I’m not the most expert on coupon clipping or bargain hunting, but I have done a lot of researching and studying of products and items in the last year for preparedness.  I thought I would share what I personally have found, in the event that it is helpful for anyone else. Please also realize that the things I was researching and purchasing have been what I felt was a need for my family and our preps.  Yours might be different.

TIPS For When Purchasing Items through Amazon and other places online

REVIEWS: I always check the reviews, and more notably the “verified purchase” reviewers as I feel that they are more genuine being they really did purchase the product.  Reviews are essential to me.  They have steered me from products that I might have purchased by warning me of issues or problems with it, and helped me understand if the item would fulfill what I need it to. QUESTIONS: I look through the questions about the product on Amazon. I can find great information about the product from questions answered. Many times questions I never thought to ask are addressed, which is great. COMPARE PRICES: I always check for lower prices. I Google products to see if another seller has them lower priced, and I check with other Amazon sellers. I consider the cost of shipping vs. the free shipping that being an “Amazon Prime” customer offers. I also check local selling sites like Craig’s list and the online classifieds. Sometimes I find great deals that way. SHIPPING FROM OVERSEAS: I checkfor sellers that are shipping from abroad. Sometimes there is a great price on an item, and it’s because it is shipping from Hong Kong or China making the wait time to receive it up to a month or longer. Many sellers abroad can and do ship fairly quickly.  However, I did run in to a seller from China that I never received the items and they refunded and even resent the items as a gift for my trouble – yet I didn’t get those resent either. Although I got my money back, I wasted over a month waiting for the items. PRIORITIZE: When trying to get prepared, it’s easy to jump on the band wagon and try and get all the things you want in random order. I found that focusing on one thing at a time, or even a few things in different areas at a time helped me from making rash purchases. Start with the essentials for your family, what is absolutely most important. BUYING GROUPS: If you can get in a buying group for items you need, you can save a lot of money from the discount. For example: Myhusband and I were looking at the Disc-O-Bed Bunk cots on Amazon. The price was close to $350. Then we found a buying group purchase opportunity that has saved us about $100. Per set of bunk cots. That’s a big savings.

While this list below isn’t all comprehensive, it will give you an idea of items I have researched and found worth purchasing.

Books

– This is so comprehensive, whether you are of the LDS faith or not, this is an incredible resource for preparedness! There is a free PDF version available online, but it doesn’t show all the hundreds of pages, and we opted to buy the physical copy so we could really “use” it and take it with us.

– I need a cookbook on how to make meals from all my food storage.  After looking through several books, this one seemed like it would be the most helpful for me and I liked the reviews on it, so I got it.

– This is a thick pocket sized little book with tons of valuable information. I’m glad I have it!

by W. Cleon Skousen – I felt this book was (and is) important to have on hand for my family to study about our country from a source that I trust. The 28 principles of freedom from our Founding Fathers are taught in this book (and unfortunately not taught in our public school system). I feel these are imperative to understand and teach our children to one day save our country and restore the constitution as God intended. In that way, I consider this a Preparedness book!

First Aid and Health Books