r/TwoXPreppers

I think one overlooked part of prepping is entertainment. If the internet goes down, a lot of people are gonna realize how dependent we are on our phones. No scrolling, no streaming, no Googling… then what?

Most of us don’t even own DVDs or CDs anymore. Everything’s online now. And honestly, do kids still build puzzles or know how to keep themselves busy without an iPad?

Food and water matter obviously, but boredom and morale are a real thing too. Offline hobbies, games, books, puzzles ..that stuff could end up being way more important than people think.

I'm assuming everyone here is up to speed with the middle east conflict and the world wide fertilizer shortages and food prices.

I want to share some tips and strategies that you may not know about and why they are important.

I assume most people that are heavy into gardening are doing some level of composting not only for their gardens but also keep trash to a minimum.

With that baseline what people may not know is composting and other nutrient recycling only goes so far.

Every time you harvest from your yard or garden you're causing a net loss over time of nutrients in your soil. Even if you use organic fertilizers.

Unless you have new inputs you will eventually get less and less production over time.

It's important to do all of this to minimize the need for new inputs organic or otherwise.

Some things I have actively done with my grow space and some that are work in progress.

Manures: these can be used as inputs if you have a vegetarian loving animal such as guinea pigs, rabbits etc.

Beach collections: these can give you good amounts for trace minerals as well as phosphorus and potassium depending on the items collected.

Check local rules you don't want to go to a state or national park and harvest live sea weed. I live within 2 hours of a beach and go once in awhile to collect the dried sea weed in buckets washed ashore, dead sand dollars as well as sea shells on the beach. All of those can be processed at home fairly easily and tossed into beds or in compost.

Fire pit: if you have access to hard wood you can burn it and use the ash to add potassium.

Volcanic and basalt decorative rocks: these are extremely good for releasing stored potassium, phosphorus and trace minerals back into the soil where they are placed. they're available at big box stores.

for these even if you buy one bag of each and put them in a small spot in your soil. you can actively mix that soil over time with compost and then spread that mix when and where it is needed. these are very good 'charge batteries' for replacing nutrients. they will slowly release the nutrients and minerals as it rains and keep long term reserves healthy for the rest of your space if you actively dig in the run off areas and under them.

There are many other ways to replenish your soil and many more ways besides veggie scraps and cardboard to recycle those nutrients for years.

Just trying to spread awareness around what we can individually do to replenish nutrients to our setups without commercial fertilizers.

Some of this depends on what you need for your soil, your climate and what you have access to.

With November 2026 being midterms, how dangerous do you think things will get in the US?

Creating this for general discussion on what areas to avoid, supplies to stock if needed, and overall what to expect

What do you think air and international travel will look like? (esp for people leaving or coming back to US)

I'm looking for advice on the best way to freeze vegetables and what vegetables have held up well in the freezer. As someone who works in food service, we are seeing delays and missed deliveries already. I believe this is just foreshadowing for food shortages because of dwindling fertilizer supplies and insane costs for farmers. Take a look at news stories about farming and r/farming r/homestead - there is a severe drought happening in much of the US, and hay prices are through the roof. I dont want to fear monger, but I feel its really just a ticking clock since the refineries in UAE and Qatar were bombed. The bioproducts from there like urea are used to make fertilizer.

I'm thinking I should buy a good quantity of veges and process them to store in the freezer. But I only have experience freezing cooked Cinderella pumpkin - that stays good for like 4-5 months in a ziploc. What have y'all had success freezing and most importantly cooking? I eat a lot of carrots, cabbage, peppers, scallions/ green onion, white and red onion, and various homegrown herbs. Yams are also my favorite food but I have no idea how that would work... maybe diced and oven cooked then frozen?

For meat, I usually just buy lamb and beef on sale and freeze it in the package. Let me know if theres a better way to go about that.

I just had to move back in with family so anything that takes up too much freezer space probably wont work unless I can find a super cheap chest freezer sometime soon.

I don't have access to a vacuum sealer or freeze drier but I could try connecting with someone in my area who does, if you guys think thats worthwhile.

Yesterday I was walking through the plant section of Walmart looking for a few new plants with which to adorn my place. I've been also looking at growing more edibles... Dwarf fruit trees etc. I'm very lucky with the light in my place. Anyway I was looking at a huge fern when I noticed a tiny plant, about an inch and a half, growing out of the drain hole of the fern. I'm not a plant expert and didn't recognize it. I was curious enough to want to find out. So I gently pulled it out leaving just a tiny bit of root on it. I didn't have anything with which to keep it moist so I tucked it in the soil of a small starter plant I already had in my cart and promptly forgot about it.

