I would suggest scouring your weekly newspaper advertisements and buy things that you already use (tuna, soups, etc) when they go on sale. Galloans and case lots of water (surprisingly go sale quite often) and slip it into the pantry.............

As for clothing and such Salvation Army Stores are good and often have things you wouldn't expect.....

Firearms/Protection are not something you will typically see on sale so the need to slowly set aside cash to buy what you need would be necessary........

 

There are lots of ways to do it.

Go to dollar stores, they have a large amount of things that can be purchased very cheaply. But be sure and price check things. Often their special dollar price is more than the everyday price at the grocery store.

Stock up on canned foods while they are on sale. Even if its only 2 or 3 extra cans, in time they add up.

Always have an eye out for sales at places like Lowe's and Home Depot, they also carry a large selection of needed items.

Go to garage and estate sales. Learn how to grow and can your own vegetables. Every time you empty a good beverage bottle (not milk) refill it with water. With time and patience it can be done.

 

food and a way to cook it! after you have that i'd go for shelter (tarp), and security. this site has lots of great information and ideas based on cost. the biggest thing is to get started........even if you seem overwhelmed keep going. you can make a fair kit for around $100 bucks, it wont be great but something is better than nothing. just add and upgrade as you can.

my father draws a check and says he spent about $500 over the course of a year and now has a really nice kit.

 

Survival isn't about the wealthy having the best odds (that's the system we already have).

Depends on how much you want to spend, but I'd focus on a modest bug out bag, good knife and hatchet, basic camping gear and some protection. As others mentioned, garage sales, thrift shops, estate sales, Craigslist, etc.

And focus on developing skills. What you lack in cash, you may be able to make up with by knowledge. For that, try a public library and the internet.

This reminds me of a conversation I had recently with a Hmong refugee from Laos. He said they lived in a jungle and weren't all that concerned about money, to the extent we are here. They learn how to hunt, fish, forage, etc. -- whatever it takes -- and the focus is on skill, adapting, etc. Not on the economics.

 

Obviously, you are going to need a way to earn some extra cash to buy preps. One of the things that is easiest to do is buying and reselling used paperback books to second-hand bookstores. Those booksellers have a constant need for new inventory to replace what they are selling. They will usually pay 20% of cover price for books they want.

The best places to acquire these are garage and yard sales. Also, in some community type thrift shops. Forget Goodwill and the other "name" brand thrift shops. Their PB books are priced so high, now ($2.99 for a standard PB novel) that they are not a good source for this.

What type of books to look for?? For starters, mystery and adventure paperbacks published within the last 5 years. (Don't buy anything of this type, for resale, older than that.) Bypass romance novels. Bookstores don't want those. They date, too quickly. And they take up too much shelf space that could be used for other, more sellable, categories.

As a general rule, don't buy hardback books, either. Bookstores want the paperbacks, because those are the steady sellers. And don't buy beat-up or heavily used books. Condition is important. The store won't take a book with a broken spine, or one with loose pages that are falling out, etc.

When you have accumulated one or two boxes of PB books, look in your phone book under "Used Bookstores". Phone them to ask if they buy books in good condition they can use.....and what their buying hours are. (You don't have to ask what they pay. 20% of cover price is standard, and they all use that same ratio for buying.) Most bookstores pay in cash. A few will want to pay by check.

When you have found out who will buy......then just make the rounds of those stores. You will quickly learn who the best buyers are. For any used bookstore you go to.......be sure to ask what type of books they are looking for and would be likely to buy. The owners will be glad to tell you what those are.

You will learn more, as you get into this. It's fun.....and generates some cash income......and you don't even have to be a reader to do it.

There are other ways to supplement a SS check. But, this is one of the easiest to do, because you don't need a lot of cash to get started. Books at garage sales are usually priced at 10 - 25 cents each. PB cover price is $7.99. 20% of that is $2.00, which is a nice profit margin. Individually, of course, not worth the gas to go to the used bookstore. But, you wait until you have accumulated a box full of books to make that resale trip.

