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Last Updated on October 10, 2021 by Natalie

I know disaster prep has a bad rap, which is rather unfortunate. I’ve had to do some minor disaster prep while living as an expat in Mexico and I do strongly recommend it for practical reasons. Let’s get into why being prepared is smart (and not crazy) and how to do some basic prep while living abroad.

Be prepared!

Disaster prep while living as an expat

Having been a resident of Mexico for the past 4 plus years, I’ve actually lived through a crisis of the government’s making. In January of 2019, there was suddenly a gas shortage throughout central Mexico. It didn’t affect coastal areas due to the different ways gas is brought into that area. However, it was a big, scary problem in Celaya (where we lived at that time) and it was also a big issue in Queretaro. I’ve wanted to write this post since this happened.

In Celaya, people were waiting in line for hours and hours trying to get gasoline for their cars. They’d wait all night, even though Celaya was dangerous even then. At the time, I only needed to fill my car up every 2-3 weeks because I could limit my driving to around 2-4 miles per day. My husband also had a much shorter commute than he does now, so didn’t have to fill his car as frequently.

During that crisis, we definitely had to plan ahead. We weren’t within comfortable walking distance to the large grocery stores. I have some dietary issues to take into consideration. Celaya was also considered a little dangerous at this time and got a lot worse during and after the gas crisis was over. We had to plan what to do if we were ever car-jacked because they became so common.

If you’re wondering, I kept my house key and wallet in my pockets and stopped carrying a purse. I prepped my kids on what to do in case it happened to us, which was get out of their seats and get themselves out of the car on the safest side as possible. And if I said get down, then get on the floor if I ended up trying to get us out of danger while using the car. We did know friends of friends who were car jacked, including some students from my children’s school. We actually had their car jackers behind us at a light and then dangerously passed us. They sped by at probably around 80-90 mph in a 50 mph zone.

The blessing was that we were in a small enough vehicle that we weren’t likely to be a victim, but since it happened to so many people, we had to know what to do just in case.

Additionally, I do know one person who was kidnapped. Fortunately, he was found/returned less than 48 hours later. I say this not to scare anyone, but just to be aware of the realities of life.

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⇒Here’s information about living in Queretaro, Mexico

First: Drinking water

Mexico is not known for having clean tap water. However, I’m pretty sure that the water here in Queretaro is potable. We still don’t drink it, due to the conditioning. We do use it to wash our fruits and vegetables, wash ourselves, and brush our teeth. Since we don’t drink it, we have drinking water delivered weekly. Right away, my husband insisted that we buy a lot of extra garafones (the name of the approximately 5-gallon jugs). We have 6 in our house at all times, usually only using 2 per week. I’ve actually had times where we’ve been out of town for the deliveries for enough weeks to get down to having half a garafone of water left and really appreciated that I didn’t have to lug them to the Oxxo down the street.

Also because we’ve had so many issues with water service in Queretaro, I really appreciate keeping extra drinking water on hand. Obviously, I’m not going to use drinking water to flush toilets, but again, it’s good to have a steady supply of clean water to drink.

Within Mexico, it is best to make sure the house in which you are living also has a cistern. We were told ours does, but it clearly only has the tank on the roof. In Celaya, we had both the cistern and the roof tank and we never ran out of water in the 3 years we lived there.

Second: Food

As soon as we found out that there was a gas shortage in January, 2019, my husband went to Costco and spent about $400-$500 USD on non-perishable food. We knew if we didn’t have gas to get to the store, the convenience stores within (easy) walking distance were going to get cleaned out of food. We didn’t know if there would be interruptions in deliveries to stores, either. There were a lot of “what ifs.”

We chose to buy items like granola bars, dried potato flakes, peanut butter, and the like. I have some specific dietary needs and we also stocked up on items that I’d be able to eat, too.

Additionally, at the beginning of the “pandemic,” we did a similar thing. We actually bought of lot of regular pasta and canned items. I have to eat gluten free, but having things on hand that the rest of the family can eat leaves our gluten free items available for me. We did this because of the “Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020” – it wasn’t nearly as bad here, as we were able to get what we needed without an issue. However, we didn’t know what interruptions were going to happen. Of course, it also seems like the supply chain interruptions are gathering steam in 2021 due to ongoing BS caused in many cases by the world’s governments.

While I’m at a point where I need to be thinking about our move back to the US, which isn’t going to include food, we still have plenty of shelf stable options in our pantry. As we wind down our time living here, we will start eating as much of the pantry items as we can. When we leave, we will be blessing my cleaning lady with a lot of extra food if she wants it.

Let’s be clear. Don’t panic buy items. Add a little extra as you can with each trip and just so you have enough for a few weeks, if you need it.  Since I’m not buying freeze dried 25-year shelf life items, I will buy more and use things we have to keep items from expiring before use. If I knew we’d be staying on longer, I’d seriously consider looking for those types of long term items to have on hand just in case.

