written by humongus
I wrote this for a friend who finally came and asked for advice on how to prepare. Keep in mind this is not intended to be an all-inclusive treatise, so don't bother telling me that I left out night vision goggles, farm animals, 23 guns, and backwoods surgery. This is simply a down-and dirty guide for how the average person can reach a general level of preparedness within a normal suburban lifestyle. Hopefully it will help, or at least interest some of you.
Warning, it is a bit of a long read.



Preparedness:


The first thing one needs to do when trying to be prepared is to basically define what exactly you are trying to do.

For me I basically decided I am not simply trying to survive (I can survive living under a bridge eating rats) but instead trying to maintain as close to my current lifestyle as possible in the event that something(anything) would otherwise disrupt it.

So then I had to figure out what things constitute my current living situation, because those are the things I need to protect/preserve.

It comes down to:

A place to live
Protection
Water
Food
Toiletries
Health
Finances
Electricity

The good thing is that no matter what an individual may decide they need to specifically prepare for, these will always be the things they need to have to survive it. Some scenarios include other things (like a bomb shelter if you are worried about nuclear war) but for the most part there is a huge overlap in what you would need to be prepared, no matter what the situation is. Jack Spirco of "The Survival Podcast" calls this the "commonality of disaster". By preparing for any scenario you are mostly prepared for every scenario.

You also don't have to experience a SHTF (**** hit the fan) scenario to enjoy the benefits of being prepared. Problems come along all the time that can be turned into simple inconveniences when you have some preparations. Jack Spirco, who I already mentioned, has a motto, where says the reason he prepares is to
"..live a better life, if times get tough, or even if they don't."

Normal life occurrences like hurricanes, job loss, crime, utility disruptions, etc that would be a royal pain in the ass or even highly problematic, can be turned into simple annoyances if you are even modestly prepared.

For me the specific scenario I am preparing for (other than just being prepared in general) is economic collapse on some level.

So I am preparing for some or all of the following:

-Currency crisis (US dollars losing value, maybe completely)
-Prices of necessary goods skyrocketing
-Unavailability or prohibitive prices for many items
-High crime
-High unemployment and possibly losing my job(income)
-Intermittent or total loss of utilities for unknown periods of time.


My personal goal is to be able to support myself in these circumstances for a year or two totally unassisted.

What I am NOT specifically preparing for or expecting is a 'Road Warrior' situation. There have been some pretty serious meltdowns in many countries over the years, and that has never happened. I don't think it will happen here. However, because of the commonality of disaster, just by being prepared in general you will be 75% prepared for even a ridiculous scenario like that, because you would still just need shelter, protection, food, water, etc. before anything else.


A PLACE TO LIVE:

I would ultimately like to own my own property, but due to the uncertainty in the economy I do not want to be in debt, so I am sticking with renting. Therefore to make sure I have secured a place to live, I have to secure a means to pay rent in the event of job loss, currency crisis, etc.

So I am saving enough money to pay rent even if I lose my job, and saving it in a medium that will maintain its value even if there is a currency crisis (Precious metals). If I eliminated all other bills but rent I would be able to pay rent for almost 4 years at my current rent. Even if I include Utilities, car insurance, and internet I would be able to pay my bills for around 30 months.

So that is the first step to maintaining your current lifestyle is to prepare to be able to pay your bare essential bills for at least a year or two in the event your current income stream is eliminated. If your house is paid for and you have no rent/mortgage then all you need to worry about is property taxes and homeowners insurance. While electricity/water and internet isn't 'essential' I wouldn't really be maintaining my current lifestyle without it so I included paying for that in my preparations.



PROTECTION:

I am preparing for the possibility of very high crime. To prepare for this, all I have right now is guns and ammo. 1 or 2 guns and a couple hundred rounds is plenty to prepare for any plausible self defense scenario.

People focus an inordinate amount of their time, efforts, and money preparing in this area simply because it is fun and cool, and gives them an excuse to buy awesome gear. Like I said, I am not preparing for an actual apocalypse, I am just preparing for whatever may happen. It makes no sense to have enough weapons and gear to ward off 100 raiders single-handed, but only enough food and water for 2 weeks.

Other protection options include: alarms and cameras, physical hardening of your house (strong doors/locks, window bars, hedges under windows), a dog, etc. Since I don't own my house and I am also anticipating possible loss of electricity I haven't put too much emphasis on electric alarms or cameras, although I think they are an awesome idea just in general.




