What does practical preparation look like? Imagine the peace that would come with the knowledge that your family has the food and water they need to comfortably withstand any emergency. How much food and water are even needed to make it through a day with no electricity or access to a grocery store?
In last month’s blog post, we focused on God’s calling for us to prepare. He tells us to “be ready and keep ready”, which means to prepare yourself and your family for the things that are to come. The first step in following these instructions is to consider how to practically prepare for those dangers.
Practical Preparation
Preparing our families for any potential emergency should always come from a place of calm. It’s key to think logically when deciding what items to stock up on; this way we can discern which things may not be top priority. This also helps us avoid panic purchases.
After reading this post, our hope is that you will know the top priority items for your family and how much you practically need to have ready for a potential emergency. When we focus on practical preparation over panic preparation, it helps to make the uncomfortable task of preparing for the worst much more manageable. Let’s take this process one step at a time together.
Disclaimer: This is not an exhaustive guide, but rather it is meant to get you thinking and to bring awareness to the need for preparation. Please consider doing more research as you start to build up your reserves.
Supply
So, you realize the need to prepare but how much should you prepare for? An overall good rule of thumb would be two weeks. As you get more comfortable in your preparation journey, you can venture into self-reliance (more on that in a later post) but for now, let’s just focus on the basics.
Food
How much food should you prepare for your family? The easiest way to measure is by calories. Here are the average daily calories needed per family member:
- Adult women and men: 2,000 to 2,500 calories Recommended daily calorie for women and men
- Young children(6-12): 1,600 to 2,200 calories Recommended daily calorie for young children
- Older children and adolescents: 2,200 to 2,800 calories Recommended daily calorie for children and adolescents
Now take a moment to calculate how many calories that would equate to for your specific family. Decide what next steps you are going to take to practically prepare your family to have food to eat for at least two weeks in any situation.
When it comes to what to start prepping, there are a multitude of options. One option is to go with two weeks of simple freeze-dried meals with easy-to-follow calorie counts and servings. Another choice could be to create a list of non-perishable recipes and purchase enough ingredients for the two weeks. Lastly, you could grow your own fruits and vegetables to supplement your supply of non-perishables (or even strive for full self-sufficiency with a homestead).
Check-in: If you could not access a grocery store starting today, how many days of food would you have available? What about just non-perishables?
Water
How much water should you prepare for your family? Many forget to have enough water supply for drinking and sanitation. One gallon per day per person can provide a half gallon for drinking and a half gallon for sanitation.
You can always purchase bottled water for your supply, but for larger families that may start to take up a lot of space quickly. Consider investing in a filtration device to increase the supply of clean water you have at your disposal.
Check-in: If you could not access a grocery store starting today, how many days of water would you have available? Both clean/safe to consume and usable for hygiene?
Other Tools
It wouldn’t be right to discuss practical preparation without mentioning these important components to keeping your family safe and healthy in the event of an emergency. Remember to have these items ready and in an accessible place for your family:
- Light source
- Heat source
- Cookware
- Communication device (with extra batteries or solar chargers)
- Medicine (at least a two-week supply)
Of course, there are many other things we may need to prepare our families for an emergency. But our hope is this post starts to get you thinking about the basics of practical preparation that God is calling us to partake in.
Which area of practical preparation is God nudging you to start with? What’s one simple thing you can do this week to start preparing your family for the uncertain future?
P.S. Stay tuned for next month’s blog post where we will continue our conversation about God’s calling for us to prepare our mind, body, and spirit for what’s to come. Use this link to sign-up for email reminders about future posts and also, use the following code for an early access discount code for 10% off your order HLMP-PREP10.