Prepper on a Budget

Being a prepper can certainly be expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. If you plan wisely and stockpile slowly, you’ll be able to save thousands of dollars.

It can seem like quite an undertaking at first. Remind yourself why you became interested in prepping. The world is unpredictable. The “doom” doesn’t have to be something drastic like a homeland war or terrorist attack. Even economic troubles at home or as a country and localized weather disasters, outbreaks, pandemics — all of these realistic fears may leave you needing at least a few days or weeks worth of supplies.

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Tips for Low Cost Prepping

Make Your To-Do List

Start a “Master List” of all the things you need for your preparedness plan. You may want to start one column for necessities and one column for “nice to have” items.

 

Organization will be key to saving money. Try to prioritize with colored highlighters and keep additional smaller lists separated by category, e.g., “food,” “fortification,” “water purification,” etc.

To avoid over-buying or accidentally getting duplicates, keep a running checklist as well.

Build Your Stockpiles Gradually

You don’t have to shell out thousands for prepackaged food for a year. This is a large upfront cost that many families can’t afford. Many new preppers are excited and want to be prepared for anything by the end of the month, but trying to go too fast will be a huge waste of money.

 

Instead, start by adding 10 percent to your weekly grocery budget. If you spend $100 a week, spend an extra $10 strictly on food to be stored.

For other small items, you can start visiting dollar stores once or twice a month. Spend $10 to $20 on their toothpaste, bleach, rags, medicine, storage containers and other important essentials.

Don’t forget toiletries like toilet paper and feminine products. Stock up when you find sales or have coupons and store extras in your garage, under the bed, even in the trunk of your car.

For bigger ticket items, like a generator, set aside a percentage of your income each month to save up. This also gives you time to find out about sales.

Know Your Expiration Dates

Foods have varying shelf life depending on how they are packaged and stored. When you buy prepackaged food, check the expiration dates and chart them in a calendar. For longer shelf life items, keep a log of what expires under a heading for each year.

 

When you get close to the expiration of a group of items, start using the food in your daily life while you repurchase more stockpile foods. This way nothing goes to waste and you also don’t end up in a situation where you can’t eat all the food you’ve been saving up. This will ultimately save you money in the long run.

Know How Many Calories & How Much Water You Need

You may be surprised by how many calories are in prepackaged rations. A “meal” can be less than 800 calories. This sounds good now, but survival situations can be physically strenuous leaving you needing 2 to 3 times as many calories as you do in everyday life.

Water supplies can also be a bit confusing. You need potable water to drink and cook food plus water for bathing, washing supplies, flushing the toilet, etc.

You might also want to plan for taking in additional people. In emergencies, it’s not uncommon for extended families or neighbors to come together in one home. To save money, it’s worth asking them what their emergency plans are so you can work together on prepping. Splitting the costs will protect everyone without breaking the bank.

Try Your Food, Including Cooking Methods

Before you buy a dozen pounds of something, try cooking a small batch of your planned emergency meals. You want to be able to tolerate the foods since you’ll be eating them with little variety. If you really dislike it, try experimenting a bit more before you invest in bulk quantities.

 

This is also a good time to test out your planned cooking methods. You can have some trial and error time and make adjustments to your prepper shopping list as needed.

Grow Your Own Food

Gradually start getting supplies together to grow your own garden. You can pick up extra potting soil when it’s on sale or collect used pots from thrift stores. In most states, you can collect rainwater in barrels to use for watering plants.

 

Start growing some practice foods so you have time to learn the basics of gardening. As a bonus, you can preserve these homegrown foods for your stockpile.

Don’t Forget Your Pets!

Slowly stock up on canned wet food, flea and tick medication, and other pet supplies. You may also want to get a crate if you don’t already have one so your pet can be safely contained and transported if necessary. Used crates from Craigslist are usually quite cheap.

 

Home Security and Self-Defense

Many preppers add protection and security to their list of to-dos. If you plan on purchasing weapons to protect your home and family, you will be adding an additional category of costs. Consider the cost of the weapon, range training and practice, ammo (for practice and for long-term storage), safes (since weapons are often targeted in home invasions), and child safety locks.

Energy

If you lose your electricity, many of your usual daily routines will be harder, if not impossible. Think about how you will cook food, cool off and warm up, do your laundry, charge your cell phone, etc.

 

You may decide to purchase a generator, but you’ll still need fuel for it and generators can be relatively expensive, averaging over a thousand dollars. There are also some less expensive ways to generate bare bones electricity to charge a phone or to have light by using various crank-based systems.

Sanitation

You don’t need to stock up on expensive chemical cleaners. Try to instead stockpile cheap items like white vinegar, baking soda, borax, store brand bleach, Rid-X (to break down waste), rubber and medical grade gloves, concentrated dish soap, and so on.

If you have a real reason to be concerned about germs, a few bottles of Lysol can be kept on hand. However, most of your cleaning can come from the inexpensive stuff.