Gail Gardner

Having the ability to keep your phone charged, ensure you don't lose $$$ of frozen food, power up your computer to let customers know your power is out, and just have some lights during power outages is a blessing. Solar generators have come a long, long way. Personally, I went with Jackery. But I found other quality brands I can add here in the future. I would recommend first looking at Jackery and the review videos of their products on YouTube. Then, if you want to expand your search, visit the video Best Solar Generator for 2024 (The Ultimate Guide) City Prepping 1.08M subscribers youtube.com/watch?v=d4XJM1nIjZ8 - don't miss his spreadsheet where he has specs for all the major solar generators for easier comparison.

I only source food from organic and grass-fed and finished small business brands. If they are owned by corporations, they shouldn't be on this list (but it sure is hard to keep up as many sell out eventually). See “Where to Order” as most of the products and brands you'll find here are available from either Vitacost online or Azure Standard or both. You can also buy them directly from the brand, but that only makes sense if you want them in bulk (due to minimum purchases required to get free shipping). Vitacost has free shipping for $50+ orders and a lot of promotions and discounts. Be sure to check their “Promo Pocket” tabs.NOTE: I only recommend brands and products owned by private or employee owned companies. But you can buy them through corporations which is sometimes the only local or online source if the brand doesn't retail their products online. And sadly, most brands price very high on their own sites because they don't want to compete with the retailers. For example, Chewy is publicly traded and 80% owned by private equity. Vitacost sold out to Kroger = corporate owned. The problem is they both are massive and have deals with shippers, so their prices are vastly lower than anywhere else.

Life is so much easier when you have quality small appliances you can count on. These are my favorites that I use all the time.

Finding American Made products still manufactured in the USA is really challenging. I'll share what I find here. And if you know of others, leave me a comment with the brand name so I can add them.