Once home, I set my live purchases by the window and got busy with other things. When my friend called to chat, something she said made me remember the plant. I went to check on it and it still looked very healthy. I told my friend about it and she suggested I Google lens it, so I did. She was actually familiar with this plant. So when I told her Google id'd it as Common Purslane she started telling me about how it was edible. Apparently it's considered a weed but Google also confirmed that it was not only edible but nutrient rich in the omega 3s, folate and magnesium among others. It is used in soups and salads. According to Google it grows very fast and soon (like 2 weeks) I should be able to harvest it often. What's more...it takes very little maintenance and thrives in very poor soil.

I just wanted to let others who didn't know about this amazing 'weed' know that if things get as bad as we think they might, this is a food option they should definitely know about.

And this strikes me as a good time to ask...What edible, easily grown plants that are not commonly thought of as food do you know about or have experience with?

The sprouting company sells a sprouts growing jar for $100. at base level it’s a fancy mason jar on its side. that’s it. that’s the product… and you can get the equivalent off Amazon for like $25 or make your own for less.

This kind of thing is EVERYWHERE - and I feel like this is the right community to find the logical and actually useful dupes.

The $80 candle that’s wax and a couple drops of oil… “wellness” or prep gear that’s just a normal household item with a label slapped on or some 3D printed cover. Idk how to stop the ads! I know realistically I can’t but I keep seeing things that make me cringe.

what dupes have you found or made? Luxury/prep/kitchen/beauty/anything… I’ve got some spare time after I finish up making this vanilla bean paste 🤣

Based on what I've read in some other subs, tomato prices are going through the roof in the US thanks to tariffs. I noticed that a restaurant I go to occasionally had posted a sign stating that only 3 of their rotation of sandwiches would be including tomatoes for the time being!

I already have some planted but am going to pick up a few more plants, and am slowly stocking up on canned tomatoes when they are on sale. Just an FYI.

While trying to recover recipes I loved from my old MyPlate online cookbook from the USDA website (it's apparently gone down the memory hole thanks to RFK Jr.), I found this through my state (Arkansas)county extension SNAP Ed program.

It's a downloadable/printable cookbook for storing supplies for and making 7 days worth of 21 healthy meals and 5 snacks from mostly shelf-stable ingredients for a family of four.

It includes a pantry and shopping list for recipe ingredients. I'm pretty impressed and plan to try out a few of the recipes in the next few weeks.

Preparedness and Resiliency Cookbook.

I also wanted to share the cookbook that taught me how to cook when I moved out on my own.

Cooking For Two

This was a cookbook given out to food stamp recipients in the 70s and 80s. Again, many of the ingredients are for shelf-stable foods.

When I was 20, I found this in a used book store right after I got my first apartment. I knew absolutely NOTHING about cooking, and this was the perfect starter cookbook. I still use a lot of these recipes 30 years since I got my copy. My old copy is falling apart, but this is from a good scan on Internet Archive.

PLEASE don't make the mistake I did in assuming I can always find this stuff online - print it out and laminate it if you can, or keep in a plastic sheet protector.

EDIT: The UA cookbook borrowed some of their recipes from a more comprehensive emergency cookbook from Texas here:

Houston Emergency Preparedness Cookbook: Recipes To Turn Your Emergency Food Supply Into Life-Saving Meals

Please contain all off topic discussion to this weekly megathread. This is where you freak out, talk about conspiracy, talk about unrealistic crazy scenarios, asked and answered questions, etc.

The US Supreme Court has issued a temporary injunction allowing Mifepristone to be purchased via telehealth and sent by mail again. But it only lasts until May 11th. If you want a set of Plan C, now is your chance. You can get pills online from PlanCPills.org, mayday.health, or ineedana.org.

My original post about the dangerous "tactical tampon" myth, received outrage in the comment section. (I'll link to that post a little further down.)

