Greetings Honeypig,

First step to getting the knowledge you seek is to post more. In one month you have only made this one post, which is a great start. But to only make one post, many of the participants of this Forum will see you as not really interested in prepping so why should they take the time to post a reply. To get more you have to give more. I am not talking money or material goods. These type of Forums only work if all who use them participant in the exchange of ideas and information. You seek specific information that may or may not be for a real $5,000 start up purchase of gear. You have not expressed the must be purchased by date. So, I will conclude this is a theoretical purchase. You have not expressed how many people this sum will have to supply nor how long you need your supplies to last.

The reason many suggest a slow buy as you go purchase plan, is because most people have to pay bills, go to work and live life while acquiring their preps. So, you have a $5,000 cash windfall that you have dedicated to being more self-sufficient in the event of a natural disaster or man-made crisis - I assume the answer is yes. What do you purchase first and then next. If only life was so easy, to be able to throw money at the problem and get the solution. Yes having the funds to support this activity is very important, the challenge is, nobody has the exact same skill set not situation, so nobody has the exact same solution set. This is not a math problem. Although, math plays a roll at times.

So, lets explore the must haves by reviewing the rule of 3's. You can survive 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food and 3 months without companionship. This is a general rule, there are individuals who can exceed each and everyone of these, however, they are each specialists.

If you cannot breath you are died in less than five minutes. Decide what in your world would prevent you from breathing and solve it. Get smoke detectors for your home or shelter.

If you do not have shelter you will die of exposure in less than a quarter of a day. You need shelter - clothes, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, tent or bivy bag, and some type of home.

If you do not have water you will die in less than a week. You need a water storage system, water purification system and a water filtration system.

If you do not have food you will be died in less than a month. You need a supply of store-able foods, seeds to grow food and a means of catching or hunting food. You will also need a method of preserving the food you grow, catch and hunt.

If you do not have companionship you will die in less than half a year. You need a network of like-minded folks you can communicate with and hopefully find a group to survive with. A solo survival experience will be challenging, not impossible just challenging. Humans are social animals and they need social contact.

Last but not least, you will need a method of defending what you have from those who did not plan or prepare, as well as, those who planned on using force to take whatever they needed so they could survive.

This list in not the spreadsheet solution you seek, however it is a starting point. Get educated on the needs, make a list of the skills you will need, make a list of the needs you need satisfy and then make a plan for you and your family - bug-in, bug-out, escape a house fire, survive a flu pandemic, earthquake, etc. Once you know what you need there will be other who can help you shop for getting the best gear at the best price. Or you could hire someone, who has the experience and knowledge to take you shopping for gear and hire someone to help you draft a family survival plan. But $5,000 will not go too far if you have to contract out the planning and purchasing phase of your preps.

Just my 2 cents. I hope to see you back on the Forum. In the month you have been away I hope you have invested some of your time reading the posts on the Forum and have a better idea of what you need.

Cheers,

Mountainman.

PS - On closer review of your original comment your starting figure is $50,000 not $5,000. You misplaced your comma. Send me a PM and I will help you chart a purchase plan of necessary gear and training.

We're all still learning buts it great to have everyone here on the site everyone has some kind of knowing about something and each person has helped me a lot starting with my own stuff

If you knew disaster was coming tommorow, and had 50k to spend, no real plan or time to prepare anything, just wanted to get some supplies in a hurry:

4 guns: semi-automatic rifle. 12 gauge pump action shotgun. .22lr rifle. Semi-automatic or revolver style pistol.
Exessive ammounts of ammunition for all of the above.
Exessive training for all of the above
$10,000 worth of food
As much bottled or jugged water as you have room for
Plywood and hardware to board up your home
As much propane as you could store
Propane camp stove
Biggest first aid kit you can find x5
Am fm shortwave radios x5
5 or 6 friends who are a good shot and have their own guns.

Won't be pretty at all. Won't be enjoyable at all. Will be the most miserable experience of your life. But you'll live for awhile.

I think Mountainman's response is spot on!
The only thing I would like to add is to take advice from the instructions on a bottle of shampoo...
Lather, Rince, Repeat!
Start with basics in each category...
Store up 3 days worth of water
Get basic shelter from heat and/or cold
Store up a modest supply of food
Start your defence preps ie:buy your first firearm and a supply of ammunition
Now, restart the list and step it up a bit...
Get a way to gather and purify water
Upgrade shelter
Expand your food supply
Expand your defences ie:early warning perimeter monitoring system, another firearm and more amunition, etc.
Now, restart the list and step each item up one more notch...
You get the idea by now.
Having a year's worth of water, a tent & sleeping bag for shelter, 3 days worth of food, and a shotgun with a dozed shells simply doesn't work.
Start with the basics of everything, then improve each area of preparedness in order.
Lather, Rinse, Repeat!

Good advice again.
We started off with hunting gear and summer camping gear because that is what we had.

Started adding back camping water filters and spare filters slowly. Eventually purchased a high capacity system (it just arrived).
Started buying a few tins of #10 dehydrated food from Mountain House and Thrive; a case when there was room in the budget. Bought the pasta and cans of what we eat whenever they were on sale or 2 for 1(soup, pasta sauce, fish, etc). Up to a year's supply for 2 ppl now.

