Have you been here? You’re standing in Wal-Mart and you see that canning supplies are on a mega-uber sale. Do you buy them? I’ve picked things up, put them in my cart, walked through the store and picked up other things on my list. Then toward the end of picking up my purchases, I will head back and put back that thing which was on an almost irresistible sale back and slink toward the checkout lane with my tail tucked between my legs because I’m abandoning such a good sale! Have you been there? How should we determine what to spend our preparedness budget on?
I’m the same way on Amazon – that’s my real downfall. Oh…..I have a LOVE / HATE relationship with Amazon! I LOVE getting good deals, but I HATE parting with my money…….sometimes. So what should we do? What is the best way to determine the best use of our limited preparedness budget?
Only you can decide. Dontcha just hate answers like that? Yep. Only you can decide, but I’m going to give you some principles that will help you determine which way you should spend your preparedness funds.
We’ve been doing a lot of talking about “Normal People Preparing for TEOTWAWKI” lately. In the first post in that series, I mentioned ten different systems to put into place. We’re going to take everything and break it down so that it fits into one of those systems. The systems, I’m referring to are: water, food, cooking, sanitation, first aid, shelter and maintenance, comfort, safety, communication, clothing, and car. I’m going to add a seventh system and that’s safety.
Preparedness Budget Step 1
Download this: Basic Needs Survival Systems. (Right-click and choose “Save As.”) This is a BASIC needs checklist which means that it’s plain jane. This is the barebones minimum of what you need for the different systems. There are so many other items that will make life (if something big ever were to happen) MUCH easier, but those would come AFTER you have all your basic items covered. I have not included food and drink in this checklist because that is what A Year Without the Grocery Store’s Companion Workbook is all about (and so much more!).
Preparedness Budget Step 2
Go through the checklist and check off items that you already have. You should have a bunch of them!
Preparedness Budget Step 3
Cross off the items that you don’t think that you NEED to have for basic preparedness because of your specific situation. For example, if you live in south Florida and you don’t think you need extra ways to heat your home, cross them off.
Preparedness Budget Step 4
Now add other items that you can think of that are not on the checklist that are BASIC priorities for your family. Do you do a lot of canning for your family, but you need to add to your equipment? Make sure that you put that down on your list. What other types of family-specific items do you need?
Preparedness Budget Step 5
Now use this list. What items do you NOT have checked off? Highlighting or circling these items will make it easier to spot them. Go through these items and prioritize these items with a 1,2 or 3.
“Ones” should be the highest priority items. You could highlight these in a certain color or mark them with an “I” or a “#1.” These are the first items that you need to be spending preparedness money on. If you find a good deal on something that is NOT on this priority list, pass it up. Make sure you are focusing on what is most important.
Preparedness Budget Step 6
Those items which are important, but not the highest priority, should be marked with a different color highlighter or a #2. Once you finish purchasing all your #1 items, go on to your #2 items.
Preparedness Budget Step 7
For those items which you feel are not first or second priorities, these should be marked with a different color highlighter or a #3. These are the items that you should focus on last. Often times these are items focused more on comfort.
Don’t cross something off the list because you don’t understand why you might need it.
Be careful what you cross off the list. For example, on January 1st of last year, we woke up to frozen pipes. Since we were renting, our landlord refused to pay extra for an emergency fee for a company to come out on a holiday. Well when you have no water, it’s not the end of the world if you can’t do laundry for a day or you can’t take a shower for ONE day, though the latter may feel like it for some. What is a BIG problem (especially when you have seven people in your family) is using the bathroom and washing your hands.
