Amazon Prime…

  • Stop Perpetuating the $300 for One Year of Food Myth!

    Stop Perpetuating the $300 for One Year of Food Myth!

    This is really beginning to drive me nuts. I keep seeing aggregations sites (those that do nothing but share other bloggers work… yes, I do plenty of that myself) continue to perpetuate ridiculous claims like the belief that you can purchase $300 worth of food that’s enough to sustain you for one FULL year and, believe it…

  • THRIVE Express Wild Rice Pilaf – Tasty Side Dish

    THRIVE Express Wild Rice Pilaf – Tasty Side Dish

    Not all Thrive Express foods are intended to be meals. This Wild Rice Pilaf makes an excellent side dish. In fact, we had some with fish and veggies and it went quite well. Here’s the front of the package: And this is what it looks like still dry (before being cooked): And this is the…