Government advice to keep in some supplies and order of importance

There's a preppers forum on Mumsnet and they welcome beginners, so that would be a good place to start. There are also several emergency and prepper guides online that you can download.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/preppers

The general rule is, prep stuff you actually use and don't spend more than you can afford. I've got bottled water, canned food, ramen noodles, shelf stable plant milk, and some paper plates and cups. I've got a camping stove and some gas bottles, emergency lights and a power bank, and some packs of wet wipes. I've also got some books and puzzle books, and warm clothing. I'm planning on getting batteries and a radio. Many people add some treats like chocolate and biscuits. Its all marked with the sell by date in marker pen so I can read it without my glasses, and I rotate stock & use it up before anything goes out of date. Its taken me a few years of gradually building up stock, buying a bit extra each month.
I've practiced using them and I think I could manage for a week without losing my marbles.

The first thing to consider is what you are preparing for.

”Preppers” triggers the thought of those who are obsessed with zombies and a total society meltdown.

Some areas will have key concerns such as floods, hurricanes, wildfires etc and but the reality for the majority (at least in the UK) is a power cut or shortages from panic buying

Two key examples would be toilet rolls under Covid triggered by a gap in the supply chain of imported toilet rolls into Australia which triggered panic buying across the western world - and videos of full warehouses trying to tell people to calm down from emptying supermarket shelves as deliveries arrived.
The second is fuel. One garage misses a
delivery and Facebook fills with panic (there was a random 24 hour fuel shortage around here because someone posted up on Facebook that the Tesco fuel pumps were off one night followed by a rush to fill up cars in other garages)

For modern life we will typically want power banks, and to be able to eat & drink during a period of panic buying.
So have water and tinned / dry food. But do remember that in a power cut many of us will have a freezer and fridge of things that suddenly need to be eaten.
Dont just stock up and put it away, but especially with water just get some extra and use it

Cooking is easily forgotten, a camping stove and gas will fix that. Don’t forget a camping kettle, or you may find yourself boiling water in a pot

Personal and local circumstances will vary, such as if your car broke down and the garage can’t fit you in for a week would you be stuck in a village with one bus a day? Or are you on the coast, beside a large river which could flood the house

Honestly, I dont have any money left over at the end of the month. Everything is so expensive. We dont have a pot to piss in. I really cant afford to buy emergency supplies. The advice to buy supplies is great but the cost of living is ridiculous. I used spend £200 and have enough dry food and tins to last me 3 months. Now im spending £400 a month on food and doing additional fresh fruit and veg shops at £30 - £50 a pop every week.

I buy food we use. Mushy peas, baked beans, tinned hot dogs, jam, pop, dried milk etc. I also buy treat food.
For water I’ve just refilled empty squash and wine bottles. It’s best to change the water every 6 months and not store water in plastic for more than 2 years but I don’t think we will be worrying about plastic pollution if we were using the emergency supplies
I think a radio is essential. I need to buy a new one
as I don’t have a working radio. The cheap wind up ones aren’t great
Power banks and rechargeable lanterns are good but you have to remember to charge them up frequently
We have a log burner which I can cook on so won’t bother with a camping gas stove
Normal pans work on camping stoves

I have a power bank and bought some torches with batteries last year.

electric car so not worried about petrol (charge lasts two weeks or so and there are chargers in my village).

contemplating water butt and purification tablets.

Well I started with basics:

• candles, matches, firelighters, torches, rechargeable batteries
• Warm clothes, blankets and sleeping bags.
• bigger than normal supply of store cupboard food including things that don’t need proper cooking (tinned fish and meat, couscous, crackers, cereals and so on).
• a supply of multivitamins
• first aid kit and painkillers for adults and kids
• battery operated radio

We have some 5 gallon water bottles in the garage, we could last about three days.

We have four 200l water butts but this summer showed us that isn’t much help in a two month drought as we ran out. We don’t have any way to purify water.