WATER:

I am preparing for possible loss of running water, or maybe it being contaminated.So I am preparing by having some water on hand, and also have a way to purify more.

It is recommended to have about 1 gallon per person per day just for drinking. Still more for cooking, washing, cleaning clothes, etc.

STORING WATER:

Unless you have a well (which is the best solution), you have to store some water.
Water is cheap, but it is heavy and takes up space. I currently only have about 30 gallons stored. This is not enough, and I am going to up it significantly.

When storing water the only real decision to be made is what kind of containers you are going to store it in. Any size works. Smaller bottles are easier to use and move, but more expensive. Larger containers are cheaper per gallon but can not be moved, at least not easily. I recommend some of each. A few cases of bottled water, some gallon jugs, and then 1 or 2 large containers.
The translucent plastic milk jugs are not a good choice, as they are designed to biodegrade more quickly and will spring leaks after a couple of months. The clear plastic are the way to go. I would recommend getting one or two 30-50 gallon drums in your garage and filling it with tap water, and then a few cases of smaller bottles or some gallon jugs.

PURIFYING WATER

Because of the space issue, it is just not usually practical to store all the water you would need for a 6 months or more, unless you have a pool or property large enough to house a huge cistern.

Therefore you have to be able to purify any additional water you would collect. You may also need to purify the water you have stored if it has been there a while, just in case

With purifying you have basically 3 options: boiling, filters, and chemicals. I recommend having some options in each category.

Boiling: totally legit, but time and energy intensive. Will need a way to heat the water. I will cover this in the food section. As long as you can make a fire this is an option.

Filters: Big Berkey filters are a popular choice. Katadyn makes smaller portable ones that can filter like 13,000 gallons. Neither of these are cheap at a couple hundred dollars, but they can filter a lot and are an easy solution.

Chemicals: There are several chemicals you can use to purify water: Usually bleach and iodine. Iodine tablets can be bought at camping and military stores. I have never used them. You would have to use a lot to purify a large quantity of water, and I think they make the water taste weird.
Bleach is easy, only a few drops is needed per gallon. Liquid bleach loses it potency after 6 months or a year or so, so it is better to store powdered sodium hyperchlorite and then make a bleach solution yourself when you need it.

Collecting water: Luckily here there is water all over the place, so if you have a way to purify it you should be able to get what you need. It is not a bad idea to have a couple empty garbage cans to put under your rain spouts to collect water too.



FOOD:

I recommend having enough so that you could eat for at least 3-6 months with no resupply. The only way to do this is to store it. There are basically 3 ways to store food: Store-bought non-perishables, Store-bought long term storage foods, and self-packed long term storage foods.

Store bought non perishables: This includes any non perishable packaged, non-refrigerated foods that will last for a few months to a few years sitting on a shelf. Canned anything, dry pasta, powdered foods, rice, beans, nuts, beef jerky, honey, etc. these items can usually last a couple years max, and you just buy extra of the foods you already eat and use the oldest first and buy more to replace it. So you have a static amount of food, but it is always being refreshed so it doesn't spoil. To be honest canned foods are supposedly safe to eat for decades if there is no breach.


Purchased long-term storage foods: MREs, Mountain House, powdered foods, etc. These are foods specifically designed to have extensive shelf life. They can usually last 10-20+ years just sitting there. This is the easiest but most expensive way to get long term food storage. MREs and Mountain House et al will be 5-10 bucks a meal, but you can just buy it and forget about it for 15 years and your food preparedness is done. MREs have the bonus of being totally self contained with everything you need for a meal, including utensils and a way to cook it. This method isn't always expensive, as powdered eggs, milk and cheese is very reasonably priced.

Self-packed long term storage foods: This is when you buy food yourself and pack it so that it has a long shelf life of 10-20 years. Usually rice, wheat, oats, beans, dry pasta, flour, etc. They are put usually put into Mylar bags with O2 absorbers or inert gas (CO2 or Nitrogen), and then sealed in buckets. Dry grains and beans stored like this can last 20 years easily. This is the cheapest way to store foods long term. While MRE's are about 7 bucks a meal, you can have a meal's worth of rice or oats for less than 25 cents. Quite a difference.


