As I have jumped into this preparedness project and felt the nudge to share it here, I went back and forth between feeling like this is so dated. So archaic. However, it was a few weeks ago when I came across someone discussing the subject of preparedness and self-reliance when it clicked. She said, “it’s about being old-fashioned on purpose”. And goodness gracious, that hit me. And it’s written on my heart over the past three years to make this a priority in our life. So today I wanted to share about preparedness and creating a recipe binder. 

*Shoves feelings of being that old-school blogger to the side

This was a project that jumped to the top of my list ever since our family went through Blair’s diagnosis back in May (I feel like a broken record in this space and bringing it up so much, but man, it really affected so many areas of our life). Anyway, because dietary needs have adjusted in our home it requires a more thoughtful and detailed approach to cooking. There are recipes that I have cooked for years and know like the back of my hand. However, with this lifestyle change, I now have to rely on recipes for everything we cook. With constant adjusting, substituting, and counting I can’t imagine not being able to access the recipes that I currently have bookmarked, pinned on Pinterest, and saved in apps.

A heart for preparedness

With being properly prepared and self-reliant, there is a desire to be able to function just as we need to without an internet connection. I think we have become so accustomed to just having these things available and working that we cannot fathom them not being around. However, the grid is extremely vulnerable just like anything else. And the past two years have reminded us of this. A hack that shut down gas pipelines, a winter storm in Texas that took out all power, to situations being manufactured to cause disruption. We see it happen in other countries all the time and we are not immune to the same issues here in the United States.

I value technology and use it daily. However, I refuse to rely on it so much that I am unable to function in my daily life without it. I will not be in a situation where I cannot control the things I need to. And when I really sat down to go through my days and what I turn to in order to function, it was very eye-opening to me to list all the ways technology is part of that. This is why preparedness is written on my heart in this season. It’s one of the blessings, I believe, that has come from current events.

And preparedness begins with stepping out of complacency. It begins when we stop looking at it with a superior attitude and get honest with what our family’s true needs are. It begins with living old-fashioned on purpose.

A family project

With that being said, I wanted to share with you how we are tackling this area in our home. For starters, I spent some time creating a recipe page template for a few reasons. One, the index-style recipe cards never had enough space for me. I’ve never cared for them. Also, I needed to have more space to add nutritional information. Our family needs to specific details for everything we eat. And lastly, I wanted to include a photo for each recipe page. Because, even in preparedness, we can still make it look good – wink!

And don’t worry, I am sharing the same template with you. Keep reading.

Once I had the template created, I enlisted the help of my girls to help me out. They have been pulling recipes from all of our spots that we save them and creating a page for each one. We are then simply adding them to a large binder and I am separating them into sections just using divider tabs. Once we have more accomplished, I will update this post with a few more visuals.

Eventually, I dream of a library-bound heirloom-style book to print of our family’s recipes to gift myself and my daughters. In the meantime, though I want to make sure that we are properly prepared. And that means doing things a little old-school. Collecting recipes, printing them off on our home printer, and adding them to a binder. Call me old-fashioned because I am wearing that title with pride these days.

We are also currently printing anything informational that we have stored on internet browsers. I have also been actively purchasing books to have on hand as well. Anything that we would look up for information, I want in hard copy form. I’m working on curating a list of resources and books to share as well. I’m also working on creating an emergency preparedness section to my Amazon affiliate page to share the supplies our family has been gathering so stay tuned!

I hope you find this helpful and I hope it inspires you in your home.

You can download my printable recipe page for yourself right here. Simply use a PDF editor, your computer’s writing program, or Photoshop Elements to add your recipes and print.

Have you been working on preparedness? What has been the most eye-opening thing that inspired you to get started?