I’ve never been much of a prepper other than for natural disasters but I’m getting ready to, hopefully it won’t be too late. The first thing is to get a better generator and an auto standby switch on the house. After that happens I now have free water and septic. I also need to refill all my gas cans and get more cans. As far as new gas cans go these are valuable.
https://www.shannyshop.com/products/replacement-gas-can-spout
-SB
With food we’re pretty good, can always get far better.
I have the plastic kind and have made use of them many times, refueling my generators. If you have NG, think about getting a NG powered gen set, lots less maintenance and fuel worries.
It's a good idea to keep some 55 gal drums on hand. I remember back during the Carter days, when my dad stored gasoline in one so he could get to work and back home.
I keep a food safe drum for filling with water, if the need arises.
For food, look for qty sales of canned food at local groceries, freeze dried food online, bulk dried beans at Cosco/Samsclub, rice same, instant potatoes same.
Use what you store. We've learned that some of the best tasting vegetables are the freeze dried ones, and unopened last 30 yrs. Freeze dried green beans taste as good as fresh from the garden ones. Same for many other freeze dried vegetables and fruits. And another great thing, instead of slimy or no vegetables in the bottom of your crisper, you always have the freeze dried ones on hand in the pantry.
Freeze dried costs a little more, but not if you take into account having to through out the ones that go bad, sitting in the bottom of your ice box.
Freeze dried vegetables I keep: green peas, green beans, green peppers, chili peppers, tomato flakes, okra, corn, carrots, blue berries, black berries, peaches, apples, pineapple, green onions, onions, celery, and others I don't recall at the moment.
There are other foods in the food groups to consider having on-hand, dairy, meats, seafood, etc.
We have a dehydrator and dry a lot of our on herbs and fresh beans and peas. Dehydrated fresh beans are outstanding. Some things seem made for this process, some aren't. I'd like to get a home freeze-dryer one day. They're pretty expensive, the cheapest start at about 2K.
Garden wise, get something going, even if only a herb garden, all I have now. In the spring I do the container thing for fresh vegetables. Keeps you proficient in gardening.
The only time it's too late to prep, is after SHTF.