Are you tight on cash, but still looking for ways to be more prepared?  I get it, we were in a tight spot, needing money, but still felt the urge and need to be more prepared.  I’ve come up with a list of 18 FREE preparedness activities that you can work on and be more prepared.  You may not have the money to purchase many supplies, but these little FREE preparedness activities WILL help you be more prepared during a disaster.  I promise!

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18 FREE Preparedness Activities

Grab ALL the FREE preparendess resources in one spot here. 

1. Emergency Binder– Click HERE to sign up and and print off your emergency binder.  If you don’t have a printer, or access to one, see if you can print it off at work, or have a friend or family member do it for you.  You just need to print off about 20 pages.

2. Fill out your Emergency Binder–  Yes… these are 2 different activities.  Filling out your binder takes time, and determination.   If you are using the binder from the link above (mine), I have a few blog posts to help you work through it one step at a time… because it can be very overwhelming.  Here’s the post to start working on your binder one simple step at a time.

3. Take photos– of all your property.  Snap quick photos of opened cabinets, under beds, in closets, of complete rooms, in the garage rafters, under the stairs… everything.  Save this on the web with storage, to a disk or email them to yourself.

4. Take photos of Barcode/USBN numbers of all your expensive items, and photos of the receipts with which you bought the item- A few examples are TV’s, laptops, guns, jewelry, safes, accessories, etc.

5. Make a passwords list– Print off a sheet of paper and start writing down all your websites/emails/membership usernames and passwords.  You can make it digital and email it to yourself online as well.  Be sure to keep this list in a SAFE place… but also an easily accessible place for you to grab quickly if you need to evacuate.

Grab ALL the FREE preparendess resources in one spot here. 

6. Make a list of everything you want to take in an emergency evacuation– After making this list, grab another sheet of paper and list the items from most important/critical to least.

7. Gather emergency items into one convenient location– at least as much as you can.  I understand that it might be hard to store ALL of it in one spot.  But try to keep what you can in one spot, along with a list of what else you need and where it’s at for quick grabbing.

8. Organize your emergency preparedness gear–  Place the most critical in the easiest to get too and grab first place.  Then not as critical behind that.

9. Put together a 72 hour kit–  Grab what you can around your house and start putting your kit together.  You’ll find a guide here.

Something is better than nothing.

10. Practice evacuating– a FREE preparedness activity AND fun.  I do need to warn you, this may scare some of your anxious kids (it did with our son), but they will be more prepared and not as fearful when you need to do it in a real scenario… and you’ll be grateful you practiced instead of fighting and explaining to everyone what you need to do.  That will waste precious time.

11. Find and pick 7 meals– then convert them to food storage ingredients.  This isn’t as scary as you think… baking ingredients… those store for a while and can be long term.  If you use fresh fruit/veggies… these can be swapped out for canned, dehydrated or freeze dried.

Grab ALL the FREE preparendess (and food storage) resources in one spot here. 

12. Take those 7 meals and create a shopping list– to eat the same 7 meals once a day for 4 weeks.  Place all the ingredients in one list and multiply everything by 4.

13. Create a budget– A budget allows you to find “wasted” money and to put that towards a savings.  Download your free budgeting worksheets here.  Try to start saving $1000 cash in small bills then for a 3-6 month supply of money for an emergency fund.

14. Make a list of everything you want to take in an emergency evacuation– After making this list, grab another sheet of paper and list the items from most important/critical to least.

15. Take my FREE Emergency Evacuation Preparedness Class– learn tips and tricks on how to evacuate efficiently.

16.  Do my What to Prepare for Worksheet– as a family and figure out what you specifically need to prepare for… not what everyone is telling you.

17.  Put together an Emergency Car Kit– Download a free checklist here.  Most of the supplies you’ll probably have around the house… if not, that’s ok.  Grab what you do have and put it in your car.

Something is better than nothing.

18.  Get your house winter prepared (which helps with hot summers too)– Download the winter preparedness checklist and find the free activities you can accomplish.  Again, something is better than nothing.

In conclusion

There are a TON of things you can work on with preparedness before even spending a dime.  I tried to list these free preparedness activities from the most important on down… all though, I feel they are all very important.

To be honest, most of the free activities are way more important than spending thousands on freeze dried food storage, solar ovens, or other gadgets that you don’t know how to use.  Get FREE basic items of preparedness down first.  Then you can spend your money more wisely and work on the other items.

What preparedness activity are you currently working on?  Comment below…

Further Reading:

8 Steps of Emergency Preparedness

Why you Need to be Prepared

5 Steps to Start your Food Storage

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This post contains affiliate links.  Read my affiliate link disclosure here.