How to Start Preparing

Preparing for emergencies is simpler than you might expect. Here are four straightforward steps to get started with the basics.

BY James Baker:

April 2 1, 2025

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Ready to prepare and tackle any emergency or disaster head-on? This guide will walk you through the essentials. We’ll explain what preparation means, what it takes to be ready, and the key steps to ensure you’ve got the basics covered.

Returning readers can skip ahead to specific sections below:

You’ve Already Begun Preparing

Still skeptical? Think about this:

Do you have a savings account?
Do you keep first aid supplies on hand?
Do you own a smoke detector?
Do you carry any insurance?
Do you keep gas in your car?

All these are steps to prevent or handle emergencies. You rarely need bandages, but you keep them ready just in case. Buying them before a cut happens is preparation. Expanding this idea across your life is what it means to be prepared.

Focus on Your Biggest Risks

What Could Go Wrong?

By now, life has thrown a few curveballs your way. Experience teaches valuable lessons, but it doesn’t cover everything. The list of potential mishaps is endless—too vast to pin down completely.

But it’s not all bad news. Risk analysis, a dedicated field of science, blends history and statistics to map out what might happen. Insurance companies rely on it heavily—their actuaries crunch numbers to assess risks and craft policies, and their profits prove the math works. The U.S. military also leans on risk analysis, not just for combat scenarios but for emergency management too. They plan, stock kits, and train to handle disasters, much like you’d prepare as an individual.

This isn’t the same as meteorology, which predicts specific events like storms. Risk analysis weighs probabilities and impacts of what could occur—not pinpointing when. Some seasoned folks preparing for emergencies might fixate on one scenario, like an EMP, but that narrow focus can leave them vulnerable to other real-world risks. Unlike forecasting next week’s weather, predicting massive disasters years ahead is more guesswork than science.

Good news? We’re here to guide you toward solid, practical preparation.

Personal Risk Assessment for Preparedness

We’ve created a Threat List to guide your preparation efforts practically. This general risk analysis helps you focus on the most likely scenarios. It answers questions like:
- With limited resources, should I prepare for a CMP or an earthquake?
- Should I tackle an EMP first?
- Is a nuclear accident out of the question?
- Do I need a gas mask or a bug-out bag?
The Threat List isn’t a detailed, personalized breakdown of your unique circumstances. For that, you can do your own in-depth risk analysis tailored to your situation if time allows:

Risk Analysis: The Foundation of Prepping

After identifying your risks with the Threat List, stick around—there’s more to explore about managing risks effectively.

After pinpointing the broader macro risks, it’s time to consider personal risks—smaller in scale but potentially just as critical to your life.

Health and Fitness for Preparedness

Media often skips showing fit, healthy folks who prepare, but don’t be fooled. Poor health or fitness can amplify disaster’s toll.

From disabilities to obesity, health struggles touch many. Aging spares no one forever. Though we can’t master our health entirely, science proves a smart diet and regular exercise can extend and enhance life.

Choices we make can trigger heart disease, diabetes, cancer, or other chronic issues. Tough in daily life, they’re brutal in emergencies. Over two-thirds of Americans are obese, and diabetes fuels most blindness and amputations. (Source) If you can sidestep these, making your health a priority is step one to effective readiness.

Financial Readiness

Life can throw many challenges your way, and financial troubles can hit families especially hard. Everyone needs a solid financial plan and the discipline to follow it. We’ve put together a simple guide and resource list to help you assess your financial readiness:

Build Your Emergency Kits

Your emergency kit can be basic, like a general disaster or survival pack, or tailored to specific threats with specialized setups. survival kit guides on TruthTent These are designed to help you start creating kits suited to your unique needs.

Our gear reviews are here to enhance your preparedness gear with insights from our collective experience. Beware of some products marketed to those preparing—online or in stores—since higher price doesn’t always mean better quality.

The in-place emergency survival kit is the most important kit for preppers and the best to start developing early on.

Home Survival Kit

A bug-out bag is an integral part of a bug-out plan, which requires you to take your preparedness on the go.

Bug Out Bag

On average, people are away from home 38% of their time awake. This bag is designed to get you home during that time, regardless of the obstacles.

Get Home Bag

Everyday carry ‘loadouts’ are a part of everyone’s lives whether they pay attention to it or not. Preppers are encouraged to consciously have things with them that improve their chances of survival in any situation.

Everyday Carry

Practice with Your Kits

Schedule time—at least yearly—to practice, assess, and update your emergency plans. Beyond rehearsing, how else can you ready yourself for threats? Take steps to reduce risks beforehand.

Live in a flood zone? Consider flood insurance. Stay active—fitness boosts every part of life, not just emergencies. Be resourceful and keep learning; survival skills build self-reliance and can be enjoyable to pick up.

Finally, while preparing for life’s challenges is serious, make it fun. Enjoying the process keeps you committed and inspires others to value readiness too.

The Next Step

With the basics of preparation covered, let’s dive into the specific kits used to boost survival odds.

First up is the cornerstone of all kits: the in-place home survival kit.

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How to Start Preparing

Contents (Jump to a Section)

You’ve Already Begun Preparing

Focus on Your Biggest Risks

Personal Risk Assessment for Preparedness

Health and Fitness for Preparedness

Financial Readiness

Build Your Emergency Kits

Practice with Your Kits

The Next Step

Get Ready Your Way With Us

Prepare

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