Never let "perfect" be the enemy of "good".

      All to often I hear and or read folks that say they can’t afford to prepare because they can’t do a years worth of food or buy the latest weapon or install solar panels.  I totally understand that making a home totally solar power starts about $45,000.00 and goes up. A years worth of freeze dried food start’s around a couple thousand dollars for just the basic package and goes up. Both guns and ammo have jumped in price since 2008 if you could find it to buy. Silver and gold have jumped in price as has fuel and food. You are probably saying to yourself why try? You will fail or you will been seen as a kook or worse. You can’t grow a garden because you rent or live in an apartment or condo. So why try?….
      You are letting perfection get in the way of good. Trust me prepping never springs fully formed like Aphrodite. It is a series of small steps. There will always be trade offs, for example time vs. money. When you got the time you don’t have the money and when you got the money you no longer have the time. You have got to be flexible and build in a series of steps.
       Set an easy goal, such as I will have 500 servings of a complete meal. 50 pounds of beans and rice is good! Heck that’s 1 meal a day for 5 people for 3 months. No it’s not perfect! but it will keep you alive. I’m guessing you will want more than beans and rice. Breads are great, simple ingredients flour, sugar, salt, yeast and water or milk. Takes some practice to perfect but it’s expandable. Add some cinnamon you got rolls, baking powder you got quick breads a little brown sugar or molasses you got coffee cake. As you can see each upgrade of products builds the next step up.
     The garden: Spices are cheap and you can grow your own herbs cheap from seeds and in a sunny spot.I get seeds from the Dollar stores 6-10 packages for a dollar. Do they all sprout heck no! Ironically most of these cheap packets are non-GMO or hybridized seeds. My chives have reseeded themselves 3 years running and even my green leaf lettuce wintered over and is growing again in my square foot garden. Even after a good turning over and running a cultivator in the soil. I’m also growing mini-citrus trees and have my sunny windows full of “Salad Buckets”,bok choy and diakons that are doing great. It’s not “perfect” but it’s “good” enough.
     Security: I’m a big believer that guns have a place in the preppers home. The cops are never around when you need them now it will get worse in the future. I’m not blaming the cops, no more than I’d blame the farmer about food. No one can value my life as much as I do so I must protect it. I believe I have value as a person and I don’t think I should give that away. If you are absolutely sure you can take a life, to shoot to kill. I think the best home defense weapon to start with is a 12 gauge shot gun. 00 buck or at least #2 shot. Now this is a tradeoff. Shotguns are cheap on a the off brands. I like a pump action, some like semi-autos. But it’s a great home defense weapon. I also carry pepper spray, and few other items. I really don’t want to kill anyone, I want them to go away. But I’ll not hesitate to kill if they won’t go away.
      Solar energy: Well this is easy to start and is so expandable. If you have a vehicle you can buy a little solar power battery maintainer. Heck add a little 200-300 watt inverter you got ac power. While you won’t be able to run your home on it you can recharge radios, phones and laptops perhaps a small 12 volt car cooler/fridge.
great for folks that need insulin.

Okay let’s look at the total cost between “perfection” and good enough to start.

1. Solar energy: Let’s say instead of whole home that cost’s $45,000.00 we are around $1000.00
2. Food: Instead of $2000.00 for freeze-dried we guesstimate around $300.00. Figuring a 50# of rice and beans at average cost of $50.00. 2  Flour at $15.00 per 50 bag, Sugar  50# bag at $30.00, Yeast $5.00 per 2# bag. Salt 50 # for $6.00. Wow about $121.00 add few dollar in seeds. So about $130.00 for each 500 meals. So for that extra you could allocate money for a canner? or oils? or a freezer.
3. Guns: I won’t get into beyond the 12 gauge as a home defense weapon. But let’s say we go cheap on 1 weapon and ammo. Designate $300.00 for security.

This list needs a lot of additions, but it a good start for around $500.00 or less. It’s not perfect if you wait for perfect you may miss good enough.