This week’s Friday Five from PreppingToSurvive, brings you a couple of good tips for saving money and adding to your larder. Here’s what we’re reading:
Save Money While Washing Clothes
Tired of paying through the nose for washing detergent? What if you could save 98% on the costs of laundry detergent by making your own using easily three found ingredients? If you go through as much detergent as our family, the annual savings could really add up. From Busy At Home.
It’s a Bleak Outlook for Bees; Monsanto Buys Bee Research Firm
Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. We’ve learned the hard way that this applies to nature as well as to motion. When man introduces a new species into an environment, unintended consequences (usually bad) are sure follow. So it is with GMOs. The bee population is suffering and according to a leading bee research firm, it’s directly due to GMOs. So GMO giant Monsanto decided to buy the research firm. I don’t expect we’ll hear anymore of the equal but opposite reaction of nature. From Natural News.
Boston University Economist Warns of Dangerous Deficit Growth
According to Laurence Kotlikoff, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap rose by $11 trillion last year; that’s 10 times larger than the official deficit reported. The government cannot continue outspending revenue indefinitely. Unfortunately the answer isn’t pretty: hiking taxes by 64% or cutting spending by 40%. Congress doesn’t have the stomach for either. From Bloomberg.
Jokes Aside, Duct Tape Can Be a Prepper’s Friend
There’s no shortage of jokes about duct tape and rednecks, but don’t let that stop you. Keeping a roll or two of duct tape in your bug-out-bag is a good idea. This article entitle 15 Ways Duct Tape Could Save Your Life lists just a few of the good uses of duct tape for the prepper or survivalist. There are many more. Got duct tape? From The Ready Store.
If you believe the mainstream media, America is slowly recovering from a recession. But a recent survey of Americans revealed that 20% didn’t have enough money to put food on their family table at some point over the past 12 months. That’s 1 in 5 during a time when over 48.5 million people are on food stamps. And with this summer’s drought, things are not looking up. From SHTFPlan.com.
What are you reading?
PreppingToSurvive.com 
August 31, 2012 at 8:08 am
I just read “The Harbinger” by Jonathan Kahn. It is fiction but with lots of documentation from speeches in Congress and at Ground Zero that all goes back to how the Israelites defied God and how America is now following the same path with their “I can do it by myself” mentality. I can remember when the school morning started with a Bible verse and now I see how far we have fallen as a nation since we removed prayer in school
The book is a narrative between the main character and a modern day prophet who is showing him how America is following the same path. At one point they are discussing about the fall of the Israelites when they turned to other gods even sacrificing their children to appease the gods. The main character made the comment that at least we (Americans) didn’t do that. The prophet asked him what he thought abortion was. I had never thought of it in that way but is is sacrificing the child in most cases for selfish goals and reasons. Whatever the reason – that reason becomes the god at that time.
After reading the back of the book at Wal-Mart twice, I wasn’t sure it was something I wanted to read because it talks about omens and signs. I bought it after the third visit to the store. I noticed that it was the best selling Christian fiction so I thought it might be worth reading. After I started it, it was so filled with documentation of how like them we are. I slowed down when I was almost finished with the book because I was concerned that the author was going to tell be how America would end. Let me just say that the author surprised me with the ending. It wasn’t what I was expecting.
The book is all about how we (individually and as a nation) need to repent and depend on God. It is based on Isaiah 9:10 and if you read that Scripture you won’t think it has anything to do with what is happening but if you dig deeper (as the author did) you will see the similarities.
I am not saying we don’t need to prepare for future bad days because we do. God isn’t going to allow us to continue on the road we are following and hard times are going to get even harder. He has allowed preppers to encourage one another and to prepare to care for their families through this sharing of knowledge.
It is one of the best books I’ve read in a long time and I highly recommend it.
August 31, 2012 at 9:38 am
Thanks, Beck! We’ll have to check it out.