Prepping for whatever is coming 101

My husband and I didn't have enough for 3 days of any natural disaster when March 2020 hit. I was 40 weeks pregnant, hauling our youngest (Dean) around, when lockdowns hit. Suddenly weight lifters were buying out all the formula, baby wipes were wiped from shelves in a desperate second option to the impending no toilet paper. I went to 4 grocery stores, heavily pregnant, and began crying. The scene was a mad dash, people were ruthlessly taking everything, and I vowed then to never be in the same position (pregnant, but also unable to get necessary supplies for my children. Where to start?

I'm sure anyone who's "in to" prepping will have different advice, but ultimately I begin it starts with water. You can't go more than 3 days with out water, it's hard to keep clean and harvest (if you don't have the right tools), water is a necessity. I would always recommend large tanks, because at a MINIMUM you need a gallon of water per person per day to survive (this is for drinking and sanitation), if you have the space and financial ability to buy these, DO. We have 2 of these stacks in our garage (make sure to place these on bricks or pallets, but off the floor). We have these tanks here, and have found they're easily fit into our 2 car garage. If you lack room (or the money) to pour into the big tanks right now, don't panic, there are other options. 1: A water bob, these you place in your tub and fill up with any remaining water in the pipes. These are FANTASTIC for hurricane preparation as well! These keeps water in the tub clean and drinkable, and not at risk of easy contamination or draining.

2: Smaller, less expensive tanks. These can slide into the backs of closets, but are made with DURABLE plastic, which is the key here

What you DONT want are these cheap plastic ones from the store. I KNOW it's tempting, they're cheap, they're easily accessible. They also LEAK and break down very very quickly (sometimes less than 3 months), and then you find yourself standing in a very large puddle at 1 am crying and needing to deal with a small flood/make sure it doesn't start to mold and cause issues. How do I know? Yeah, it happened to me.

When in doubt, a life straw and a Berkey water filter

are amazing runner ups! If you can't have water on hand, make sure you have ways to clean any water you find!

Next up, food, shelter and the things we all don't think about, but PLEASE make sure you have water to begin, It's all worthless if you don't survive beyond 3 days because you have no water