5 Inexpensive Nonfood Items To Add To Your Preps - Part 1

 

Along with food and water we need to consider some nonfood essentials to add to the prepper pantry.  I thought I'd go over some inexpensive and very affordable options, some of which you may already have around the house, in your garage or can acquire for not much money at all.  A nice thought given the current rate of inflation.

 

Soap 

Bar soap stores well and is very usable not just for washing our hands or bathing, but it can also be shaved and used for laundry and washing dishes.  Bars of soap can be purchased quite inexpensively.  Along with that consider watching the sales and looking for coupons in order to purchase other soap options as well.  I often am able to get dish soap or laundry detergent on sale with a digital coupon or even a paper one I print online.  Lately, however, I've gone back to making my own homemade laundry detergent.  Every once in a while I pick up an extra ingredient to add to my prepper pantry so when I run out I have plenty of supplies on hand to make more.  It lasts a good long time and my current recipes seems to work really well.

 

Oral Care 

Toothpaste, toothbrushes, dental floss or flossers, even mouthwash go on sale frequently as loss leaders.  I will use this opportunity to stock up on oral care items whenever they go on sale.  Adding a coupon shaves even more off the final cost of these items and there are a lot of paper coupons for oral care in the Sunday paper as well as online.  Look for multi packs of toothbrushes as this is typically a much less expensive option over buying singles.

 

Wipes/Sanitizer 

Watch the sales for baby or sanitizing wipes as well as sanitizer.  I will often find these on clearance and pick them up for pennies.  Wipes and hand sanitizer are great options to have on hand whenever water isn't available such as in the car or if the municipal water or your private well goes down.

 

Coffee Filters 

If you stocked up on coffee did you make sure you have filters?  After price comparing I picked up coffee filters at the dollar store, but I've also found them in clearance bins as well.  When they are on sale however, they are often less expensive than the dollar store, especially now that the dollar store is no longer just a dollar.  Save even more by making a one time investment in a reusable filter that you can dump and rinse out with a little water.  A coffee cone is a good option too for making your coffee when the power goes out.  Additionally, disposable coffee filters can also be used as filters for more than just coffee.

 

Foil/Food Storage Bags 

Having extra boxes of aluminum foil and various sizes of the zipper style food storage bags is a really good idea.  Aluminum foil of course can be used for cooking and wrapping food.  You can even make a makeshift pan out of it or line a pan in order to reduce clean up.  Zipper bags can be used to store food, divide up larger packages of food as well as storing many non food items.  I use zipper bags to put extra socks in to keep them dry on camping and hiking trips.  Matches and lighters too.  They also are very helpful for organizing items I want to keep together.

 

This is just a start to what should be kept in our prepper pantry along with food.  I'll be back soon with part two of this little series.  In the meantime watch the sales, search for coupons and check the dollar stores and clearance shelves to see what you can come up with.  And then let me know.  I really want to hear about what you find and how little it costs.