Saving Money vs. Saving Time
There are two kinds of "prepping" sites: the ones run by men and the ones run by women.
The men focus on guns. The women focus on groceries.
The men happily recommend spending fortunes on guns. The women, having almost no money in their budgets because their husbands bought another gun this month, focus on saving money.
The women's sites are useful for the rest of us, but they have this in common: they show women how to save money at the expense of spending hours shopping and clipping coupons.
Prepping women seem to place little value on their time. If they have no money, they have no choice. But it might be better to start a home business than to save so much money.
If they teach their kids how to shop, I'm all or it. If they teach them to stay out of debt, that's good. The younger you are, the more reasons for you to shop smart. But as you age, and your money income rises, you must learn how to budget your time.
Here is a prepper's guide to smart shopping. If you are short of money and long on time, this list works.
The more valuable your time, the more careful you must be with regard to saving money at the expense of time. You can't get back lost time.
Don't be a homeschool mother who spends 20 hours a week teaching, when you could spend one hour a week by using video-based lessons. Recycling textbooks saves money, but if it eats up your time, don't do it unless you really are as poor as a church mouse.