Our 20 Most Important Prepping Supplies

There are probably 100 prepping articles talking about the most important prepping supplies, and the prepping supplies that will disappear first. Lisa and I decided to take this a step further and see if our most important prepping supplies matches all these articles.

I’ve also written an article titled “The 12 Most Important Survival Tools & Supplies” that goes over the prepping supplies that might actually save your life. That is assuming you have the skills to go along with them.

Everyone can find out what you should have, but sometimes what you should have, and what you do have are 2 different things. This little exercise has actually helped us identify some areas of weakness, as well as strengths, and see how our priorities are a little different.

The rules are pretty simple, and anyone at home can play along. If you had 10 minutes to leave you house what would you take?

But there’s a catch! You only have 5 minutes to make your top 10 list.

Bug Out Bags & EDC

When you start your list, don’t include your Bug out bags and everyday carry items, these are a bonus because I think these will be on the top of everyone’s list. So, if you have a really good bug out bag setup, and you have everyday carry items, you already have a head start…as it should be.

This exercise shows why bug out bags are important even if you have no plans on bugging out to the woods. A good bug out bag should contain items that cover the 6 areas of preparedness, food, water, shelter, security and sanitation.

Some bug out bag items include: Fixed blade knife, water filter, compass, tarp, folding saw, etc. I recently wrote a complete list of my bug out supplies if you are interested.

To make this a realistic as possible you can only add every day carry items you actually carry every day…not what you want (or should) carry.

My EDC items include: Multi tool, folding knife, Prepinstein Designs paracord belt and my EDC kit. As soon as I get my concealed carry permit that will be added too.

SPP159 20 Most Important Prepping Supplies

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My Top 10 Prepping Supplies

Alright, so here’s how my list turned out. This is not an all-inclusive list, but I tried to think about how I would be racing around the house, grabbing everything I could think of if I only had 10 minutes.

Camping Kit (Already in Truck)

In my truck I always have a plastic container under my rear seat that has some fishing gear including a small tent, folding camp stove and fishing tackle.

My Guns (and ammo)

This was actually the first thing that came to mind. These would not only be useful for self-defense, but also for hunting if the need arose.

Clothes

This could be considered an area of weakness, but I don’t have clothes put aside for this situation. I would have to grab a trash bag and stuff some clothes in it. Lisa also mentioned using a clothes basket because it could be used to carry stuff in the future.

Water

Who knows how long something like this could last, so I am going to grab as much water as I can. We have 5-gallon water jugs, and I would grab at least 3.

Food

I’m not going to take the time to go through the cupboards, I am going to grab all the “Prepper” food I can find. This includes the Tac-Bars, Long term food (dehydrated) and canned goods if I have time.

Power

Along with the small solar charges in our lights out kit I am also going to bring the solar generator I put together. This has a 100Ah battery, power inverter and solar panel.

Extra Camping Supplies

The camping gear in my truck might not cut it, so I will need to add some supplies from the garage. This includes the Coleman stove, sleeping bags, lanterns and fuel.

Fuel

We have some gasoline stored in 5 gallon jugs, and I would want at least 3 of them with me. My truck takes 36 gallons to fill, so 3 of these would only be a half tank.

Our Lights Out Kit

Our lights out kit includes, blankets, batteries, flashlights, and extension cords. Because this kit is put together and ready to go, it would take no time at all to load it up.

Communication

When we are on the go, I am going to want some way to find out what is going on. A crank radio might be good because of the NOAA channels, and I would want my ham radio to scan for radio traffic.

12 More Most Important Survival Supplies

The 12 Most Important SHTF Survival Tools Prepping Gear and Skills

I recently wrote this article that goes over the most important survival tools and supplies. The list on this article includes more than the single supplies, but rather the preparedness categories these supplies fall into.

Lisa’s Top 10 List

If we had to leave at a moment’s notice, things would be hectic indeed. A lot of my planning would be determined by the cause behind why we needed to leave. I would assume the most viable reason of forcing us out of our home at the present time would be an evacuation order because of a wildfire.

This is a situation that hits close to home, as we have had several large wild fires that have put us on high alert that we may have to leave our home quickly.