We did panic buy a little bit, but again, it was canned items, pasta, and the like. Since before this, I wasn’t buying regular, wheat and gluten filled pasta, we wanted to have these things on hand for those in my family who can eat it. I consider this emergency food for us.

Another reason for keeping extra food and water on hand are natural disasters

Even if we weren’t a bit concerned about supply chain interruptions, natural disasters can happen anywhere. Recently, there have been floods in other parts of Queretaro and nearby towns (September/October 2021). Some people have been without power for a bit. In the US, we’ve seen some disasters knock areas for a loop. Heck, even in Ohio, there have been snowstorms that wreak havoc for a few days. A few days isn’t even that bad and it’s still worth it to not have to go panic buy at the stores with empty shelves before inclement weather.

Before we moved here, an acquaintance of mine named Melissa offered to take care of our dogs for 6 weeks. We needed to have them somewhere else while we packed up our items, finished fixing up our house, and completed the actual move. Another friend drove them all the way from Columbus, Ohio to Nuevo Leon, Mexico. I will be forever grateful to both people for helping us with our dogs because our dogs were so important to us.

Melissa had lived in Japan for a few years and was there during the earthquake and tsunami that disabled the Fukushima Daiichi reactors back in 2011. Though I don’t have a lot of details about her story, I do know that it was a difficult time to live through and again, highlights the need to at least keep a few things on hand in order to get your family through tough times.

Other things to think about while prepping for disaster

Refrigeration

I haven’t given this a huge amount of thought, other than having shelf stable items available. I only started thinking about this recently because I stumbled across a young couple living off-grid in the temperate rain forest in Canada (yeah, I didn’t realize this was a thing, either). In the video I first watched, they’d just gotten a fridge that could run off a solar battery. That led me down the rabbit of hole of life without a fridge. Due to the age of my parents, I’m really only a generation away from people who lived without a fridge. My father still remembers ice blocks being delivered via horse wagon to the few people who still had ice boxes in their homes. Of course, by the 1940s, most people did have refrigerators. They still canned a lot of their own food, though.

I found it fascinating, though I still can’t imagine not being fridge dependent.

For those embarking on their expat journey, they may want to think about alternative options even just for a short term stint without power. We’ve been fortunate to only have a few, short times without power (the most recent on having been a scheduled outage for some repairs to the lines around us), but every expat I know has experienced power outages and water outages while living in Mexico.

Cooking

The great thing about living in central Mexico is that we really haven’t had to worry much about this. We have house gas delivered as needed, so our stove is functional as long as we have the house gas. Additionally, we have a charcoal grill AND a traditional wood grill we purchased from an expat who decided to not take it back to the US (their loss is our huge gain).

It’s worth thinking about just in case!

Preparations specific to Mexico

The advantage of living so many years in Mexico before having to deal with any types of concerns is that I became aware that the food supply chain is different here than in the US. Routinely, I am unable to get gluten free bread. Whenever it was in stock, I’d buy at least three loaves. In fact, specialty products like that weren’t available every week in Celaya. I found that gluten free bread was always available in Queretaro, though on my most recent trip to the store, they didn’t have any of the brand I buy (Bimbo, which is made in Mexico and therefore about half the price of the breads available in the frozen food section).

In Mexico, there are often items that don’t show up leaving empty shelves for some products. I’ve always been able to get regular bread, tortillas, chips, eggs, and milk. Most of the common veggies and fruits are always available. I’ve also noticed that where I shop in Queretaro seems to have less of these issues than I encountered in Celaya.

I’ve also never encountered an empty grocery store; only grocery stores with some empty shelves because the products didn’t arrive that week.

Disaster prep while living as an expat is smart

It makes sense to have done some disaster prep no matter where you live. You don’t have to try to live off-grid and you don’t necessarily have to prepare for a long term life like that. Disasters are going to happen – we just don’t know where and when, which is why taking responsibility for oneself and family is always a good idea. I recommend having enough food to last your family anywhere from a few weeks to a few months, and as much drinking water as you can comfortably store. It also helps to have a way to purify water without power. We don’t have the latter, as our water filter requires power.

Additionally, having a way to prepare food is important.

It’s a great idea to have a plan for refrigeration. We do have a Yeti cooler (similar to this one) that can keep things cold for a few days if we have an ice source.

Another great thing about Mexico is that eggs aren’t refrigerated here. We keep ours on the countertop for a few weeks and haven’t had any issues with them going bad before we have had the chance to use them. Okay, I’ve experienced one VERY ROTTEN egg recently after over 4 years here but that was a fluke and had nothing to do with the lack of refrigeration.

Quick tip: If the egg shell is stuck in the carton, let that egg go. Don’t eat any cracked eggs (unless you know you caused the crack and you cook that egg immediately).