We have three power banks we keep charged and we have just recently installed a rather special solar panel set up which will work even if the grid goes down (assuming the sun is shining!). Many ordinary solar panels won’t supply power unless the national grid is running.

We also have a gas bbq and a coal bbq.

I don’t think we could last much longer than a three days if we lost mains water.

Ironically we do not have a massive supply of toilet paper! I might place an order with Who Gives A Crap.

I also always have seeds in stock so I can grow fresh herbs, radishes, micro greens, dill, rocket, cress, and so on if I desperately need to!

I used AI to make a four day plan thinking if it is longer than that we’re all in trouble really. We have loads in the freezer and a generator so would make a start on that first.

4-Day Emergency Prep Kit & Meal Plan (2 People)

A optimized, low-water rmergency guide designed for high efficiency with small BBQ gas bottles.

1. Supermarket Shopping Checklist

Water & Fuel:

[ ] 6 x 5-Litre Bottles of Water (30L total for drinking, basic cooking, and teeth brushing)

[ ] 3 x Small BBQ Gas Bottles (Ensure at least one is connected and ready)

Main Meals & Carbs (Gas-Efficient):

[ ] 6 x Ainsley Harriott Couscous Sachets (Ultra-low gas and water usage)

[ ] 6 x Naked Noodle Pots or Batchelors Super Noodles (Eat straight from packaging)

[ ] 6 x Tinned Proteins (Tuna, corned beef, tinned ham - cold or mixed into carbs)

[ ] 4 x Tinned Fruits in Juice (Peaches, pineapples - use juice for hydration)

[ ] 4 x Tinned Vegetables (Sweetcorn, peas - eaten cold or mixed into hot meals)

[ ] 2 x Tinned Baked Beans (High-protein, quick to heat on the BBQ)

Savory & Sweet Biscuits / Snacks:

[ ] 2 x Packs of Savory Crackers (Jacob's Cream Crackers or Ritz to pair with savory meals)

[ ] 1 x Pack of Sweet Biscuits (Digestives or Club Biscuits for sweet treats/dessert)

[ ] 1 x Multipack of Cereal Bars (Cadbury Brunch Bars or Nature Valley)

[ ] 2 x Share-size bags of Peanuts or Cashews (Dense calories, minimal thirst)

Hygiene & Cleanup (No Water Required):

[ ] 2 x Large packs of Antibacterial Wet Wipes (For hands and cleaning gear)

[ ] 1 x Bottle of Hand Sanitiser (Saves water after using the toilet)

[ ] 1 x Pack of Body Wipes / Baby Wipes (For personal hygiene)

[ ] 1 x Pack of heavy-duty Bin Bags (To seal food tins and waste away from bugs)

[ ] 1 x Roll of Kitchen Towel (For wiping and drying cooking gear)

Lighting, Power & Tools:

[ ] 2 x LED Headtorches (Keeps hands free for outdoor BBQ cooking in the dark)

[ ] 1 x Heavy-Duty LED Torch (For outdoor inspection or signaling)

[ ] 2 x Battery-Powered LED Lanterns (360-degree ambient room lighting)

Depends on space.

Torches
Batteries
Candles
Matches

Water purification tablets if you haven’t got
room for the 5l bottles.

Rice is very compact, pasta less so. Porridge is a good staple. But all need cooking. Tuna and baked beans can be eaten straight from tin.

I also think a solar charge bank - kept fully charged - is my best gadget and / or some mega normal charge banks. I rely so much on my phone more so in a crisis so keeping that charged is a priority.

Well you won’t need a power bank for one because if it gets to the point that there’s no electricity you won’t have a mobile phone signal.

