The First 10 Things Any New Prepper Should Buy – A Reminder for the Rest of Us

I’ve asked myself several times, if I had to start prepping all over again, what would I do differently?  What would I do the same?  How would I improve on my journey, if I had the chance?  My journey started accidentally with couponing.  I amassed a whole bunch of food, cleaning supplies, and personal care products.  Seeing our family taken care of when it came to food, it spurred me onto to take care of them in other ways.  But if you’re just getting started, it’s so hard to know exactly what to buy!

There are two more articles in the series as well – The First 12 Things a New Prepper Should Do and The First 11 Things a New Prepper Should Learn.

So before we dive into what I would buy, I want to lay out my rationale.  When it comes to preparedness, there are two things we need to take into consideration (1) What is most likely to happen?  And (2) What vital areas do we not have covered adequately?

If we’re talking about what is most likely to happen – right now – what is most likely to happen is a power or water outage.  Even as I write this, we are under a boil order, but my family is taken care of because we store water bottles and we have one of the items below to help when stored water runs out.  But whether it’s spring, summer, fall, or winter, power outages are a part of life – even if you don’t live in California where they have turned off the power on purpose.

So the way I’m working through this is that I want you to be prepared for water and power outages as well as giving you the very basics for taking care of your families long-term.  I’m not including things that you probably already have on hand like warm blankets, sleeping bags, mittens, bandaids, Tylenol etc.

f1.)  Pocketknife

The first thing that everyone needs to buy for preparedness – no matter who you are – is a pocket knife.  I carry mine with me (as long as I have a pocket).  I use my pocket knife for EVERYTHING from opening my Amazon boxes (yes, I have an Amazon problem) to cutting open envelopes, to prying open frozen-in-place vehicle gas cap.  My pocketknife is one of my favorite preparedness tools – so much that I keep an extra on hand in case I lose mine somewhere.  As a matter of fact, when I headed to Amazon to get you a link to my pocketknife, it said that I’ve purchased that knife three times.  Yep!  I told you that I love this knife.  It should go without saying (but I’m going to anyway) that this is a part of my EDC.

2.)  Flashlights 

When I went to my Amazon “Orders” page and did a search for flashlights, I’ve purchased everything from wind-up flashlights to mini (and I mean mini like 1 inch) flashlights, to a NOAH weather hand-crank radio flashlight.  I have one that I carried on my keychain.  Of all of them though this is my favorite!  The light is strong.  The clip holds really well!  I carry this with me all the time as a part of EDC.

3.)  Oil Lamp, lamp oil, wicks, and matches

Everyone needs to buy at least one oil lamp.  I have six oil lamps of various sizes and shapes.  Last Friday, the early darkness really put a damper on my spirits.  I felt the need to light up my entire room, so I decided to light my oil lamps, candles, and the fireplace.  It raised my spirits a bunch.  If it does such a good thing for my spirits when life is normal, can you imagine what it could do for you when life is hard?

Types of Lamps

I have three different sizes and styles of oil lamps – large oil lamps, lantern style oil lamps, and mini oil lamps.  My large lamps light an entire room or much of a room (depending on the size of the room).  The lantern style oil lamps are more enclosed and less breakable than the other two.  If I HAD to give my kids an oil lamp, I would give then the lantern style one.  Then I prefer my little oil lamps for lighting my personal workspace.  The mini ones give me so much joy as well as being supremely functional!

You do need to make sure that you include lamp oil, wicks, and matches.  The lamp oil is best if it is a smokeless oil.  With the wicks, you need to make sure that you have the right kind of wicks for each of your lamps.  For your larger lamps, you need a 3/4″ – 1 ” wick.  For your mini lamps, you need 1/4″ round wicks.   And please don’t forget the matches!

4.)  5-gallon water jugs

Water is even more important than food, though you need less of it than you do food.  Five-gallon water jugs do so much for you than just store water.  First, they give you a good deal of water in one container.  Second, they have a spigot so that you can easily dispense whether you are using it to wash your hands because something has happened and the water isn’t running or you are using it to wash your dishes.