So here is a post from North American Rescue about the myth.

https://www.narescue.com/nar-blog/fact-crap-tampons.html

And this article examining the hystory of the myth.

https://emj.bmj.com/content/ill-advised-use-tampons-gunshot-wounds

And here is my original post

https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXPreppers/s/89qmEids5Y

Some people can adapt to new information. For others, no amout of debunking and facts can change an erroneous belief, once a person has become attached to it. This post will either do nothing for them, or even cause them to become even more attached to an erroneous belief. A phenomenon called "belief perseverence". https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/belief-perseverance

Some people hold onto false beliefs because they are reinforced by very strong, false memories. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public\_education/publications/insights-on-law-and-society/volume-18/insights-issue-2---vol-18/seeing-bugs-bunny-at-disney-world/

Others may struggle to accept or completely reject new information because the person who initially gave them erroneous information was someone they trusted. "Source credibility". For some their attachment to a messenger can be stronger than evidence.

Mental prep includes knowing ourselves, including our common pitfalls. Adaptability is essential.

We’ve been cooking at home more often (who can afford eating out these days?). I realized that a lot of our kitchen equipment was really old or damaged or the cheap stuff that we‘d had forever and were making do with (Electric hand mixed where we could only plug in one beater and power switch has a crack with a sharp plastic edge). Replacing items that we are making do with or would probably fall apart or break apart with higher quality items. Trying to set us up for longevity of things we have for cooking because I don’t see a lot of eating out in our future, especially with two young kids!

Also we had a great local knife sharp recommended to us. Chargers per blade (a nearby grocery store charges 2$ per inch per knife!), and usually gets things done in a day or two. Complete game changer in the kitchen!

When I first started prepping, I followed a couple of Youtubers and a few of them are still online. What I’ve noticed is that one has leaned completely into fear mongering and weird conspiracies (Tommy bites). Can we get a list of YouTubers that are beneficial?

I am in the middle of moving, and am mostly moved into a new apartment but there are still odds and ends at the old place. We had a town wide power outage tonight (still ongoing!) and the candles, battery powered lights, etc are still at the other place. But! I keep a flash light in the glove compartment of my car, and the batteries are even working! I had also just put chicken nuggets in the oven (it had been a hard day) but one of the pluses for me when looking this apartment was the gas stove, both because I hate electric and because we have frequent power outages. So, I was able to pan fry my chicken nuggets! I just needed to light the stove with a lighter, which I did have on hand. When moving in the future, I’m going to give more priority to power outage related items (that’s our most frequent “event” here outside of wildfire threat) and also probably invest in a charging block. But I was proud of myself for my car flashlight and being able to operate my stove.

I need items for my car emergency kit refresh, but with specific requirements. Any suggestions? I already have the box, I’m updating it for summer.

Food items need to be: vegetarian, kid friendly, able to sit in a hot car for several months, and also some items should be nutritious/filling in case of emergency needs (I’m OK putting in some items that I will only use for that purpose, snacks are fine too). We tend to eat out of this box for park trips and everyday needs when we forget to grab things, but I keep extras in there for actual emergencies. I refresh it often.

I’m rummaging through cupboards but everything seems like it would be gross after being in a hot car. I’m not in Arizona or somewhere super hot, but even with temps in the 90s, cars get hot.

My insurance sent me a power station (Generac GB1000), to run my CPAP in case of power outages. (I didnt get to pick the one they sent.)

Im worried about night-time power outages happening after I fall asleep though. This power station doesnt have the UPS, power outage detection technology of the one I wanted.

Does anyone use one of these Generac power stations? What is your game plan if the power goes out when you're sleeping? I dont know what to do/expect and Im having anxiety about it.

Thank you!

Hey all, solo dev here.

A few weeks ago I posted over on preppers about a free app I built called PPantry. I built it because I was tired of trying to manage my deep pantry with spreadsheets, and I hated that every existing app either locked the barcode scanner behind a paywall or forced you to store your data on their cloud servers.

The response was genuinely overwhelming. A lot of people started using it, and thanks to their feedback, I’ve spent the last few weeks fixing bugs (like the iOS scrolling issue and some barcode dataset gaps) and stabilising everything.

Since also this sub is full of likeminded people, I figured it was time to share it here.

It is completely free forever. No tiers, no account required.

I’d love to know what think of it. What features am I missing?

I am hoping to find books that discuss topics along the lines of transition periods between regimes, food security during crisis/system shut down, deglobalization, ecosocialism, possible outcomes after the breakdown of capitalism, and resistance whithin a surveillance state.

I've read The End of the World is Just the Beginning but Peter Zeihan seemed a little haughty in his takes. Condescending, almost.

TIA!