Hope this info helps........

 

start growing some of your own food if you can. then take that money that would have gone to that food and put it towards something else. learn how to can your own food too.

 

Buy a little at a time. It adds up.

Also, GoodWill and Dollar Tree have great deals on useful provisions.

 

Always keep an eye out for a bargain. Check freecycle, craigslist, the newspaper classifieds, etc. By doing that, I managed to store over 1,600 gallons of water for $100. Remember, water is more important than food. Without it, you won't last 3 days. So it really should be a very high priority item. Although it can take time to find affordable solutions.

 

always listen to MikeK. one smart cookie in my book!

 

SocSec constancy

Wherever you live, Darth Viridis, Social Security pays the same amount. Therefore if you are in an expensive environment and could move to a less expensive one . . .

Otherwise, focus on what you can do to offset some of your current spending. In my town, for example, you could easily forage* enough firewood to eliminate paying for heat.

(*Yard waste disposal site; free items of furniture left at the curb; etc -- no stealing.)

 

Assess your situation first.
Are you in a safe(ish) location? Is there somewhere cheaper and safer you could go (perhaps renting from a farmer)
Do you have a way to grow your own food (even a small lawn and patio can make a difference)?
What are you willing to do to secure food? Offering to pick from people's trees, going on wild edilbes walks, guerrila gardening...
Figure out how much you can invest each week/month. By making coupons a priority and shopping only sales, you should be able to build up a 3 months supply of food that you actually eat normally, fairly quickly. (ex; 10 boxes of spaghetti + 10 jars of 99cent sauce=10 meals)
Get online to all the Frrecycles in your area, shop yard sales, HAVE a yard sale and make money. Offer to babysit for money once in a while, if you have a skill or hobby, share is by putting on a class that you charge for.
Creative thinking.
Definetely, food is the primary thing to worry about first. Then water, then tools and weaponry.

 

No, No, NO. Water FIRST; then food & other basics. While you are accumulating those items, save up for good quality firearms from a gun dealer, as you are unlikely to find those at bargain prices on Craig's List, etc.

 

Stock up on rice and various kinds or dried beans a little at a time from the grocery store.Try and find a corona grain mill that comes with grinding stones as well as metal grinding plates. Get a food dehydrator. Look on eBay for these items they can be found cheap if you give it some time. Find a local health food store and get some prices for full bags of wheat berries, rolled oats etc. the prices for bulk purchase are inexpensive. As others have said make sure you have a way to cook without electricity- small propane stove, Coleman stove and or wood. Hope this helps

 

Buy non-perishable foods in bulk.
Grow as much of your own as you can.
Buy only meat that is on sale: The other day at Albertson's we only bought on sale, our bill was $71 and the 'savings' was $75.
Shut down anything electric you don't need.
Lower your thermostat in winter, raise in Summer.
Drop cable and get an antenna to get new public HD channels.
If you have fast internet and a phone, cancel the phone and get magic jack.
Have a garage sale, get rid of what you haven't used in 6 months.
Ride a bike when you can, or walk. Save gas at $3 a gallon.
Repair broken items if you can instead of replacing them.

On the internet there are sites that will pay you to take surveys. Not much, but my wife did it for a while. She would get gift cards for it.

If you have friends, buy in bulk with them and split it up. Can food where you can can. Heh...

 

What I have found that really worked is changing habits and getting into the kitchen. If you truly want to prep you need to start living like there is no store. Make your own breads, cream soups, cakes, brownies pie crusts. Cook beans and rice from scratch use less meat eat more casseroles even a few meatless meals. Start hitting the rummage sales I bought a brand new wool blanket for our bed 20.00 brand new then I 3 more I paid around 5.00 for all three. Look at what you need and then see if you can make it learn to dehydrate and can your meat grow a garden.

I also highly suggest you track every dime you spend you'll find waste and careless spending. Learn to use coupons effiently it's not as simple as people think many things can be gotten for free. Start a price book so can spot good sale.