Added some new weapons and kept adding to the ammo as was reasonable within budget as we went. We have ipsc training and go to range when we can for the rifles and skeet.

Slowly but surely, even if you have lots of money to blow you don't want to waste it on something that will have no use if s never htf. Slowly also helps you to develop those skills necessary to achieve competency with whatever gear you're purchasing.

good luck ❗

The way I started out was getting 'extra' food that I know I'll eat, when it is on sale. I hate chickpeas so why on earth would I buy chickpeas, on sale or not??? Buy what you KNOW you will eat. I still do that to this day. Don't forget to rotate stock when you bring your groceries home. While you are rotating stock I think you will be pleased to notice how your food stores are growing.

Something quite a few people forget is 'comfort food'. Extra condiments, spices, and easy to prepare deserts (jello anyone?) go a long way in lifting spirits when the variation in diet becomes limited.

There are plenty of Youtube vids regarding DIY water filtration systems. After lots of watching and reading I decided to build my own filtration system that uses Doulton water filters (doulton.ca I think?) that gives me about 8 gal/day and filtering something like 4,000 gallons of pretty nasty water before having to replace a filter.

If you have medical issues that require medications, try to stock up on your meds because the corner drug store will probably be closed in a SHTF situation. I doubt you will ever be truly happy with your first aid preps but try to improve them. Don't forget hygiene products such as tooth paste, soap, shampoo and if there are females included in you 'clan', feminine hygiene products. I also like to keep extra disinfecting wipes on hand as there may be a time where your water supply is needed for hydration or cooking and there isn't enough clean water for proper hand washing. A disinfectant wipe might make the difference between some nasty bug entering your digestive system or not.

It sounds like a budget is part of your prep equation so keep a list of what you need, another list of want's, and try to buy everything possible on sale. In the end you will be better prepared for the same amount of currency that you are spending on your preps. Rome wasn't built in a day nor will your preps.

Good luck and keep on asking questions!

Everyone has slightly different priorities.

For me it's

Water/Food
Energy
Gear (clothing ext)
Protection
investment

For your skill set and situation you may view and budget different. I generally budget with those priorities in mind.

I am prepping backpacks for my girls in case they have to get to my place. I told them to put on their lifestraws (filtering straws) and not take them off till they get home. That way if their packs are taken from them, they can still drink and get home.

I think that is the way you have to think of things-what can't you do without- to what would be nice to have. Personally I am not thinking of a big generator to run my fridge and freezer and house long term, but maybe one to keep the fridge and freezer going for two or three days and then long term using a root cellar. Some people are setting up solar power to keep them going. I am not looking that way because I think there would be the hassle of needing parts or service in a messed up world situation and I don't feel confident setting up that system myself. I would rather put up lots of wood to burn and buy lots of candles on sale. So you need to decide what you are comfortable with in an "alternate situation". How I prep in the townhouse I am living in for a couple of years and how I am preparing my house out of town are quite different. But, some things should be the same. Water, food and warmth for the first 3 days of a problem (no matter what the time of year) Then of course as your phones and laptops die it would be good to have wind-up radio (if it's a major problem it is nice to have one with ham )

You could even go through a day taking into account what you use and what alternate would work if that wasn't available. No tap to brush your teeth-need a source of clean water. Go to cook breakfast-if no power you need a campstove or bbq and someway to keep eggs and bacon stored at a safe temperature. And on through your day.

And of course if things become "long term" you will need to find a source of food, use your stores, or grow what you need. Ladies will be storing up sanitary products, but if things last, absorbent cloth will be the norm again. So some pads and some old flannel sheets are smart.
Grain lasts longer than flour, but then you need a hand mill to grind it(extra parts) and some grain to plant that isn't dna altered.

There are a lot of things to consider no matter where you plan to be. So, like others have said-start with kit that will keep you if your car goes off the road in winter, then if no power to your home for a few days to a week, then longer and longer and more severe. Always keeping the water,food and warmth in mind.

Your last grocery bill is a good place to start. You ate (and drank) all that stuff.
What if there was no store this week? This month?
What if the water from your tap was not fit to drink? Do you need electricity to get that to the tap?
Could you still cook, bathe and be comfortable temperature wise if the power was out?

These are the things you have to do just about every day - find a way to do them on your own first for a week, then an extended period.
Worry about the one time events (bugging out, SHTF, EMP, aliens, zombies, etc.) after you have your own basic needs covered.

well lately I am not here a lot ... because of my work. but I read these posts and often ones like this inspire me to put in my 2 cents worth.
There are many great suggestions that have been given, some more extreme than others, but if you sift through them and take the core advice of it all and start small even if you can afford a bulk cash purchase. If you are so new to this that you have to ask such a generalized question, then you may get completely mislead and end up wasting your cash, some people will sell you anything just to make the sale and tell you that you absolutely need this to survive when maybe you do not. Each of the people here on this site have a different set of circumstances, but we have one major thing in common the belief that something may go wrong in the future and we want to be as prepared as we can to survive what ever comes, even as simple as loosing power for a week. Most households could not even survive that long and we here would rather be ready.
You need to figure out your wants and needs specific to your circumstances and build in that direction, read the posts here, but talk to the people here and participate as much here as you can, the solid ones will stand out, the things they say that click with your life will trigger your mind to work on a list that makes sense to you, yours and your lifestyle.