How to Set up a Prepping Budget

There’s an old saying my dad told me that goes:

If there’s nowhere to get shade from the sun the best time to plant a tree was 5 years ago.

We can take this saying and apply it to prepping. If a disaster comes, the best time to start prepping was a few years ago. However, many would-be preppers are dissuaded by the costs associated with stockpiling and prepping. While it may seem like a daunting task to start to prep there are some strategies and ways to make it cheaper.

One thing to keep out of your mind is a “perfect” prepping kit. Maybe you searched the internet or YouTube and have seen videos of expensive, intricate and complex prepping systems. The fact is, the people who make these have invested a lot of money and spent a lot of time building to where they are. Start to think of prepping as small, baby steps. Build slowly and keep in mind that it can be a long process.

That being said, this article will look at building a prepping budget and then prepping with limited money.

Prioritize survival items.

When starting to think about a prepping budget, it’s important to prioritize the survival necessities: food, clean water and shelter. These are the most important things to prepare because they can mean the difference between life and death.

Plan your retreat.

Prepping a shelter depends on what you plan to do in case of a disaster. This can mean modifying a basement or underground shelter for survivability, buying a tent for mobility or making modifications to a car to get the hell out of dodge. Shelter can have different costs based on your plans.

Once you have your budget planned out, you can assign priorities to your sheltering components. As an example, let’s say you plan to use your basement as a prepping location.

A budget might include:

Upgrading your home or retreat is an important step but it can also be the costliest. As we will see later on, a generator, shelving and stove system could cost around $1000. It’s important to prioritize immediate and long-term goals when looking at sheltering.

Stockpile water.

Water is the single most important thing to consider when prepping. In a bugging-in situation, you’ll need to stockpile water in case you cannot leave your shelter. As for costs, we can do some simple math to calculate how much to budget.

At my local supermarket, a gallon of water costs around $1.00. I prefer to use gallons of water because the jugs can be reused in more ways as compared to a pile of 10oz bottles. However, if you prefer bottled water, you can do a similar calculation.

Considering that 1 gallon is likely a minimum per day per person, stockpiling a weeks’ worth of water would be $7. If you raise that to $9 for some extra volume, it’s still a relatively cheap price.

Obviously, this number is for one person, so if you have a family of 4, as an example, this number would be multiplied per person.

$9 x 4 people = $36.

So, for $36 you can stockpile a weeks’ worth of water for a family of 4.

Other water solutions.

Another alternative to consider in addition to stockpiling water is to invest in a water purification system. If the disaster lasts long enough, you’ll need more than what you can fit on a few shelves in your basement and this is where purification can come in.

There are a ton of different ways to purify water from elaborate and expensive home rigs to handheld filtering systems or boiling. One of my favorite filtering systems is the Sawyer PointOne Squeeze. I like how easy to use and light it is and how it can be used from a backpack for a quick drink or as a way to fill larger bottles, like the gallons jugs you will have from stockpiling.

Another added extra to consider is something like Nuun hydration tablets. Adding a Nuun tablet into a gallon of water will give some light taste but more importantly it will add electrolytes and salt to fight off dehydration.

Buy food in bulk.

It sounds like common sense, but buying in bulk is a good way to get a lot of food for cheaper prices. Buying bulk ingredients like vegetables and beans can be a long term solution, as well as looking for canned and premade meals. If you buy bulk and canned foods, you can stockpile a weeks’ worth for around $75-$100.

I generally recommend staying away from expensive, commercially produced prepping food kits. While they seem like a good investment, they are often crazy expensive for what you get and may only be partially usable. What I mean by that is that if the bulk container has food that you don’t like or that will make you sick it isn’t worth having.

From my experience this is especially true with military surplus M.R.E. meals. M.R.E.s are generally expensive and poor in quality. They are meant to keep soldiers fed until they can get back to the base, but not necessarily meant to feed them long term. M.R.E.s tend to have a lot of filler ingredients or gross-tasting meals in them too all at a huge cost.

Other Necessities

Apart from the main necessities there are other things to budget for survival.

Other necessities include:

  • A knife or cutting tool, $15-$50.
  • Clothing, $50-$100.
  • Shelter, $100-$1500.
  • Fire starting supplies, $10-$30.
  • Rope or cording $10-$50.
  • Containers, tarp, duct tape and other extras, $50-$100.

Using knives as an example of this, it’s not always necessary to spend all your money at once or drop it all on a single item. A favorite cheaper knife for me is a Mora carbon steel knife. It’s rugged, dependable and keeps its sharpness, and it can be purchased for around $15, which is very inexpensive compared to other knives on the market. Other cutting tools like hatchets or machetes can be purchased at lower prices but will still hold up to repeated use.

Where to start the budget.

So now that we have an idea of what’s important to prep, you can start to make your own budget. When making a prepping budget it’s important to start by looking at what you already have. Get out a notebook and follow along with a simple 3-step list to see where you stand.

  • Take an inventory of what you already have and how much you can spend per month. What prepping and survival materials do you already have ready to go?
  • Make a list of what you need. Do you have a knife but no shelter? Cooking gear but no food? Write out what you need. Prioritize based on necessity and survivability. Sure, a solar-powered oven or complex radio setup is nice to have, but prioritize the survival necessities first. Make priorities of immediate needs and long-term needs.
  • Build a budget and set goals that allow you to buy what you need. Ask yourself what can be bought quickly or what needs to be saved for. Or, ask what ways can you save money by buying second hand or waiting for a sale.

Sample budget.

