Prepper Handbook Blog: Step by Step Prepper Plan

We can't afford to go out and buy everything we need at once, so we must develop a Step by Step Prepper Plan that can be used by anyone. Here is that plan:

Establish a Prepper Budget and stick to it. Suppose you start with a lump sum of $400 and then budget $50 per week. Regardless of what your budget is, set the money (cash) aside until you have enough for your next Prepper Purchase. Our plan will follow the Rule of 3 till bare minimum needs are met, then continue to reach advanced preparedness. As you read, you will see a number of recommended links (like this Rule of 3) with additional recommended reading that goes in to more detail.

Have a gun. Learn gun safety and take a class if you don't know how to shoot one. Save/share a copy of the gun safety rules, so you can teach others. If you are asking why a gun is the first item, read the link titled Rule of 3 or the Dark Perspective. For help on gun selection see the following links: Beginner Prepper Plan, item #1 & 2; The Best Gun; Best Handgun Selection Criteria. I prefer a name brand AR-15 with a thermal scope, a Glock 17 (9mm) and a stainless steel Ruger 10/22 as shown on the Beginner Prepper Plan. At the same time, at no cost, you can be putting some security plans in place. Here are some suggested links for this: Urban Security Plan; Group Security Drills; Red Flag Warnings; Blog Table of Contents. Train others in your family/group to use the gun.
Get at least 100 rounds of ammo. See the link: The right amount of Ammo.
Water is one of the most over looked preparations. So you must store water, locate back up sources and have several means of making it safe to drink. The following link: Emergency Water, has everything you need to know about water. The first step is building a reserve of water; something like this below is a good start. If not this, then cases of bottled water. Savings your household jugs and storing water in the is a no cost source of water stores.
Emergency Cash is important. Set aside enough for a few weeks worth of groceries. Nothing larger than a $20 bill. Some cash in coins is good for vending machines.
Silver could be essential to buying needed supplies if paper dollars become worthless. Spend your next two months of budget buying US Silver Eagles, then spend one more months of budget buying some pre 1964 US Quarters and Dimes. Barter and Salvaging will be the other options for acquiring supplies.
Food is next, but unfortunately, many people want to start here and skip the previous steps. A manual can opener (or two) is the first thing you need to buy. After that, then buy one of these food rotation systems.
Above is the largest (275 cans), and a smaller one below (60 cans), with many sizes in between. Sixty (60) cans equates to about a 30 day supply of vegetables for 1 person based on an 8 ounce serving for lunch and dinner of 2 vegetables. 275 cans will feed a family of 4 vegetables for over a month.
Our next step is to Build your Food Stores the right way with the can goods we normally eat. Start out by buying extra can goods each time you go to the grocery store with your prepping budget money. The link (above) will guide you. At the same time, you must have a way to cook and prepare your food in a disaster that resulted in a Power Blackout. Once your can goods are stocked up, then we will talk about long term survival foods. At the same time, at no cost, you can be learning about Wilderness Survival and Edible Plants.
Before we move to long term foods, buy a large first aid kit, a tube of triple antibiotic cream, a bottle of alcohol and hydrogen peroxide for disinfectants. Also keep a bottle of acetaminophen, ibuprofen and cold/flu medicine. These are things you should have in your home anyway.
Communications are important because what you don't know CAN hurt you in a disaster.
Long Term Foods - Budget and add a few cans of long term dried foods monthly, starting with some #10 cans. I recommend that you join the Thrive Life Q program. Here you can set a budget and a list of foods and each month, they send your budgeted amount of food from your list. My first items would include 3 cans of instant beans, 3 cans of instant rice and 3 cans of instant oatmeal. This will cost a little over $100 and provide two people enough food for 30 days. These 25 to 30-year shelf life foods are in addition to your 1-2 year shelf life supply of regular can goods.

Get the 30 day supply above (or more depending on the size of your family) and add one can of instant milk for the family, possibly a few cans of your favorite vegetables. After this, start with one pail per month of these same dried foods as shown below. Round out your order to meet your budget with a few more #10 cans of pasta, wheat, vegetables and fruit.
This adds a 90 day supply of food for two people and costs less than $250. If you are set up on the Q as recommended above, each month you will automatically be receiving another shipment of food to supplement your supplies. Even if it is only one pail or can per month, get signed up as this will build up a good supply of food over time.
Next step, improve security, because now you have a lot that is worth stealing. I suggest you start out by adding more ammo. Then I recommend having about 8 of these solar powered yard lights that use AA batteries. They will light up the yard so you can see anyone approaching at night during a power outage.You can carry them in the house each evening to provide light or to harvest and use the rechargeable batteries in your radio(s).
Acquire more ammo. How much is enough ammo? Bottom line is you can't have too much. In a serious event with more than 50% casualties, there will be guns laying around, but no ammo for them. A Bow and Arrow make a good back up for when the ammo runs out and it is a quite hunting tool.
Buy a Military 3-day Assault Pack and stock it as shown in our Survival Pack post.
Buy another round of silver coins.
At this point, you are fairly well supplied and could last a year, but still not an advanced Prepper. But what if you need to survive for many years? In this case, you must have Heirloom Seeds (& tools) to plant a Garden, you must Salvage for Supplies and Barter with others.
Group Security - To survive this long, you must be part of a group that works together as there will be far more severe events that you need to be prepared for than just having enough food. Highly populated areas will get ugly fast. Even the rural areas will see mass hoards of people migrating out of the cities. Your biggest threat will be large groups of starving desperate people with guns that will do what ever is necessary to eat and feed their children. Many people foolishly think they will take to the woods to survive using their Wilderness Survival Skills, but there is only enough wild game for every American to have a few pounds of meat per year. Others have lots of guns and ammo and simply plan to take what they need to survive. You will need group security plans, with Rules of Engagement, like those found in the Prepper Handbook.
An even bigger threat may be our "Government" coming to seize your supplies, or even worse, Foreign Assistance coming to "help" us, and make us do things their way going forward. They would like to see our US Constitution become a thing of the past, especially the Second Amendment, which is the only obstacle to them easily taking over completely. When you think about this, you realize the need for hidden caches of supplies, including weapons and ammo. Now we are talking about Advanced Preparations.