IMPORTANT: Store all food items inside your home where the heat is regulated (NOT in a garage or attic) & your bulk foods can last for 20 years. Just begin with a few bulk items & a couple of buckets at a time & you will be surprised at how quickly you can build up your supply.

My husband and I already had some skills before we began to prep about 4 years ago: sewing, knitting, bread baking, firearm safety, canning, reading many books on the subject, etc. What we have learned since, that I believe will help us survive: learning how to build a brick oven for bread baking and cooking (will be built this spring), growing our own vegatables and collecting the seeds for the next year's planting (as well as long-term storage of our seeds – you don't need to buy the expensive pre-canned stuff – you can do it yourself which is less expensive and, more importantly, they are seeds you have grown in your climate in your soil so they grow better and better each year), raising chickens and growing their feed, growing wheat (as well as grinding and storing and, once again, collecting the seeds for the next year), learning basic medical skills, using hand tools, building a cystern to collect rain water (did this last year) and a supply of hoses to water our gardens, cooking with cast iron outside (I have always used cast iron but never outside).

When my son developed a paralyzing fear of fire due to large wildfires near our old home, we visited several fire stations, watched fire safety movies, and fire proofed our home. We have fire safety ladders in each upstairs bedroom, a fire blanket in our bedroom, a small kitchen fire blanket near the stove, and our smoke detectors are special ones where we record a message instead of just hearing beeps. In case of panic, they hear Mom's voice telling them where to go and what to do. After all that, his fear has melted away because he knows our house is prepared. Same exact thing for grown-ups.