Plan, plan, plan work on menu making so your not making mutiple trips to the store try to get where you only need go 1 time every two weeks and then add to that.

Organise things around your home preps are useless if you can't find them. Learn to used and hide them in plan sight. To most people that candle in the bathrooms are decorative but truly there a prep ready to go without searching in the dark for them.
My candles aren't stored in a cupboard there placed strategically ready to be used.

This sort of decorating/storing works well and is not obvisous a pretty box on a book shelf holds things and no one need know what's in it.

One thing you'll find as you start organizing is that you have preps already in your home you never even thought of as a prep.

Good luck

 

Thinking along the same line of organizing emergency supplies in your home......it's a good idea to have a box/container on top of your refrigerator with all the things in it that you need for an electric outage. Candles, flashlight(s), matches, Bic lighter, batteries, emergency lantern, etc., etc. (No more running around the house trying to remember "where" you put all that stuff, when you suddenly need it.)

 

I am on social security and slightly under poverty level, yet I have about a year's supply of preps. I got whole corn and wheat at the local feed store for $8 each for 50 pounds and the 5 gallon buckets for $2 at the local bakery. I've bought several grain grinders at yard sales and quite a few canning jars, blankets and quilts for $5 or less each, etc. I make use of store sales of every kind. In the grocery store, if something I like to eat anyway is on sale for 4 for $5, I buy 4 and put away 3. I've bought large bags of rice and beans. I've got a good water filter with extra filter canisters. Thrift stores are a good place to get many survival items.
I try to make items serve a double purpose where possible. Rolls of extra toilet paper serve double duty as insulation, a hot water bath canner is a good pan for preparing wild foods, etc.

I have a raised bed garden and seeds for a few years. I have learned, and still am learning, wild food plants.

I use conservation techniques where I can...turn off all pilot lights when not needed, use lower watt lights, put a sweat shirt on instead of turning up the heat more, etc. It all helps.

I send off for free samples in the mail that is great for BOBs because of the size of the samples. Everything possible, from coffee to pet food.
http://www.shop4freebies.com/

 

Quit buying Star Wars memorbelia

 

Buy your laundry detergent, pet food, kitty litter and whatever else you can in plastic buckets. It's cheaper in bulk and you get free plastic buckets.

Every time you go shopping, buy a large bag of rice or beans or flour or peanuts or some other dry food. Put these unopened in your free plastic buckets. Occasionally toss in some canned tuna or canned chicken powdered milk or jerky or whatever. Also toss in an occasional bottle of multivitamins or some candy. When the bucket is full make a list of its contents and what month/year when they were bought. Odds are none of it will go bad in the next decade but you'll probably want to replace the canned goods and vitamins on a yearly basis.

Stick the lid on and seal with duct tape. By not opening the packages you don't need a food grade container. There is a lot of advice out there on packing in CO2 or nitrogen but as far as I can tell it is unnecessary. I still have perfectly good bags of beans and rice from Y2K.

For water, buy an above ground pool if you have a yard. A little expensive but it is cheaper than buying a 10,000 gallon water tank and looks a lot less out of place.

 

The local swap paper and Craigslist are great sources for simple income. I have collected several FREE sets of good working washers and dryers that I cleaned thourghly and sold quickly. I also collected several that were not working and saved them for rainy days. If they were worth fixing I did so, if not I keep them dissamble them and scrap them out.

I also have a fellow prepper that does "clean outs" for a rental company. When some one is evicted or skips out on the rent he goes in and cleans all of the furniture and whatever else is left for a small fee. He gets to keep what ever he finds. Much of it is taken to the local flea markets and sold right off the truck he loaded it on! I sold him a set of washers and dryers that he uses for the unbelieveable piles of clothes hes gets ,washes,and sells at the flea market.
Everything is CASH.

