The First 12 Things a New Prepper Should Do – A Refresher for the Rest of Us

Are you relatively new to preparedness?  I’ve seen it in Facebook groups.  People get into a prepper group, and the first thing they do is ask – “Where do I even begin?”  It can feel SO OVERWHELMING!  I mean, water storage, food storage, every day carry (EDC), bug-out bags, even bug-out vehicles!!  Just listing off some of the topics that confront new preppers can leave a seasoned prepper feeling overwhelmed.

If you missed the first article in this series, you can find it here.   The First 11 Things a New Prepper Should Learn.

Let’s Ditch the Overwhelm!

Whether you’re a new prepper or a veteran, today, I want to walk you through the first twelve things any prepper should do – and I want to give you some helps to accomplish them!

1.)  Inventory what you have.

The best way to know what you need to go through what you already have.  Sometimes, you don’t even know exactly what to look for when you’re beginning, so I’ve created a Beginning Prepper Inventory for you.  It’s NOT exhaustive, but it hits the basics.  It will make seeing what you have and what you still need so much easier!!  If you like the Beginning Prepper Inventory, sign up for my newsletter.  You can find it in the right sidebar.  I have an entire library with other preparedness printables similar to the Beginning Prepper Inventory.

2.)  For what are you preparing? 

It sounds silly that I’m telling you that this is one of the top few things that new preppers need to do, but it’s going to play into the next thing that I tell you to do.  Grab a piece of paper and a pen OR use the back of one of the Inventory sheets.  I want you to list the things for which you are preparing.  Please don’t start with “I’m preparing for everything,” or “I’m preparing for TEOTWAWKI” (The End Of The World As We Know It).  Start with events like…..”I’m preparing for a winter snowstorm.”  You could be preparing for anything from that snowstorm to a summer power outage, to a job loss, wildfires, tornados, or even riots.  Make your list and then order it from the most likely thing to happen to the least likely thing to happen.

3.)  Develop your priority purchase list.

What is a priority purchase list?  It’s a list filled with items that your family needs (like the items you don’t have checked on the Beginning Prepper Inventory), but put in priority of what you need to purchase first.  So go through the entire Inventory again.  You’ve already checked off everything that you have.  Now, cross off anything that you don’t need.

For example, if you live in southern Florida, you probably don’t need a fireplace or wood-burning stove to keep your family warm.  Even on a cold evening in southern Florida, you can probably keep your family warm by using sleeping bags.

Once you’ve checked off what you don’t have, you need to decide of what’s left what is MOST important.

Once you’ve gone through the entire list, I want you to look back at what you are preparing for from #2.  Maybe you don’t have a camp stove checked off but you have no other way to cook food.  Whether you are looking at a snowstorm or power outage, you probably need a way to cook and a camp stove may be the cheapest way to get there. That should be high on your priority list.

Go through and put a number by each thing in order of the importance of whether or not you’re going to buy it soon.  So a #1 is the first thing that you plan to buy but a #15 is something that you don’t need right away.

NOW put these items onto your electronic grocery list app.  If you don’t have one, I highly recommend the free version of Cozi.  It’s a calendar and list app for phones.   I do subscribe to the paid version with all the bells and whistles, but the free version works well.  Why should you put these in your grocery list app?  Because the next time you’re at Wal-Mart or Costco, if you see a great buy on camp stoves or flashlights you can check your list and see if either of those are a high priority for your family.

4.) Clean and fill jugs and/or containers with water.

Most of the time people focus on food first.  I’m here to tell you that water is WAY important!  The awesome news though, is that you probably have tons of items in your house in which you can store water.

Does your family drink soda?  Whether it’s the 16.9 oz bottles or 2 liters, you can use them.  Clean them with soap and water.  Disinfect them with a little bleach.  Then fill the bottles NOT QUITE FULL.  Once you’ve done that, if you have space in your freezer, pop them in!

There’s a method to my madness.  If you ever need water, you can always take the bottles out of the freezer to use for drinking water.  If, however, you lose power, those frozen soda bottles filled with water can keep your freezer cold longer!  How “COOL” is that!

But there are so many other items that you can fill with water.  If you have glass jugs with lids, you can use those to fill with water (after cleaning and disinfecting).  Any food grade bottles can be cleaned, disinfected, and used for water storage.  Fill what you can find now, and as you use up bottles, just make a habit of using them to store water.

5.)  Create a 72-hour food storage kit.

Everyone, even a new prepper, should have a 72-hour kit which includes food, water, and other necessities for 72 hours (three days).  This way if you ever do get hit with that ice storm, you already have food and water gathered.  You don’t have to stress about how you are going to take care of your family.

But instead of running out and buying three days worth of food, you can do this without spending a dime.  I’ve created a FREE resource called “The Fast and Easy Food Storage Solution.”  It’s a complete guide that takes you from nothing but your pantry to up to two weeks worth of organized food storage in 30 minutes.

