Water: 1 gallon per person or pet per day
Food: 1200cal/day minimum, long-term storable (MREs, energy bars, survival bars, dry staple items)
Clothing: comfortable, durable, layers, season-appropriate. EXTRA SOCKS.
Medication: small *labelled* bottles of OTC meds, one-week supplies of prescriptions.
Simple first aid kit.
Two flashlights, preferably LED, with two or three sets of batteries (MiniMag LED is a good bet, LED headlamps are good too.)
Small camp stove if appropriate (if you have an electric stove, look at the prices of small camping stoves; gas stoves can be lit with a match)
box of kitchen matches
leatherman or similar multi-tool
heavy sleeping bag or several extra blankets
phone cards for two carriers
roll of quarters for pay phones
CASH – at least $50, preferably $300+

Now, here comes the reasoning:
Food and water: you cannot count on grocery stores to be open and supplied in a disaster. Ever wandered through whenever there’s more than six or eight inches of snow forecast? Milk, bread, diapers, and toilet paper are wiped out. Other stuff is hit or miss. Bread freezes well. Water should be rotated through/used every six months or so.

Medication: if the grocery is closed, the pharmacy likely is also. Ask your doctor for a ’scrip for a one-week supply, and then rotate it through your normal bottles. Ibuprofen, aspirin, and tylenol are worth their weight in gold; so are things like PeptoBismol and the like.

First aid kit: this should be self-explanatory. No one expects you to do major surgery, but being able to splint things and slap on a bandaid is a good idea.

Clothing: layers are your friend, and you can never have too many dry socks.

Flashlights w/ extra batteries: self-explanatory. LEDs make much better use of power. A MiniMag AA-LED will run for a LONG time on a set of batteries, with the normal bulb it’s good for maybe an hour. Headlamps look silly, but when you need both hands free, they’re a godsend. Again, look for LED models. I just picked up a Black Diamond LED headlamp on clearance for $30, and it boasts a 29-hour run time on the “low” setting. I do NOT recommend lighting at home with a candle or gas lantern because of fire hazard.

Camp stove: compact, efficient, and just fine for cooking over. If you have a gas range at home, you can light that with a match and cook just fine; your gas oven will likely not work.

Matches: obvious.

Multi-tool: an entry-level Leatherman can be had for about $25, has a decent knife blade, a couple screwdrivers, and a pair of pliers. This comes in handy in daily life, let alone when things aren’t normal.

Sleeping bag/blankets: keeping warm at night! Sleeping bags are arguably better for this than a traditional sheet/blanket setup, because you are more insulated on all sides. Toss on a knit hat for extra warmth.

Phone cards: do not expect your cell phone to work in a pinch. Have a couple phone cards for contacting family and friends out of state.

Quarters: pay phones are getting harder to find, but they are going to be the most disaster-resistant communications out there. Know where there are a couple in your area, and have a roll of quarters to use them.

Cash: no power means no ATMs and no credit cards. Have enough cash on-hand at home to get yourself a couple tanks of gas in your vehicle or a motel room. Or both.

Think about some snack or treat items, and entertainment. Paperbacks, crosswords, puzzles, etc.

There are people who will add guns to this list; that is a matter of personal preference. If you feel the need, you know what you like and for what reasons. For three days to a week, I don’t think that’s necessary. Longer and it might be something to consider.

All that said, the best way to prepare yourself for anything is knowledge. Call your local Red Cross and ask about taking CPR and First Aid. Have fire extinguishers in your home and know how to use them. If there is a CERT group (http://www.citizencorps.gov/cert/) in your area, look into joining. Know how to cook over an open fire. Know how to purify water. There are numerous books on the topics; one of the best is the US Dept of Defense Field Manual “Survival”.

(I do have a couple of hand-crank flashlights now… maybe I can barter my light-shedding skillz for food if the Big One hits.)

There are a few wonderful products out there that I just love: fennel pollen, good-quality olive oil, chocolove chocolate bars, whole-grain bakery bread, anything from June Taylor, Katz & Co. citrus honey – to name a few. The one thing my husband appreciates are “real” Cheerios – no Trader Joe’s O’s!

And of course, I love a latte made by someone else and enjoyed in a nice cafe!

I often feel I should buy fewer clothes and spend more on them; I think you get what you pay for in terms of quality and fit.

If some people actually sat down and wrote down all the little things that they spent their money on then they would be amazed.

Like i think like you said a lot of us spend so much money on food. Even that cup of coffee everyday … think about that … if you had a cup of coffee at $3 a cup .. thats like $1095 bucks that you didn’t even know that you wasted.

Thanks for sharing

Young Investor

http://www.investmentrealty.blogspot.com

a modest generator run as little as an hour a day will keep a *chest* freezer going (with uprights the cold air spills out when you open the door)

I’m buying more in bulk just to save money – skim milk at Costco is $1/gallon less than at any grocery store, so I buy and freeze it (no fat to separate)

I can definitely relate, as far as splurging on kitchen tools and ingredients for a specific dish. Those are two of my guilty pleasures! :-)

I too wish I had those tips back in college, it would have saved me a lot of grief and debt after college.

Opinions on storing up food for a rainy day? I know the Mormons recommend a year’s supply, which strikes me as … umm … a bit excessive. However, the idea of having a few weeks of food and fresh water tucked away is something that appeals to me.

It’s become an ongoing project of mine, and is finally beginning to go somewhere. Small steps are going a long way. There’s the obvious benefit of buying in bulk (generic white rice: 20lb/$9.50, Uncle Ben: 1 box/$1.49), and many staple items (rice, beans, pasta, sugar, honey, etc) store well. I hunt, and have a freezer full of game meat (also an economical choice – if you hunt), along with several bags of frozen vegetables and so forth.

For those of us in areas prone to natural problems (and that is essentially the entire US: blizzards, flooding, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc), it really does make sense (to me) to have things on hand for when the store is not an option, for whatever reason. Putting up two weeks of simple food shouldn’t cost much, take up much space, and is a heck of an insurance policy.

I’m close to joining you on the video game splurges. My wife and I have been really trying to hold off the “urge to splurge” on a Wii, and the more we read about how much fun they are the more we want one! We did compromise and recently created a targeted savings account at ING. When our “Wii” account is funded with cash we’ll probably pull the trigger, but not until enough is in there for the Wii and Guitar Hero!

When buying stuff, I usually research it to death then end up buying the consensus best of breed at the best deal I can possibly find.

In my experience, best does not always equal the most expensive. I (finally!) ate at Chez Panisse last month, and it really was fabulous, but surprisingly, I’ve been longing to revisit a dive-y place I found in Oakland’s Chinatown, which cost about a tenth of the CP meal.

I’ve found the same with wine – yeah, a 40-dollar bottle is yummy, but when I do blind taste testing, I frequently find that a bottle that costs half the price often tastes as good or better to me.

I’m not bagging on your choice to buy quality ingredients, I am wondering if you’re analyzing expense vs. quality.

Lately I’ve been allowing the passing of time to even out my enthusiasm for the hyped must-have video games of the moment. I write the title down and check my list a few months later to see if I still care. The bonus is that games take years to really be “stale” and last year’s hot game is often half price or lower.