Depending on the season it would be heating to think about as well
A real fireplace wins here

Cold can set in quickly, portable gas heaters add the risk of fumes but are a good way of getting heat back up

Prioritise the rooms to heat - bedrooms have the benefit of bedding
One main day room is easier to heat then the whole house, and everyone together would contribute

A good “emergency heater” is a terracotta pot and tea light candles - not as miraculous as many tik toks would claim, and it does need to be thought about to avoid the risk of dropping a tea light on the carpet or young children putting hands on the clay pot

My mother supplements her winter heating with one. She has a cube plant pot, tipped over on its side, puts tea lights onto a brass stand inside and lights it with a long lighter
It stands in a dummy fireplace with the open end to one side (so if anything falls out it falls in the fireplace rather than the room )

Given the panic buying during Covid, I’m surprised there’s anything left in the shops now.

Are we planning for a nuclear war, climate change, or what exactly?

That depends on the underlying cause.
A power cut could be fairly local and not affect the mobile masts in the area, and / or the backup battery supply to masts may keep it going and “infrastructure” may be prioritised

Total loss of power stations or the grid will result in phone networks gong down, but storms taking out power lines may not depending on where they are hit and are easier for the suppliers to rectify

If we are supposed to prep for nuclear war then screw that - I’m going out there and hoping to die in the first wave!

You dont need to spend much at all. Try to add a few bits each month. I prep for power cuts, being cut off by snow and the water being lost (no power = no pumping station and floods have also contaminated suppliers where we live)

50p 2l bottles of any pop
the cheapest bottled water you can find (or refill empty pop bottles)
29p dried spaghetti
the cheapest tinned tomatoes
cheap red pesto (combine all three for a surprisingly ok pasta dish) in fact the cheapest tomatoes based own brand pasta sauce is good for this (full of sugar so tastes yum and your cut off in the snow with nothing else does it matter by that point?
Power bank and usb blubs to plug into your phone
Matches and candels
One usb head torch per person.

Thats my minimum. Put the torches into a Tupperware pot on a bookshelf with the matches for ease when the lights go off at night.

You can add more if / when you fancy. We get a few power cuts and loose water a few times a year. Finding and setting up candles and torches distracts my kids who all have various SEN.

If applicable, register for the “priority services” with your utility suppliers if there is anyone “vulnerable”
That won’t stop a power cut, but changes your position on the priority list and could mean anything from just extra communications to them turning up with a generator

Yes thats run towards the mushroom cloud time. We are surprisingly close to key military sites. I wont prep for war.

I have enough dry goods and tins and stuff in the freezer to see out a power cut, I’m not going to be too fussy about eating a cold can of soup by candlelight. And if we’re talking about the apocalypse I figure it’s going to be a free for all and I’ll just loot other people’s supplies, that’s kind of how this shit goes down.

I have been looking at this. No idea what level of disaster I am prepping for, so I bought 6 pack of 2L bottles of water. Not enough I know but no idea where to store more!

A bunch of pasta!! Like seriously loads. And then stocked up our tin supply. And trying to keep the loo rolls one step ahead.

Thinking again reading this thread I need to keep the petrol topped up. If something major happens I am straight out the door and heading to somewhere extremely remote where we have a second home. Walking if required! So we wouldn’t need huge supplies. It would be too far to carry this. Really we need a small tent. Purification tablets and a way to make fire.

El Niño

Im not usually the anxious type but got a bit worried when the Ukraine war started, and have never touched the stuff.

Bought
Wind up radio which is also a power bank and phone charger
USB rechargeable lanterns
Tea lights
Matches
USB heat pads
A storm kettle with cooking set

I haven't bought any emergency food but have about 40l drinkable liquids, a cupboard of random tins, a freezer with random meat and bread, a waterbutt for flushing loo. I should prob buy some actual water.

Presumably things like pasta etc would be useless in a power cut though?

I think if I was without electricity more than a day I would go completely insane in any case.

You would need a camping stove with gas canisters

So looking into this, the advice is about food shortages rather than power outages etc.

in that regard stocking up is relatively easy. I buy a month’s meat in advance, batch cook as much as possible. Bread you can freeze, or make your own. If not having space to store loads of flour, yeast etc you can buy £1 bread mixes in the supermarket.

I’m visually impaired so no need for candles or matches or torches. And who said there weren’t ever advantages 🤣