So this is the bases of my scenario. It is a given that I have my go bag in my car already, so this is an extra I guess you could say because I already have it packed up and ready to go. But that, and the animals aside, this is what I would be bringing if we had to evacuate our home and had only 10 minutes to do it.

First Aid Kit

I have my huge first aid bag at home. I was able to purchase after my birthday. This is a large kit with everything I would need to treat my family, or others.  This medical bag would last for a while, and has a medicine cabinet inside of it as well as items to treat any sort of injury, short of having to do surgery.

Laptop Computer

Like many people my laptop has so much information on it, this is definitely something that has to go regardless if there is power or internet access.

The Contents of Our Safe

This has cash, gold and silver so everything that is in our safe will be coming along with us including our emergency documents binder which includes all of our important information.

The Contents of Our Gun Cabinet

Although if we were to get pulled over, this could cause a few raised eyebrows, but carefully hidden and keeping the ammunition separated, these firearms are an important part of our prepping, so they would be coming along.

Blankets and Pillows

This may seem like an odd choice, but they serve several purposes. One, they are comfortable, and will add a sense of normalcy in an otherwise un-normal situation. If you could have a few moments of ‘normal’ and comfort, wouldn’t you want that? I know I would.

Important Paperwork

We keep this in an easy to access easy to move self-contained accordion type file. It has important information, as well as a list of everything we own, with pictures of every room in and outside of our home on a flash drive, which may be important if we have to prove what was in our home in case it was destroyed, for whatever the reason.

5 Gallon Container of Gas

We already have these stored in our garage, and not knowing what the emergency might be, I want to be sure to have at least a little bit of gas. And since I am presuming it would be due to a wildfire, I would want to remove the excess gas from our garage.

Food and Water

This is a given, but I would grab quick foods that are easy to pack that we already have in our pantry. They may not be the healthiest choices, but they are already there, and ready to go. Things like crackers, instant oatmeal, bread, granola bars, canned meals, etc. Whatever I could fit in a box, would be coming with me.

This is true for the water as well. We have a few of the water blocks which are fantastic for storing water, and they are square, so they fit easily into a car, and I could put ‘stuff’ on top of them as well, so organized packing.

My Prized Possessions

This includes items like my camera’s, saddle, and horse tack that would not be easily replaced. Also items like family photo albums. These are important to me, and items I would be really sad if I lost, so they would be packed into my car.

Camping Box

This is a box of supplies that we have packed into a bin. It is already to go, and has the basic items needed when camping out like lanterns (solar) bug spray, plates and silverware, small propane bottles, camping stove, coffee pot, fishing gear, extra coats, blankets, clothing, toilet paper, hand sanitizer, etc. This bin would be invaluable to grab because it is already ready to go.

Final Thoughts…

It’s interesting to look at how different our lists are and it just goes to show “2 is 1, and 1 is none”. There are some things that I completely forgot about like opening the safe, important documents and first aid supplies.

On the other hand, we both had some of the same items listed which can be helpful because I am so forgetful. The last thing you want in a scenario like this is to forget something very important.

It’s also interesting how my idea of important supplies, and Lisa’s ideas differ. Her list tends to include items for longer term events, and mine includes more items geared towards survival. This is probably because we know each other so well, that we know what the other person is going to take care of.


Dale
Dale

Survival and being prepared should not only be a passion, it should be a lifestyle. The definition of a prepper is "An individual or group that prepares or makes preparations in advance of, or prior to, any change in normal circumstances, without substantial resources from outside sources" Like the Government, police etc. I don't believe that the end of the world will be the "end of the world" I believe it will be the end of the world as we know it now. You can also find me on Google Plus and Twitter

    2 replies to "Our 20 Most Important Prepping Supplies"

    • Evan

      I think the trash bag (for your clothes) would actually be more useful than a clothes basket. There are 101 uses for a trash bag from carrying water to keeping things dry to using it as a shelter.

    • Jeff

      Great info!

      Question:
      We just recently looked through our get home bags after that lucky get them for a while and a lot of the medical is out of date. We’re prepping for the coronavirus and to update our bag.

      We had small travel supply sizes of antibiotics and anti-histamines in Highlands etc. We bought them at a local prepping show twice a year and now we can’t find them anywhere. Do you know of any online supply stores that sell travel sized medical items or toiletries? None of the local stores like target or Walmart have any of the stuff.

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