I have the bulk of my food stores in the cheap stuff; rice, oats, powdered eggs, etc. I also have a significant portion in canned and non-perishable foods that I eat on a regular basis and rotate. I also have quite a few MREs, but only because I got them for free. Otherwise they are just too expensive and take up too much space to have them represent the bulk of any food storage. Not a bad idea to have a case or two though, for portability and not having to cook.

I recommend having 3-6 months minimum of food supplies per person. Make sure you vary what you have, and include any spices or seasonings or sauces you would want.


Cooking: You also have to be able to cook your food if you have no electricity. I have a propane camp stove and several cans of propane. You can also use fire, but you have to have fuel for that too. MREs have their own heaters. Anything canned can be eaten without being cooked. In an emergency rice and oats can just be soaked for a while in water and then eaten, without actually being cooked.

You can also make or buy a solar oven, which isn't a bad option . A propane or kerosene camp stove is probably the best bet, but figure out how much fuel you need per meal and make sure you have enough to cook all your food for 3-6 months.




TOILETRIES:

Since my preparedness philosophy is to maintain my current lifestyle, I can't do that without having a bunch of different toiletry items. The good news is that most of these things have no shelf-life issues, and as long as you rotate it as you use it you won't have any problems. Basically preparing in the toiletries dept is a simple act of buying extra of everything you already use and rotating it. There is also no extra cost because you will eventually use it anyway. Here are the things I am making sure I have:

TP
Tissues
Toothpaste
Toothbrushes
Floss
Mouthwash
Razors
Shaving cream
Soap (mostly bars for ease of storage) or Body wash
Shampoo
Deodorant
Hand Sanitizer
Q-tips
Scissors, or another way to cut hair
Any lotion you may use
You may need contact-lense solution too,as well as any other stuff you use on a regular basis, Just buy more of it.
Don't forget laundry detergent either. You can even wash clothes in a bucket or plastic bag if you have to, but you need detergent.

I have also purchased a small 'camp shower' that you can fill and hang to still have a shower even if the water is not running. You can also lay it in the sun to heat it.

If you are on sewer you may want to consider what you will do if the plumbing isn't working properly. If it isn't backed up you can fill the toilet yourself and it will flush, but this takes water.



HEALTH:

This is similar to toiletries in that you just have to stockpile the things you would need.

Vitamins
Anti-itch / anti-histamine cream
Tylenol, painkillers
Cold medicines, Nyquil etc
Gold Bond
Vaseline
chapstick
Sunscreen
Pepto, imoddium, laxatives, Tums, whatever.
Antibiotic ointment
Burn cream/aloe vera gel
Alcohol
Eye drops
Hydrogen Peroxide
Band aids
Butterfly bandages
Gauze pads/rolls
Athletic tape
Ace bandages
Tweezers/forceps
Dust/germ masks
Latex Gloves
Antibiotics, if you can get them.
Stores of prescription meds, if you take any.

You can get as serious as you want with the first aid supplies, with surgical tools and everything. Like I said I am not expecting a Road Warrior or 'COMWEC' (COmplete Meltdown of WEstern Civilization) scenario so I am not going to attempt to set myself up to try to perform surgery. My aim is to be able to provide first response treatment, and maintain health in a time when medical treatment may be hard to obtain or prohibitively expensive, especially for minor ailments.

For health, preventative measures are the best thing you can do. Take care of any issues now, stay healthy and in shape, and you will eliminate a lot of problems, and increase your ability to survive any physically or mentally stressful situations. Knowledge of at least basic first aid is important too.



FINANCES:

While economic turbulence is guaranteed, even beyond what we are experiencing now, nobody can say for sure how serious it will be. What I can say for sure is that nobody was ever worse off by having no debt and a bunch of money. There are very few, if any, times in history where you wouldn't have been much better off with a basement full of gold.

Even in normal situations, you have to calculate for risk when planning finances, and be prepared to deal with those risks. With the current path we are on, this is not just important, but critical. These are some of the financial risks you MUST be prepared to deal with:

Loss of Job / total loss of income for extended period of time.
Unexpected Health costs
Unexpected Vehicle repair costs
Unexpected misc. expenses
Rising prices of necessities
Falling prices of assets

So as you can probably guess, the panacea for these issues is to have a lot of money, and store it in a medium that will maintain its value. I have already made a case for gold and silver, but as always diversification is the safest play. Some cash on hand is smart too, because at the first signs of severe economic turbulence everyone reverts to cash transactions, and there may be bank runs or bank holidays, lines at the ATMs, etc. I would recommend a month or two worth of cash on hand at your house.