But I was ready. I had a six-gallon round bucket, a snap-on toilet lid, heavy-duty trash bags, kitty litter, and a five-gallon camping water container with a spigot on it. When we discovered that we didn’t have water, I pulled out the empty bucket, double-lined it with heavy-duty trash bags, and snapped on the lid. We put this in our half bath on the main floor. Then I grabbed a large bowl, filled it with kitty litter, and placed a 1/2 measuring cup in the bowl. We put this in the sink on the main floor. We then took the 5-gallon camping water container and put it at our kitchen sink (about ten feet from our main floor half bathroom). When nature would call, we would go into the bathroom, do what needed to be done, put a 1/2 cup scoop of kitty litter in the toilet, and then head to our kitchen sink and use the spigot on the water container to wash our hands.
If you cross the 5-gallon bucket, the kitty litter, and the extra, heavy-duty trash bags, you could put yourself in a real bind.
Customize your list
If you think, “Well, I have water bricks. I don’t need a 5-gallon camping water container with a spigot,” you may be setting yourself up for trouble. Water bricks are awesome! We used them to wash dishes during our water outage, but you can’t apportion them out a little at a time to just wash your hands. If you keep a bowl with water in it, then you’re just heaping up germs upon germs, and it will quickly get to the point that you’re making your hands dirtier by using that water.
Most of the things on the list have been put there from experience. It IS your list. You should absolutely customize it. Just be careful WHAT you cross off.
Once you finish this process, when you walk down that aisle in Wal-Mart or Bass Pro Shop and you see an amazing sale, you’ll know whether or not it’s the right thing for you to purchase with your preparedness funds!
Keep Your List on Your Phone
If you keep your list on your phone, you will always have it with you when you are out and about. When you are at Wal-Mart and you see that amazing sale, you can check your phone to see if that great sale is for something that’s high on your priority list. If you’re like me, and you’re browsing Amazon.com on your phone, you’ll have your list with you. If it’s on your phone, it’s always with you whether you’re out grocery shopping or you’re at an estate sale. Make sure you make use of it!
What About You?
Have you struggled with knowing on what to spend your hard-earned preparedness funds? Do you tend to purchase what strikes your fancy at the time without regard to what is the most urgent and pressing of your needs? What holes did you find as you worked your way through the checklist? Did they surprise you? I’d love to hear. Let us know in the comments.
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.
Remember to diversify! I already have a gas stove, a wood fireplace, a fire pit in the yard, and a propane camping stove….do I really need a solor oven just because it’s on the list? No. I’ve already got three other methods of cooking food if the stove goes. What areas are you most lacking in? What important things do you have no Plan B for? Focus on those.
Also, if you must carefully budget for prepping, then be practical about it. The risk of EMP attack or the tectonic plates shifting or aliens attacking is super low. But my risk of getting hit by a tornado, having my local power grid go out, having to get through a really harsh winter, or one of us getting laid off of work is much higher. What kind of preps do you think I devote money to? Not on alien attacks, that’s for sure!
You hit the nail on the head, Jill!
I buy gallon liquid laundry soap with a spigot… I recycle those for non drinking emergency water.. perfect for by the sinks
That is a perfect idea, Vickie! As long as you aren’t using it for drinking water, they should be fine after rinsing them out. Thanks for the suggestion!
Waterbricks have a spigot cap you can put on them. They may not allow a flow rate as good as your item, and bricks only hold 3.5 gallons vs. 5 gallons in your solution.
Allie, thanks for the info! I’ve purchased water bricks, but none of them came with a spigot, but I’m wondering if that might be an additional item that can be purchased of which I was not aware. That would be way cool!
Another great article that addressed the very things I have been thinking about. Once I had all the basics covered, I started thinking about things that I would want for me, my husband & our pets if we could not buy things at a store for a really long time. That meant chocolate items for me, freeze dried coffee for my hubby & lots of extra pet food & dog potty pads if our dog can’t go outside for some reason during the winter. Toilet paper & lots of it is very important to me. I have spent a lot of money on all the different layers of prepping, but I look at it all as “insurance”. I don’t want to do any canning so I needed to stock up on more freeze dried & canned food items.
right now my priorities are diesel fuel, food, alcohol (for the Trangia stove), more ammo, toilet paper, and possibly some new boots.