How to Prepare for Inflation at Home: 5 Must-Have Items

Being so reliant on going to the grocery store is a habit to change. As we saw in 2020, what happens if you go to the grocery store and those shelves are empty? You can buy things that will avoid you having to deal with something like that.

1. Chickens

Chickens are more valuable than money in the bank because they can produce eggs for you over and over again. If I had $100 sitting in the bank or $100 worth of chickens, I would get a greater return on my investment with chickens because I'll have eggs for years to come, which are worth more than $100. 

The eggs are better than the eggs you'll get from the grocery store because they're healthier and full of more protein and nutrients than eggs you will get from the store. 

2. Solar panels

We have a solar power grid for our trailer that I built several years ago on our homestead. There are two solar panels, batteries, a power inverter, and an old trailer that Jen and I bought from a farm auction. 

This has been powering our dog kennel, Evergreen Dog Retreat, and it's been powering it now for over three years. We have no electricity going here. We've had no electric bill. If we needed to go off-grid, we could move this up to the house, and it would give us power.

3. Rainwater collector

We have a rainwater collector. Rainwater comes down from the roof into the collector. If your grid is down and you can't get water out of your well, or you can't go to the store and buy water, we have these to provide us with water. 

We have four of them. In a grid-down situation, we can boil and run the water through the water filter.

4. Wood stove

A wood stove will heat our entire house. In a grid-down situation, this will keep us warm. You need firewood to fill it, which is much easier to find and heat with than propane. Our current stove will go 3 hours with one fill. Our new one will go for 12 hours.

5. Long-term food storage

Flour in a sealed, air-free Mylar bag that will last years. In a grid-down situation, you can always use flour. You can also store rice and sugar long-term.

If the grocery stores ever have empty shelves, or you can't rely on a third party for one reason or another, having these items on hand will be a godsend. For long-term food storage for dry goods, all you need are mylar bags and oxygen absorbers.

The food gets placed in the Mylar bags, sealed, then placed in a lidded bucket with oxygen absorbers around it. The food will last for years this way. Make sure you write the date on each package.

Another source of long-term food storage is canned foods. As long as it's not dented or bulging, you can open a can up years from now and eat it. If you buy in bulk, you can always have a good amount of canned goods to survive on. Plus, buying canned goods at today's prices will help you to prepare for inflation down the road.

How to prepare for inflation at home

Preparing for inflation or the unexpected is a good idea because you will use the items you store anyway, whether it's a grid down, a pandemic, or just inflation you're dealing with. Let me know what you think of these tips in the comments below.