6.)  Print out a list of important phone numbers. 

Many of us, new prepper or seasoned prepper alike, are addicted to our smart devices.  This has various consequences, but one of them is that we no longer memorize a lot of phone numbers like we used to.  Write out a list of important phone numbers for both yourself and your children.  Make several copies.  Give one to everyone in your family to put in their wallets, and post them inside a kitchen cabinet.

What should you include:

• Mom’s and Dad’s phone numbers
• Kids phone numbers
• Grandparents phone numbers
• Police non-emergency number
• Electric company’s number
• Gas company’s number
• Water company’s number
• Insurance company’s number
• Emergency out of area contact’s number

Not familiar with that last one?  If there’s ever an emergency and people are separated, oftentimes, you can’t get a line through to people inside the same calling area because everyone is trying to call one another.  You need to have an out of area contact.  For us, it’s my father-in-law.  If something were to happen and we weren’t able to contact each other directly, my husband and my children know that they should call their father or grandfather respectively.  He can relay information to other people about who is safe and where they are.  You should have an emergency out-of-area contact as well.

7.)  Print out CPR and Heimlich Maneuver cheat sheets

Whether or not you’ve taken a CPR class, this is really important.  In an emergency, it’s so easy to forget important information when it’s been a long time since you’ve gone over it.  If you print out CPR and Heimlich Maneuver cheat sheets, if anything happens, you’ll be a step ahead.  Post these on the inside of one of your kitchen cabinets and make sure everyone knows where it is.

8.)  Change your fire alarm and carbon monoxide alarm batteries.

How long has it been since you’ve changed your fire alarm and carbon monoxide batteries?  It will do you no good to start preparing if you aren’t around to use it because you had a house fire or a carbon monoxide leak.  It’s simple and you probably already have the batteries to use.  If you don’t put them on your grocery list (remember Cozi?) now.

9.)  Go over fire safety rules with your family and run a fire drill.

Don’t know what fire safety rules to go over?  Some of the basic rules include:

• Sleep with the door shut.
• When a fire alarm is going off, always touch the door with the back of your hand before opening it.  If the door (or doorknob are hot, don’t open the door).
• When you move to try to escape a fire – stay as low as possible.  Smoke rises, and if you stay low, it will be easier to breathe.
• Have two ways out of each room.  Walk the house with your kids and talk about the two ways to escape each room.
• Establish a meeting place outside your house in the case of a fire.  You don’t want to go back into a burning house to save a child that is already out and standing in the backyard but didn’t know to come out front to meet you.
• Stop, Drop, and Roll

Want more tips on how to prepare your family for a potential house fire?  You can check out this article here.

If you want to really run a fire drill without waiting for “a right time,” ask your friend to set an alarm on her phone to call you and say, “Fire Drill.”  You never know what time he or she will call, so it gives you and your kids a chance to practice during living life.

10.)  Fill out a Child Information Worksheet for each child you have.

We’ve developed a Child Information Worksheet which is just one item in our printable library.  You get access to it when you sign up for our newsletter.

Why should you fill one out for each child of yours?   If heaven forbid – something happened to one of your children, having a current picture of your child, their fingerprints, a strand of hair, identifying marks, etc will help get your child back faster than if you have to look for each of the items.  Make sure that you fill this out!

11.)  Learn how to shut off the gas, water, and electricity to your house.

Do you know where the water shut off valve is located in your house?  Do you know where you can turn off the gas to your house?  Did you know that there’s a specific tool required to shut off the gas to most homes?  Is that tool stored by where you turn the gas off?  Do you have an electrical panel or fuse box?  Do you know how to turn off the breakers or how to turn a fuse off?  All of these are important and can save your house and your life.

12.)  Print out 100 Preparedness Tasks That You Can Do in 15 Minutes or Less.

Have just a couple of minutes?  There’s always SOMETHING that you can do to become better prepared.  These items take very little time to do but will move your preparedness efforts forward exponentially as you accomplish them.  You can find the “100 Preparedness Tasks That You Can Do in 15 Minutes or Less” in our printable library.

What About You?

Are you new to prepping?  Which tasks did you already have done before you started reading through this list?  Which ones surprised you the most?  Are you an “Old Hat” at prepping?  What would you add to or remove from this list?  Share your answers with us in the comments so that we can all be better prepared!

Together let’s Love, Learn, Practice, and Overcome

There are links in this post.  Some of the links may be affiliate links.  Some of the links may not be.  My promise to you is that I will only recommend the most economical version of the best quality of items to serve you. These are the items that I have bought for my own family.  You can feel free to use my affiliate links, of which I will get a small amount in compensation, or you can choose to search out your products on your own.