 

Like you, I am also trying to prep on a low income. I look through all the dollar stores, Wal-Mart, grocery store, flea markets, military surplus stores, online, etc. Deals can be found everywhere for the things you will need. Also look on YouTube for things you can do to prep with thing you probably already have. Like using petroleum jelly on cottonballs as fire starters. Or try making your own hammock out of some paracord or clothes line.

 

Suggest you determine what you are preparing for, first.
The end of civilization as many are prepping for, or just a hurricane/event kind of short term emergency. Bugging out or bugging in (staying put), these types of questions I'd ask myself.
Once that is recognized you can address those survival goods needs-then perhaps go from there.

 

If you are low income you already have the proper mindset of "waste not want not" now the rest should be easy,
1) shop at the dollar store they have everthing from food to batteries and flashlights.
2) Thrift shops - think warm bankets and clothes, gloves, hats, socks they even have backpacks and camping items available.
3) save your used soda bottles and water bottles and jugs and fill them up with water and save.
4) local flea markets and garage sales, keep a lookout for a good pocket knife and fixed blade knife, look for a good camp hatchet or folding shovel and saw.
5) start a savings can and put a few bucks a way at a time until you can purchase a 12 or 20 guage shotgun or other firearm (used) you are comfortable with and purchase ammo on sale at wal-mart or at any sporting goods store, shop around for the sales especially during deer season.
this should put you ahead of many of the others in a very short time and you can add items as you come across them, i hope this helps. stay safe and god bless.

 

suggestions for Low-Income/fixed Income survival?

Ebay
Craigs list
Garage Sales
Dollar Stores
Coupons
Sales
Bulk
Thrift stores/ Salvation Army
Watch the side of the road where people are throwing out things

 

If in farm country, gleaning off the fields. Asking permission to pick up what the combines/workers miss or don't want, slightly damaged food to can.

The $5 preparations.

Driving the alleys. Our little community puts a surprising amount of good stuff out twice a week, one side of town at a time. The prudent shopper hits the alleys and scrounges some really good stuff. Especially around "Citywide cleanup" time, that'd be when everybody empties their basements/garages and the city doesn't charge extra.

Garage sales.
Thrift stores.
Farm auctions.

Food and water first, with some method of protecting the same.

 

The elderly OPs indicated they were on a fixed income, not homeless, broke, and without food.

 

These are worthwhile suggestions for anyone trying to get by on little while still prepping. Most of us on Social Security are broke and sometimes have to save on food. One thing about stocking up on food, though, is that you save money in the long run, if you buy what you eat anyway. Food is going up in price all the time, so buying it early makes it easier later. Once you've got a good stock, you can buy preps mainly when something is on sale. Even when rotating food and replacing what you use, you are constantly eating at earlier prices. It actually makes good financial sense to prep.

Also, if you add beans, rice, and grains to your diet right away and keep rotating them, you will be eating less expensively. The beans and rice especially have been known as "poor man's food" for quite a while, but they give excellent nutrition. You don't have to rotate those, but it's a good idea just to learn to cook more with them before you really need to. Then, when they are really needed, you will have recipes you like and won't repeat mistakes when it counts. Maybe just adding these to the menu once or twice a week would give you the best recipes in SHTF. These food basics are very versatile. Here's some recipes I've collected, and that doesn't even begin to cover them all:
http://www.homeprepping.com/forums/showthread.php/16-Bean-Recipes
http://www.homeprepping.com/forums/showthread.php/119-Wheat-recipes
http://www.homeprepping.com/forums/showthread.php/17-Rice-Recipes

I've never gleaned from a field yet, because there really arn't any farms here to speak of beyond hay, but I've asked people if I could pick up walnuts or acorns or other tree foods from under their trees, (usually they don't mind at all, and I collect a few for them too if they still want more than they've already harvested), and there are a lot of wild fruit trees and bushes here to can or freeze the produce. I can't afford a pressure canner, but I do have a hot water bath for the fruits that I got for around $5 at a yard sale and also got many of the jars at yard sales.

It's actually a fun challenge to prep and use your creativity to find resources to save money. It can become a satisfying lifestyle.

 

the op is 37