8 Practical Tips To Be Prepared for Everyday Life

The whole point of being prepared is to know that you have the ability to take care of yourself and your family when something unexpected happens. It’s not all about the end of the world and “doomsday”; it’s about knowing that you’re able to handle whatever comes your way.

Here are some practical tips to stay prepared for everyday life.

1. Extra food and water – Keeping extra food and water on hand is just common sense. What if you suddenly lost your job and couldn’t afford groceries? Because you have that food and water that you so brilliantly stored when you had the means to do so, now you have food and water that you can live off of while you find a new job. This is a scenario that a lot of people go through. You’re now able to rely on yourself and the preps that you have available, because you had the foresight to plan ahead with food and water for the whole family.

2. Keeping an emergency kit in your vehicle – What if your car breaks down? What if you get stuck in a snow storm? What if there’s an accident that keeps you planted on a highway for hours on end? Do you have the necessary supplies to get you through? Do you have some extra food and water in your car? Maybe some extra blankets?

3. Blackout kit – Having a blackout kit at home for when the lights go out is another common sense approach. Do you know where your flashlights and candles are located in your home? How about your extra batteries? The best way to easily access everything you need during a blackout is to create a blackout kit.

4. Basic first aid kit – We don’t use our first aid kits all the time, but when we need them, we NEED them! It’s important to have a well stocked first aid kit for your home and vehicle. A very basic first aid kit consists of medications, alcohol pads, bandaids and/or gauze and if you want, neosporin. That’s it. It’s really not difficult to put together your own first aid kit. They also sell some really well put together first aid kits at your local pharmacy.

5. Keep cash on hand – I know this is easier said than done, but it’s important to keep a little cash on hand, even if it’s just $50. You never know if your credit cards may not be working.

6. Keep extra gas on hand – Keeping extra gas on hand is convenient for a lot of reasons. One of the main reasons that happened to us here in Texas after Hurricane Harvey was a fake gas shortage. The news reported that there may be slow downs in the gas supply and it create mass panic all over. Prices sky rocketed and the pumps were empty because of this mass chaos. There was a time when we couldn’t find a gas station that had any gas! Luckily, we had some gas stored at home and we were able to use that. The gas shortage only lasted a few days, but if you need to fill up your fuel tank and there’s no gas available, what are you going to do?

7. Keep emergency household supplies in good stock – Do you have extra nails? Extra garbage bags? Extra tape? All of these little things may not be used all the time, but when you need them, you’ll be happy you have them. I have a blog post that talks about my top household items that everyone should have.

8. Keep important documents organized and together – Get some kind of folder and place ALL of your important documents in that folder. Birth certificates, marriage license, house documents, insurance documents, health information, passport, etc. If an emergency were to happen, you can grab that folder and go. Easy.

These are just some very basic things that anyone and everyone can and should be doing. There’s a lot more that we can all do to be prepared, but everyone has the ability to do all of the above so that we can all be a little better prepared for whatever life throws at us.

Conquer tomorrow, by preparing today.