The Prepper’s Checklist: An Essential Tool for Survival

Whether it’s just seeing what you have on hand due to an upcoming storm or  or preparing for Doomsday, you’ll need one thing.  And that’s a checklist. 

You’ll appreciate that checklist as you prepare and stockpile food, water, and bug-out bag items. It could be very simple, such as a small pad and pen attached to your pantry.

• If you’re getting things on the go, begin moving the older things to the front or the top of the pile (FIFO – First In, First Out). I will soon address about how long food stays edible in cans and other means of long-term storage*. For now, I will say that it is much longer than the expiration date on the can. 
• If you’re home canning, a checklist would be a great way to help keep a balanced approach to what you’re canning. 
• If you stored food using different spices and herbs, you’ll want to know if that frozen meat has Asian or Italian seasonings. Use your checklist so you’re balancing out what you’re seasoning and storing so you’re not over-or-under buying.

But checklists aren’t just for food. 

• For items you’ve gathered for an emergency, and for your car or in a storage space.  A checklist means you never have to guess or what is where and needs to be updated. 
• For those “housekeeping” items that either we don’t do or would rather not think about. Your HVAC maintenance. The dog’s yearly vet exam. An oil change. List out those tasks, put it on your phone’s calendar to be recurring monthly or yearly. Maintenance is boring and may cost money. But as the expression goes. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” 

Tip: A spreadsheet can work as a checklist whether you’re logging your food storage, supplies, or even all those crazy passwords you need to remember.