Dear Readers:  I’d like to turn to you for some thoughts and advice on this.

Here’s the situation.  We live in a lovely condo in a planned community alongside a river. We’ve been here without difficulty for six years.  Last year, a large rain storm  flooded the river, and damaged an earthen dam upriver from us critically.

So here’s where we’re at.  Round-the-clock, we hear tractors filling 400,000 two-ton sandbags and placing them on top of the levy near our home. Those will be covered with plastic, and the plastic will have another berm of smaller sandbags to give the levy another 10 feet in elevation since the dam cannot hold as much water back.

In the event of  ”overtopping” (water spilling over the new, higher levy), we are predicted to get moderate flooding (about 5 feet of water).  Our condo is a 2nd story unit, so other than our garge, we’d have minimal damage.

In the event of a total dam failure upstream, we’re expected to have “total, catastrophic flooding.” 

We’ve got flood insurance, and a place to stay as long as we need to (thanks mom!) and enough in our emergency fund to cover our insurance deductibles, and enough insurance to cover our needs.

image credit: Freedigitalphotos.net

We also have a room-by-room evacuation plan and we’ll be drilling on it soon (so the kids and I can get the house ready and evacuate within a short period of time in case my husband isn’t home when the time comes). 

We’ve stacked up giant garbage bags–so as we leave, the bedding in each room can be stuffed into a bag, tied up and stacked on the beds.  The pets can be packed up and taken to grandma’s house, and everyone has all of their needs met.

So–if you were in my house, what would you be doing to get ready?  What valuables/sentimental items should I be thinking of having out of the house entirely? We’ve got the “grab bag” of emergency documents (insurance, adoption documents, etc) and the backup hard drive on the list.

If you’ve been through disaster like this–I’d love your ideas, especially if they’re frugal or if they’ll save resources as we prepare to get back on our feet afterwards.

Thanks in advance! (PS: We’ve already thought of selling the house, but as you might have imagined, the market is…umm… saturated).

One last note: the dam upstream from us will be replaced in five years, so we may not be out of the woods until then.

I’d learned about using a Price Book first from The Tightwad Gazette, but also found this great post on the topic at another great blog, No Credit Needed. 

I’m going to refer you to NCN’s template for this as I think it’s as good as you’ll find.  You may also consider keeping your price-book on a PDA in MS Excel mobile file.

I began by printing off 35 of the sheets from the NCN blog, and pulling out a month’s worth of grocery receipts to get started.

This helps for a couple of reasons:

1. You can see seasonal trends, for instance the price of turkey is far lower in November than in May.
2. You can track stores for individual products. For instance, I know I save 30% by buying my daughter’s “Good Nites” disposable diapers at a liquidator store rather than the local grocery store (I don’t care if they have last season’s floral patterns).  Note: Please don’t harp on me for not using washable diapers for our tot. We’ve tried, but haven’t found one she won’t soak through… the laundry alone was costing us far more than disposables are, and I shudder to think of how much water we were using!

We’re splitting our shopping and price checking between a few sources:

1. Our regular grocery store, Win-Co which is likely familiar to West coast shoppers.
2. A local liquidator for non-food items.
3. A catalog food company, Azure Standard, for organic products, whole foods, staples, grains and really yummy organic cheeses.

Keeping all the prices on the price book (a 3-ring binder) provides us the guidance we need to plan menus within budget, and pick up the right products at the right stores.

Also, I use this for my business—tracking paper costs, printer toner and Post-It flags that I use in my business in large quantities. My printer toners are usually about $144 each, but I found them for $89 each from Inksmile (an advertiser here at Penny-Wi$e Family).  Rather than buying paper at the local office store, I’ve found better prices at the Kinko’s/Fedex store, and the local K-Mart.

Just got this coupon in my email today. I thought I’d pass it along in case any readers wear contacts.