This Prepared Life
Welcome to This Prepared Life, a podcast for women where preparedness feels peaceful, practical, and possible. Hosted by Allison Michael, this show is about creating a calmer, more resilient life through everyday preparedness and intentional living. Inside the episodes, you’ll find realistic food storage tips, Allison’s Three Layer Food Storage system, preparedness skills, homemaking rhythms, and encouragement to help you care for yourself and your family with more confidence and less overwhelm. From emergency preparedness and food preservation to homemaking and building a well-stocked pantry, this podcast offers practical guidance to help preparedness feel more natural in your everyday life. Whether you’re filling your first pantry shelf or have been preparing for years, you can expect simple action steps, honest conversations, and a reminder that preparedness does not have to come from fear. Here, we believe in being prepared, not scared — one pantry shelf, skill, and intentional step at a time.
This Prepared Life
5 Tips to Get Started in Preparedness - Ep13
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Prepping is nothing more than planning for the things to come. You get to decide what that looks like. Here are five things you can do to get started in preparedness. We also discuss some questions you can ask yourself to define gaps in your preparedness and take prepping one step further.
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Welcome to this Prepared Life podcast where homestudying and the apocalypse meet. I'm Alison, your host. Hi, and welcome to this prepared life. I'm Alison, your host. Thank you so much for listening today. If you are new here, the goal of this podcast is to encourage and educate on all things prepping and homesteading. I believe that every single one of us should be practicing preparedness in whatever way, shape, or form that looks like for your family. And there is no wrong way to prep. The only wrong way is to not do it at all. Emergencies happen all the time. Events happen, weather happens, supply chains break down. It is our job and responsibility as wives, as mothers, as women, to make sure that our families have the things they need. When the power is out, they will still be asking you what's for dinner. So today, let's talk about getting started. The only wrong way to get started is to not start at all. So here are five things you can do to start getting prepared. Number one, buy extra food at the grocery store. And this does not mean run out and fill your carts, overflowing, and empty store shelves. In 2020, the preppers were not the ones who cleared the store shelves. The panicked public did. Prepping is not hoarding and it is not selfish. Prepping is a slow process. And maybe it means you buy an extra bag of rice. Over time, that bag of rice will add up. Maybe it means you buy extra canned food every time you go to the grocery store. And over time that will add up. The important thing is to start buying extra and to buy shelf stable foods that you eat already. If your family does not like beans and you put 50 pounds of dry beans in your storage, are you going to eat that before it goes bad? So buy food your family already eats in a shelf-stable condition. Pasta, rice, canned beans, canned tuna, canned chicken, top ramen. So many things are shelf stable. Just buying a little bit extra at a time is one thing that you can do to easily start prepping. So number two, buy extra of the personal care products that your family uses. And again, we're not filling carts. Can you get an extra container of shampoo? An extra box of band-aids, some extra tampons or pads. Think about the things that you and your family use on a regular basis and make a plan to slowly buy extra of those items. Watch for sales and coupons. And when things are on sale, buy more. Set aside $20 of your budget for personal care items every month, and that will slowly add up. Number three is water. And water is probably the most important thing that you will prep. It is also the hardest thing to prep. Water takes a lot of storage. Start with having water bottles or bottled water from the store. That is a great thing you can do the next time you are at the grocery store is just grab a case of water bottles. It's a start. But please don't stop there. The minimum amount of water to have on hand is one gallon per person per day. When I first started prepping, water was the most overwhelming thing. And sitting there and calculating out for my family of six how much water we would need for one day, three days, two weeks, it was so overwhelming. So start with a case of water bottles and then start researching. Think about other sources of water. How can you filter water? Where can you collect water? Do you have space for water storage container? We have water bricks in our basement in addition to our well. We have plans to buy a hand pump for our well. In addition, we also store water bottles. So we have multiple different layers going on in our water plan. And worst case scenario, there is a creek not too far, and we have a Berkey filter. So, and and that is not the best case because water is heavy and hard to haul. But if we had to, we have the ability to filter that water and make it drinkable. So, do you have space? Research filtering water and purifying water, and what does that look like? And start small. Get a case of bottled water, do some research, think about what you have available in your house, and store water. So that's number three. Number four is lighting. And this is an easy prep and it is so useful. In a power outage, you do not want to be cooking dinner in the dark. None of us can see in the dark. So are your flashlights working? Do you have extra batteries? Does everyone in your family know where your flashlights are? Are the flashlights still under the couch where it rolled last month after your kid made a blanket for it? I don't know about you guys, but in our house when the kids were little, the flashlights would always go missing. And so I always had lots because I knew someone was gonna take one for a fort or go outside to do something and need a flashlight, and I would never see that flashlight again ever until we run it over with a lawnmower. So where are your flashlights? Do you have batteries? Our supplies are only good if one, we know where they are, and two, we know how to use them. So get flashlights, get lanterns, keep batteries on hand, keep extra light bulbs and supplies. So that's a really easy prep that you can do. Costco has great cheap flashlights, um, lots of places to so just get some lighting. And last is shelter and warmth. Do you have extra blankets in your house? Extra sleeping bags. Um, a great place for these is look at yard sales and goodwill. These are just emergency blankets, they don't have to be brand new and super nice. Give them a good washing and hang them out in the sun and stick them in a tote. You have extra blankets if you need them. Research ways to heat or cool your house without electricity. I think for us, we live in a northern climate. Um, you know, we moved last year from southwest Washington to northern Idaho, and here we get a lot of snow. We did not get snow back in Washington. We both grew up with snow, so we're not unfamiliar. But that was one of the biggest things on my list was heat. We had a power outage last winter, and um, of course, my husband was out of town. And within the eight hours that the power was out, our house, which is a 1927 farmhouse. So think of all the drafts and air leaks that a 1927 farmhouse has. It got really cold really fast. And we have a lot of blankets. My husband and my kids are just avid backpackers, so um, we have really good, incredible sleeping bags, and no one needed one. It did not get that cold. But had that power outage last more than eight hours, it would have been very cold in our house very fast. And we prioritized a wood stove this year, and we ended up finding one used and getting that installed, and it has been incredible. So now we have a way to heat our home should we have an extended power outage. So, ways you can heat your home, ways you can cool your home if needed, extra blankets, extra sleeping bags. Those are all things to research, look for, used. So, those are five steps that you can do right now to get started prepping. Buy extra food at the grocery store, buy extra personal care products that your family uses, figure out how to store water, buy some water bottles, come up with a plan for lighting, and come up with a plan for shelter and warmth. Another way to start prepping and thinking about how you do life is to ask yourself as you go throughout your day, how would I do this without electricity? Without water? Do I have the supplies and the equipment on hand to do the task? Can you make dinner with no power? Can you do laundry with no power or water if you needed to? Our mundane, everyday tasks become exceptionally harder if we haven't thought through these things. So as you go through your day today, ask yourself these questions. How would I do this without electricity? And do I have the supplies and equipment on hand to do the task? How would I do this without water? And do I have the supplies and equipment on hand to do the task? I hope that you get started and remember, every little thing matters, no matter how small. Over time it adds up. Happy prepping, everyone, and thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening today. And until next time, remember, every little thing matters, and a goal without a plan is just a wish. If you have questions, you can find me on Instagram at this prepared life. I'd love to connect with you over there. You can also find me on the internet at www.thispreparedlife.com. And if you enjoyed today's podcast, I would love it if you would leave me a review on Apple Podcasts.