The problem is that you need to have adequate water stored, and while 5 of these don’t have a ton of water, but it’s a start on water storage.  Even now, I’m going to tell you that as soon as you have the basics covered, you need to up your water storage game ASAP.

5.)  Berkey Water purifier and extra filters

The Berkey water system with its black filters is probably the most expensive thing that’s on this list – depending on the size that you purchase, but it is the MOST important thing that you’re going to buy.  If a big event were to happen and we didn’t have clean water, it would be so easy to pick up Dysentery, Cholera, or Typhoid which are all spread through contaminated water.  Without treatment, any one of those could kill you.  You wouldn’t want yourself or your family to fall to one of those, and the Berkey will take care of any of them.

We decided to buy the Berkey because we could take even pond water, filter the particulate matter out it to make it clear and then put it through the Berkey and it would be safe to drink.  Hence our decision to purchase a Berkey instead of other water filters.  This is great to get it out and set it up now.  Since we’ve moved into this house going on two years ago, we have been under at least two boil orders.  Our Berkey makes sure that our family is taken care of.  While I suggest you buy the Berkey through Amazon or another registered dealer, the best place to purchase your replacement filters – and the best price that I’ve found is on Azure Standard.

6.)  Canners – Waterbath & Pressure (with jars and lids)

Next to having clean water, having enough food is probably the next most important thing to have on hand.  You can spend thousands upon thousands to stock your pantry full of freeze-dried food.  There is, however, a cheaper way to feed your family and that’s learning to can your own food.  For now, you can shop at the grocery store or even better – at the Farmer’s Market to get good quality produce to either can individual ingredients or make up some soups and stews to have ready-made meals on hand.

There are two kinds of canners that you need to buy a water bath canner and a pressure canner.  The two do two different things.  A water bath canner works for highly acidic foods like most fruits and sometimes tomato products.  A pressure canner is for canning lower acidic foods like most vegetables.  Without the pressure created by the pressure canner, not all of the bacteria that are even naturally present in the food cannot be killed.  And make sure that you buy jars (thrift stores or garage sales are a good place to find them) and lids.

7.)  Make-Shift Toilet

Two years ago on New Years, we woke up to no water – On NEW YEARS!  Fortunately, we had everything that we needed to transform our bathroom, to a dry, functioning bathroom.  We even used one of our five-gallon camping water jugs with a spigot with which to wash our hands.

When the time comes and your pipes freeze or you are completely without water for another reason, you are going to need to have a way to use the bathroom.  When you put a 5-gallon bucket, a snap-on toilet seat, heavy-duty trashcan liners, and kitty litter together, you have functioning toilet.  After you do your ‘duty’ you just scoop out 1/2 C of kitty litter and sprinkle it into toilet to help control wetness and odor.

8.)  Frogg Togg

Most people have blankets, layers of clothes, extra socks, mittens and more.  But rarely do people have a way to cool themselves effectively without power.  The great thing about the Frogg Togg is when you get them wet, the Frogg Togg’s temperature goes down 30 degrees.  You can wrap these around your neck.  You can wear them under your shirt and they will cool you down – better than a wet towel.

9.)  Butane stove

You need a way to cook food.  If you have a gas stove, even without power you should be able to cook on the stovetop as long as you have a match.  If, however, you don’t have a gas stove, you may need to buy a butane burner on which to cook food in the case of a power outage.  You’ll need a few canisters of butane for fuel, but it’s an inexpensive way to make sure that you can cook food in the event that you are without power.

10.)  Handgun or other personal protection and bullets

I’m not going to get too much into the weeds here.  You need something with which to protect yourself and your family.  If you really don’t have any idea where to begin when it comes to picking the right protection, I have a post on choosing your first firearm.

Preparedness isn’t about STUFF.  It’s much more about learning and practicing.  There is truth however in that you do need basic stuff to take care of yourself and your family.  It could be a power outage that catches you.  It could be a boil order, or it could be something much more significant.  With these basics, you will be able to care for your family with much more success!

What About You?

As a beginning prepper, what do you think you need that’s not on the list?  If you’re a more seasoned prepper, what would you add to this list?  Leave a comment below so that we can all be more prepared!

Together lets 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.