Disaster prep list of foods

Before getting into our list, I recommend buying items you like and will actually want to eat. Of course, in an extreme survival situation, you’ll eat what you have to that won’t specifically kill you due to an allergy. Most of our situations likely won’t be that extreme, so keep mostly things you know you’ll somewhat enjoy.

Here’s a quick wrap of the foods we’ve purchased specifically for prepping for the unknown:

• Dried beans
• Dried lentils
• Dried split peas
• Shelf stable milk (which we use all the time anyway)
• Peanut butter
• Granola bars
• Dried fruit
• Potato flakes in bulk
• Rice (in dried form, not already prepared)
• Pasta (both regular and gluten free due to dietary restrictions)
• Almonds, cashews, other nuts
• Granola
• Canned goods (usually gluten free)
• Cereals
• Popcorn kernels
• Canned chicken
• Shelf stable meat like cochinita pibil (a pork dish from the Yucatan that’s SO good)

We also always use coconut oil in bulk, too. I also cook beef and chicken in bulk and then freeze it in portions that are enough for the dishes I make often (like spaghetti, shepherd’s pie, and chicken soup). This is fine as long as we have power. Additional items I like to keep on hand are vinegar, peroxide, and bleach.

If I could find canned beef, I’d have a few cans of that on hand, too. That’s something that’s available in the USA for those who are expats or disaster prepping there.

Long Term Shelf Stable items

Here are some products that I ordered and sent to my parents’ house to have on hand when we return:

Augason Farms Dried Whole Egg Product

The only ingredient is egg, so this is safe for my food concerns. Additionally, it’s a protein that unopened has a 10 year shelf life. It can also be used while camping. To me, it makes sense to have multiple sources of protein, plus eggs are versatile. They can be eaten scrambled or used to bake other items.

Since we don’t have any egg allergies in our family, this product made sense to have on hand. It’s also something I’d absolutely use while camping, too.

Purchase me!

 

Augason Farms Vegetable Stew Blend

This is another item I grabbed because even though vegetables can be easy to grow and can, you never know when you’re going to have a bummer growing year. I see this can being useful and easy for camping, too.

Additionally, this item has a 25 year shelf life, so you can put it into your dedicated food storage area and kind of forget it exists until you need it.

Purchase me!

 

Mountain House Rice & Chicken

I bought this because it’s gluten free, plus I usually like rice and chicken. I also figured it would be easy to prepare and you don’t actually have to open several containers at once. I think it would be easy to bring camping, too.

It also has a 30 year shelf life.

Purchase me!

 

Mountain House Diced Beef

I haven’t ordered this yet, even though I think it’s super important to have plenty of protein options for disaster situations (or camping). It has a 30 year shelf life, which is awesome and useful.

The only reason I haven’t purchased it yet is because of budget restraints. We also do have dried beans for protein in a pinch. However, it’s next on my list and I thought it was worth adding to this list.

Purchase me!

 

Freeze dried meals

I also bought a handful of freeze dried meals. As they are gluten free, they were pretty expensive to purchase more than a few at a time. Here’s the page where you can see a large variety of meals that can be purchased for camping or disaster prep. I love how they are smaller and can be opened as needed. Once a can is opened, you have to keep working on eating it until you’ve finished it.

It makes sense to prepare for a disaster

Though “preppers” and “survivalists” have a bad rap for being “crazy,” after seeing the natural disasters that happen around the world, it makes sense to prepare as much as possible. In Ohio, it’s not unheard of to have a winter storm that knocks out power for a few days. In other parts of the world, rain, tornadoes, hurricanes, or earthquakes can wreak havoc. Even just having clean drinking water available can help save your lives until the emergency responders are able to get to you.

Supply chain interruptions are happening right now. It seems to be mostly a problem for  things like car replacement parts or those chips for new cars, but eventually, that might filter down to grocery stores. With car and truck repairs taking weeks longer than normal due to lack of parts, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility to see interruptions in deliveries while waiting for trucks to be repaired.

No, I don’t think everything is going to break completely down. I do believe there will be delays and that may make some people uncomfortable in the short term.

In conclusion

If nothing else, keep extra water and some extra dry goods on hand. You may be keeping yourself alive or have the ability to help someone else in dire circumstances. You can take disaster prep while living as an expat as far or as little as you want. Do what you think is the correct amount. If you have the space and the budget to keep 3-6 months worth of food and water, you can do it. If you can only have a week or two worth of items of water, that’s okay, too.

Be smart about your preparations and don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. You don’t need to rush out and buy everything in this post. It’s okay to stock up here and there, especially as winter approaches. Maybe you want to have just one or two cans of long term shelf life food available. Or maybe just enough to get through a week using regular canned goods is enough.

Have you done disaster prep while living as an expat? Please tell me about your experiences and/or plans. Please leave a comment. Thank you!

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