So now that we have some ideas for what is necessary for our prepping budget, we can look at a sample scenario. I’ll make two broad categories of immediate and long-term priorities with a monthly budget of $200.

Monthly budget for prepping: $200

Immediate priorities:

  • 2 weeks of stockpiled water for 2 – $26
  • A water filtering system – $40
  • Stockpiled food – $75
  • An axe to chop wood for a fire-burning stove – $50
  • Various extras like tarp, duct tape, fire starter, containers and cordage – $50
  • A few hardbound survival books – $25

Long-term priorities

  • A dependable backpack – $120
  • A generator – $500-$600
  • Shelving for my basement shelter – $100

My immediate priorities are things I’ll tackle first, and the total amount I’d need to spend is $431. If I use $150 of my $200 budget per month, I can purchase all that I need in around 3 months.

The long term-priorities will obviously take a little bit longer and are often high-cost items that should be saved for. In this example my long-term priorities equal $720-820 dollars.

Of my $200 monthly budget I can decide to save $50 per month for my long-term priorities and then add the remaining $150 once my immediate needs are met. This means I will have a base savings for long-term priorities or to use for other short term needs if they come up without planning. And then once I purchase the long-term priorities, I can then save the $200 per month for other prepping needs.

Ways to cut costs.

Now that you have an idea of what you need and what a sample budget can look like, here are some tips and tricks to save money.

Go to shows and military surplus stores

Gun shows and surplus stores are excellent places to find prepping gear on a budget. Not every piece of gear needs to be brand new and perfectly suited, sometimes you can get by with buying old or used. I have found that gun shows and military surplus stores are best for buying sleeping bags, packs, rain gear and clothing. You can even sometimes find military medical kits, gas masks, and electronics cheaper than other sources.

Another reason to consider gun shows and military surplus stores is that they are good places to legally buy firearms and other self-defense tools. I frequently visit gun shows to check prices and find that guns can generally go for $50-$100 cheaper than at a gun store. There is always usually bulk ammo and reloading supplies in abundance at shows. Look around for other self-defense gear too, gun shows will often have booths that sell Tasers, survival bows and close-combat bladed weapons.

Apart from this, these locations are great places to have conversations with people and learn about prepping. The folks who run military stores or booths usually have a broad knowledge of survival and gear, and can point you in the right direction if you ask.

Learn skills

It’s a belief of many preppers that knowledge is as important as gear. And the good news is that knowledge is free. Gear can let you down or get misplaced or broken, but survival knowledge is something that can stay with you long after you learn the skills.

Skills to learn that are as good as gear include:

  • How to grow or scavenge for food.
  • How to clean and disinfect water and how to store water.
  • How to build shelter.
  • Using duct tape, tarp and cording for shelter or repairs.
  • How to navigate in the wilderness or in an urban environment.
  • Self-defense and how to build weapons.
  • How to repair and take care of your gear.

Having a knowledge of survival and prepping is as valuable as anything else, it’s why people can survive in the backcountry for weeks with little gear or food. As part of your prepping education, frequent sites like this one and looks for books on the subject of prepping and survival.

Find ways to use what you already have

Sometimes it’s possible to use what’s already laying around as a prepping tool. This is true for shelter, as things like cardboard, tarp or dumpsters can be used in a pinch. Trashcans or construction buckets can be repurposed for water collection, growing vegetables or storage. Old clothing can be used to make blackout curtains, rugs or blankets.

Don’t buy during a crisis

We started off by saying don’t feel like you have to rush out and buy everything all at once. While this is true, it’s also important to prepare so that you aren’t buying during a panic.

A very real-world example of this is prepping for a hurricane. The worst time to buy hardware to board up windows, sandbags to keep out water, a generator for electricity and food to survive the storm is when the rain starts falling. Take stock of what sorts of disasters can happen to your area and stock up on supplies that will let you survive it.

After creating a budget and shopping smart, it’s possible to prep with limited resources. Prioritize the survival necessities, visit surplus stores and gun shows and invest in knowledge and survival training to cut down on costs. And remember to take it slow and enjoy the process. If you stay on a budget everything you buy will be that much more valuable.

About Jonathan Verzilli



  1. Avatar

    Awesome post. I live in the city so, come snowstorms or power outages, trying to stockpile anything is an absolute nightmare. Of course, its hard to stockpile in general when you’re living in an apartment. Do you have any advice for those of us trapped in the urban anthill? I feel like when stuff starts to go down, the cities are going to be chaos.

    • Avatar

      Hi Angelica! Sorry this is 9 months late, but any place you have vacant space is also prepper space. Under the beds (use bed risers to give yourself a bit of extra space), inside closets, up on closet shelves, closet organizers like over the door shoe organizers or hanging organizers, under end tables, in unused drawers, under decorative tables (put a table cloth over it to hide them), under the sofa, and any other furniture you can put things under. Luggage you aren’t using, which can also double as your bug out bag. You could use a piece of plywood over water bricks with a tablecloth to hide them. If you have space under your bathroom vanity, put stuff in an under bed box, if it will fit, and put it under the vanity, then get a piece of plywood with a piece 1/4 round to put in front of it to make it look like a kick plate and it’s blocking the view of what’s underneath the vanity. If you have space above your kitchen or bathroom upper cabinets, things can be stored there, too. I love the various sizes of the clear SteriLite boxes with the “locking” lids. You can see what is in the box and the lid locks to keep out bugs and 4 legged vermin, and it keeps stuff from falling out because the lid is “locked” down. I’ve also thought about putting plywood under the box spring to store preps. Space is space, and it is all valuable to a prepper!!

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