A glance at your budget will reveal that emergency preparedness is not cheap. Even if you keep it to a bare minimum, you’ll need a lot of stuff. Prepping can be expensive, and how much you spend is entirely up to you.
I’ve seen preppers spend a lot of money on the best equipment on the market. While some preppers have money to spend on items they may or may not use, the rest of us must stick to a budget. Prepping is costly, but that doesn’t mean you have to go broke to survive.
base your budget on your needs
You should begin by determining which disasters your family should prepare for. Following that, you should stockpile supplies based on your family’s needs. If you buy everything at once, you will pay full price for many of the items you require.
If you want to get a good deal on your gear, don’t buy it at the start of the season. Unless you need something, you should never pay full price for it. You should wait for the end-of-season sales.
While I understand the need to spend a small fortune on vital systems for producing food or devices that can help you obtain water, you’ll be much better off with items in the middle of the price range. You’ll get a lot more gear this way, and it’ll usually be of good quality.
Take a good look around your neighborhood and the area where you intend to bug out, and plan accordingly. Don’t waste money on items you’ll never use, and make wise purchases.
Preparation begins with improvisation. When it comes to pre-made survival kits, I tend to avoid them. I’ve seen survival kits ranging in price from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars. Everything depends on the size of the kit and the items it contains. With the money you would spend on such kits, you could build your kit with higher-quality supplies. You will create something that is tailored to any type of disaster or an individual’s specific needs.
Making your own survival kit requires some extra effort on your part, but if you have a list of what you need for the types of disaster(s) you are preparing for, you will save money on your preparations.
If you want to handle unexpected costs, you must include your prepping costs in your monthly budget. You’re doing something wrong if you don’t have a monthly budget. I’ve made it a habit to set aside a certain amount of money with each paycheck or project. I also keep a sale budget for certain times of the year, such as major holidays.
Creating a budget and closely monitoring it saves a lot of money and time when it comes to prepping. You’ll discover where you can save money on prepping projects by cutting corners. Start with a two-week supply of everything you need and work your way up from there.
Setting goals and achieving them without becoming stressed or bankrupt will give you the motivation you need to keep going. Once you have a large supply, you can scale it up to build a one-year supply, two-year supply, and so on. As is the case for many of us, you will eventually strive for self-sufficiency. Preparation costs will have a smaller impact on your monthly or yearly budget if you do it gradually.
In the end, learn to plan accordingly. Learn to improvise. Imagine the scenarios you might face. You are prepping for extraordinary events, comfort is not the first thing on your list, survival is.