Episode 633 - The Debrief

After a week to assess SRF, today is the Great Debrief of the event. The good, the bad, the ugly, the money.

Live streams this week

• Tuesday Interview Show (Audio podcast on Sunday)
• Wednesday Live with Paul Wheaton
• Friday Homestead Happenings and Q & A

Tales from the Prepper Pantry

• Transition from storing to using has happened
• First frost of 2022
• Freeze dryer is back in action
• Preparing October Food Forest meals: Pulled pork, smoking home cured bacon, breakfast sausage, ground turkey for tacos, butternut squash soup, venison (More to come, as much from the Holler Homestead as possible)
• Bumper crop of chestnuts this year (How we store them)

Weekly Shopping Report for Powell, TN 10/03/2022

We made two trips this weekend. The first, on Saturday, was to three usual places, Dollar Tree, Home Depot, and Aldi.

Dollar Tree looked about the same, except less frozen and refrigerated foods. The Health aisle has not been restocked. There are still a lot of cotton pads (good to soak in wax for firestarters), bandaids, and some OTC meds, but the selection is dwindling. One section of food coolers remains Out of Order, but the other sections are now almost empty as well. The drink coolers still have a lot of product, and canned goods are still pretty full, even though it's mostly tier-2 brands.

At Home Depot, a 2x4x8 remains at $3.98. For the first time, we both noticed less selection on the tool wall, although we did find another pair of pliers. A lot of the tools are made in China, so I'd expect stock to continue dwindling as central warehouses are drawn down.

I don't remember any remarkable changes at Aldi, and we found what we wanted, escaping at just under $100 for the two of us plus the kitties.

I don't recall seeing any face-diapers on Saturday.

Today, we also made three stops. The first was Dollar General Market. Sonia did not find a large one-piece spoon she wanted (the prior one had just broken at the welds), but she found a small cast-iron piece for the toaster oven, and we added some apples and a small bag of potatoes. Stock looked okay, although they've got Christmas stuff out already, which is indecent. In line we were behind a couple of muzzled sheeple, but I don't remember seeing more.

Second was the recycle center; nothing special noted. Traffic seemed light.

The final stop was a different Dollar General, where Sonia found the spoon, and also a muffin pan for the toaster oven. The latter turned out to be slightly too big, so we used our tools and turned it into a 4- and a 2-muffin set. Looking through the food aisles, there were lots of holes, but we found a couple of boxes of angel hair pasta for $1 each; hopefully it is edible.

Untainted regular gasoline remains at $4.199, although I've seen the corrupted stuff as low as $2.999 now.

Frugality Tip

Eggdrop Soup for breakfast

Operation Independence

• SRF Made a profit for the first time!
• A word on the food forest budget
• Penny wise and pound fooling on water lines

Show Sponsor: Paul Wheaton - Launching a kickstarter tomorrow! Stay tuned.

Main topic of the Show: The Debrief

SRF is behind us and now it is time for the great event debrief.

Why SRF Exists

• Bridge the gap between prepper and homesteader so that we are all stronger together
• Master new skills
• Remove barriers and roadblocks that attendees have to choosing success
• Become a functioning and expanding counter economy to increase personal resilience

My personal involvement

• I get to invest my time in something that helps people 
• Replaces website development BU

The good

• 440 people
• 30 speakers
• 28 vendors
• Easy access to good food
• Showers, hand washing stations and the like (Better infrastructure)
• Raised $1700 for Darkhorse Lodge Veterans Retreat
• Music and fun
• Connections were made
• Better flow
• It made a profit

The bad

• Pre event communications needed to me steadier and faster
• Ticket sales was hard this round
• Event coordination team understaffed (Trade offs in my personal business)
• Speaker churn
• Content challenges (We missed the mark on what some attendees were there for: practical vs lifestyle)
• More vendors
• Better marketing needed

The Ugly

• Some internal tensions emerged
• We got so big I am no longer aware of exactly who I should be thanking and I want to fix that

The money

• I got to pay some people!
• There is profit, but this does not account for the last 3 events’ losses or John’s or my team’s time (about 4 months of man hours per event)

A year ago, this was a small event with a handful of people and we are 4X the size and achieving great things: new businesses, relationships, virtual attendance, creative participation, and moving people off the fear!

Thankful for all the help, the sponsors, the participants and the progress. 

Membership Plug

MeWe reminder

Make it a great week!

GUYS! Don’t forget about the cookbook, Cook With What You Have by Nicole Sauce and Mama Sauce. 

Community

• Mewe Group: https://mewe.com/join/lftn
• Telegram Group: https://t.me/LFTNGroup
• Odysee: https://odysee.com/$/invite/@livingfree:b

Advisory Board

• The Booze Whisperer
• The Tactical Redneck
• Chef Brett
• Samantha the Savings Ninja

Resources

• Membership Sign Up

• Holler Roast Coffee

• Harvest Right Affiliate Link