Other than that, the best way to prepare for unforeseeable financial burdens is just to save up as much money as you can when times are good.

I believe this is the single most important thing one can do to prepare for the next several years in America.




ELECTRICITY.

Electricity is pretty low on the list when it comes to survival, but it is pretty high when it comes to maintaining a normal lifestyle.

It is up to you to decide what of self-sufficiency you want to be at when it comes to electricity, but the reality is that disruption of electricity is one of the most common 'disaster' type problems one will have to deal with. I have never yet had to worry about not being able to buy food tomorrow, but I have had to deal with loss of electricity maybe a hundred times throughout my life. So while it is not usually essential to survival, it is an inevitable problem so it makes sense to prepare for it.

There are two ways to prepare for loss of electricity: Have alternative methods to do the things you normally do with electricity, or have an alternative source of electricity.

Keep in mind these are not mutually exclusive, you can (and should) use some of both methods for maximum preparedness.

Alternative methods: This includes things like having candles and lamps for light, having a clothes line, kerosene, gas, or wood heaters and stoves, hand pumps for moving liquids, etc. I have opted for this method mostly because of two reasons: lower cost, and since I don't own the house I live in it doesn't make sense to upgrade it for alternative power sources.

Alternative Sources of Electricity: This involves having other ways to get electricity than the grid or the power outlet on your wall. There several options:

Batteries
Hand crank powered items
Solar/wind/hydro power
Generators

batteries and hand crank power only works for smaller items that draw little power (flashlights, radios, etc)

Solar and wind power is scalable; you can have a tiny solar panel that powers a walkway light, or panels covering your whole house. It works well but is still pretty expensive.

Generators are the most practical method for most people, and the cheapest easiest way to run higher-draw items like power tools and stuff. Just make sure you calculate the power draw of the things you are going to be using and get a generator rated to handle that load. The downsides with generators are noise, need for fuel, and need for ventilation. You can't run them inside. For fuel you can get gasoline, propane, or diesel generators.

I think diesel is a good choice because it can be stored for longer periods of time, especially if it is stabilized.

Although if you have a gasoline generator you will always have some fuel stored in your (and others) car's gas tank that you could use in an emergency.

Generators can also be wired into your house so that when it is running certain outlets in your house will work. That way you don't have to run stuff off of extension cords. The generator can be housed in a small shed or something outside, or can just be wheeled outside when you plan on using it. Because of the noise they are not discreet, so keep that it mind. That may or may not be an issue. Impossible to know.

If you go the generator route just make sure you have fuel stored for it or it is useless. Also consider if you will need any extension cords, oil, or any other items.

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To reach a good overall level of preparedness I would recommend you get/do the following things:

-Eliminate ALL debts.
-Cash in hand (not bank account) for 1 to 2 months of expenses
-Enough savings for 1 to 2 years of essential bills (rent/property tax, utilities, car insurance) stored in an easily liquidated medium resistant to currency crisis (I recommend gold and silver of course)

-At least 1 gun per person (handguns being first choice)
-200 to 1000 rounds for each gun
-concealed carry permit
-(optional) bulletproof vest


-Several cases of water bottles or gallon jugs
-one or two large water containers (30+ gallons)
-Extra trash cans to collect water
-Water Filter (Big Berkey or similar)
-Enough water purification chemicals for at least 1000 gallons

-At least 1 or 2 months worth of the non-perishable foods that you already eat
-At least 2 to 4 months worth of long-term storage foods. (self-packed or pre-packaged)
-Stove for cooking
-3 to 6 months of fuel for cooking stove

-3 to 6 months worth of the toiletry items you already use.
-3 to 6 months worth of health and first aid supplies

-(optional)Generator
-as much fuel for it as you can store
-any peripherals you need for the generator


MISC items:

-Flashlights and head-lamps (at least one hand crank)
-hand crank or solar radio
-Self-defense knife
-I'm sure I have more to put in this category, but for now that is all I can think of.


If you have everything in the above list you will be very prepared for almost all plausible scenarios, and mostly prepared for even the ridiculous ones.