How to Create an Emergency Preparedness Kit on a Budget

Has your family ever been touched by an emergency? Be it a fire, severe weather, or even something as “simple” as loss of a job? Most of us have at one point or another. If not, consider yourself very lucky. An emergency, even a small one, can destroy your family in more ways than one. That’s why having an emergency preparedness plan that you and your family are familiar with is so important. Building your emergency preparedness plan might seem like a lot of work and a lot of money, but it doesn’t have to be. Instead, learning How to Create an Emergency Preparedness Kit on a Budget just takes a bit of time and some creativity.

How to Create an Emergency Preparedness Kit on a Budget

To start, you’ll need to figure out exactly what you’re preparing for. For some it might be severe weather, for others it might be economic troubles, and for others it might be something more serious. You can’t build an emergency plan without knowing what types of situations you’re preparing for. For instance, if you’re planning for severe winter weather you might not want to include preparations for extreme heat.

Once you know what you’re preparing for, it’s time to sit down and answer a few questions. Ask yourself things like:

How much room is there in my budget to prepare with?
If my family had to evacuate, where would we go?
If my family were stranded in the house for weeks, what items would we need to survive?
If my family suffered a financial loss would we have enough food to survive and enough money saved?
How long do you want to prepare for? 1 month? 3 months? 6 months? Even longer?

Once you have the answers to these and any other questions you might ask yourself, you can start really planning. Keeping your budget in mind, start figuring out your plan.

Next, you will make a list of the items you need to be fully prepared for your chosen emergency. Having a list of the items gives you not only a place to start, but a solid plan to build on. It can be easier if you categorize each item on your list by cost so that you know which items can be bought outright and which will need to be saved for.

One of the best and most budget friendly places to start is with your food storage. Watch the sales ads and coupons for things that you will want to add to your storage. For things that aren’t on sale, you’ll want to allow room in your grocery budget for a few each week. You can build a pretty significant stockpile of food on just a few dollars each week.

For instance:

Week 1 you buy 3 lbs of rice, 5 cans of soup and 2 lbs of beans. Your total will come to less than $10.00 for the week.
For week 2 you might buy 2 cans of chicken broth, 2 cans of canned chicken and 10 lbs of sugar. Your total is right around $15.00 for this week’s preps.
Week 3 you might buy 25 lbs of flour and 2 more pounds of rice. Under $20.00 for this week’s total.
For week 4 you might buy 5 cans of tomatoes, 5 cans of tomato sauce/paste and 5 boxes of pasta. For this week you’re under $15.00 for your total.

Building your stockpile doesn’t have to be expensive. With the examples above, you’ve spent right around $60.00 and have enough food to make 7 or 8 meals at the very least They may not be the gourmet home cooked meals that you’re used to, but in an emergency situation, they could be the difference between keeping you and your family alive or starving. Once you get the basics stocked up, you should continue picking up a few things at a time until you reach a point where you are fully stocked. Remember to rotate your stockpile on a regular basis to keep it from expiring before you can use it.

Water is easy to prepare. You already have what you need in your home. Milk jugs, 2-liter soda bottles, juice containers and more can all be used to store water for an emergency. Just rinse each one very, very well then fill with water from your kitchen sink. Most cities and towns already chlorinate their tap water pretty heavily so there usually isn’t a need to worry about doing it yourself, but if you’re concerned about it, add 1 cap full of bleach to each gallon you preserve. Once you’ve got plenty of those items filled with water, you may want to look into actual water storage containers. You can buy these on Amazon for under $20 each. Another option is to buy what is called a “Water Bob.” This item attaches to your bathtub faucet so that you can fill it up with extra emergency water. Each one will hold around 100 gallons.

Another item to consider for water preparations are rain barrels. If you live in an area where it rains pretty regularly, rain barrels can provide an easy way to store hundreds of gallons of extra water. You can buy entire rain barrel kits that include all of the filters and connections you would need for around $125.00. Just be sure to check your local and state laws because collecting rain water is actually illegal in some places. When thinking about how much water you need to store, you’ll want to store 1 gallon, per person, per day plus extra for each pet that you have.

After your food and water storage is done, you’ll want to look at preparing other supplies such as blankets, flashlights, candles and more. Things like flashlights and candles are cheap and budget friendly, but other items, such as a camping lantern or camping stove, might take longer to save for. These can be done on a budget as well, although you may have to adjust how often you purchase things. Instead of weekly, you might need to purchase every 2 weeks or once a month to allow yourself time to save the money you will need to purchase the item in question.

The biggest thing to remember is that your emergency preparedness plan and kit are yours and yours alone. What works for one family may not work for yours and vice versa. There is no right or wrong way to prepare. If you keep your budget in mind, start small and work small, you will build yourself and your family an emergency preparedness kit that could, in the very literal sense of the phrase, save your life someday.