Read enough preparedness advice and you notice that almost all of it is a grocery list. Rice, beans, wheat, water, canned goods, a number of calories per person per day. All of that matters, and we have written plenty about it. But ask anyone who has actually lived through a two-week outage or a bad storm what they ran out of, and they rarely say food.
They say batteries. They say they had no way to flush a toilet. They say they had eleven days of food and four days of the one prescription that does not tolerate being skipped.
Food is the part of preparedness that is easy to think about, which is why it gets all the attention. The non-food half is boring, unglamorous, and the part that actually fails first. Here is what belongs in it.
Why the non-food supplies run out first
Three reasons, and they compound.
You use them at a fixed rate whether you ration or not. You can stretch food. You can eat less, skip a meal, water down the soup. Nobody rations toilet paper by choice, and you cannot make a battery last longer by wanting it to. Consumption is roughly constant, so the supply drains on a predictable schedule you never calculated.
Nobody counts them. People know how many pounds of rice they own to the decimal. Almost nobody knows how many rolls of toilet paper are in the house, or whether the AA batteries in the drawer are fresh or the dead ones somebody put back.
They are the first thing stores sell out of. Watch any pre-storm run: water, batteries, propane, and paper goods clear out before the canned aisle does. Which means the supplies you are most likely to be short on are also the ones you have the least chance of buying at the last minute.
A useful test: if the power went out right now and stayed out for two weeks, you probably know roughly how many days of food you have. Do you know how many days of medication, batteries, or toilet paper you have? For most households the answer is no, and the second number is smaller.
Hygiene and sanitation, the category nobody plans for
This is the most-skipped and most-consequential category on the list. In a real, extended emergency, sanitation failure is what turns an inconvenience into a health event. If the water is off or the sewer backs up, the toilet in your house becomes a container, not a system.
| Item | Rough target | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Toilet paper | 1 roll per person per week | Bulkiest thing on the list, and the first shelf to empty anywhere. |
| Heavy-duty trash bags | 2 to 3 per person per week | Waste containment when pickup stops. Contractor bags, not kitchen bags. |
| 5-gallon bucket + snap-on toilet seat | 1 per household | The single highest-value ten dollars in preparedness. With bags and an absorbent, this is a working toilet. |
| Absorbent: kitty litter, sawdust, or peat | 1 large bag | Odor and moisture control in the bucket. Not optional. |
| Unscented bleach or sanitizing tabs | 1 gallon | Surface sanitizing and water treatment. Buy plain, no additives. |
| Soap, hand sanitizer, disinfecting wipes | 2 to 4 weeks of normal use | Handwashing is the actual intervention that prevents illness spreading through a household. |
| Feminine hygiene supplies | 2 to 3 months | Cheap, compact, non-negotiable, and routinely left off generic lists. |
| Diapers and wipes, if applicable | 2 to 4 weeks, sized up one | Size up, because a stockpile of newborn diapers ages out in months. |
| Paper plates, cups, plastic utensils | 2 weeks of meals | When water is scarce, not washing dishes saves gallons a day. |
Two weeks is the right planning horizon for this category for most households. It is long enough to cover the overwhelming majority of real events, and short enough that the quantities stay reasonable and get used and replaced normally.
First aid and medications
The pre-made first aid kit you bought is fine for the cut you get opening a box. It is not stocked for anything that keeps you home for a week. Build past it in three directions.
Wound care, in quantity. A real kit has multiples: assorted bandages, gauze pads and rolls, medical tape, antibiotic ointment, antiseptic wipes, non-latex gloves, tweezers, trauma shears, an elastic wrap, an instant cold pack. Quantity is the difference between a kit and a token. One roll of gauze is a demonstration.
Over the counter, the boring workhorses. Pain and fever reducers for adults and for children separately, antihistamine, anti-diarrheal, oral rehydration salts, antacid, hydrocortisone cream, cough and cold basics, electrolyte powder. Anti-diarrheal and rehydration salts deserve special mention: in an event where water and sanitation are compromised, that is the likely problem, and it is genuinely dangerous in small children and older adults.
Prescriptions, which are the hard part. This is the one item on the entire list that you cannot solve by buying more, because insurance and law both limit how far ahead you can fill. What you can do: ask your prescriber about a 90-day supply instead of 30, refill on the earliest allowed day rather than the last, keep a written list of every medication with dose and prescriber, and know which of yours are dangerous to stop abruptly. Rotate the extra so it never expires. For anyone dependent on refrigerated medication, insulin especially, plan the cooling separately, because that is a power problem, not a supply problem.
Also: spare glasses, contact solution, hearing aid batteries, and a month of any supplement you actually rely on. And if a family member has an epinephrine auto-injector or a rescue inhaler, know its expiration date the way you know a birthday.
Light, power, and fuel
This is the category people think they have covered and usually do not, because the flashlight in the junk drawer has corroded batteries in it right now.
| Item | Rough target | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Flashlight or headlamp | 1 per person | Headlamps beat flashlights for anything that needs both hands. |
| Battery lanterns | 1 per room you will actually occupy | Area light is what makes an evening livable. A flashlight is a tool, not lighting. |
| Batteries, in the sizes you use | 3 full sets per device | Standardize on one or two sizes so the whole supply is interchangeable. |
| Power bank | 2+ per household, kept charged | A phone that still works is your radio, map, and flashlight. |
| Off-grid cooking: camp stove or grill | 1, plus fuel | Outdoors only. Never a charcoal grill or camp stove indoors. |
| Fuel: propane canisters, charcoal, wood | 2 weeks of cooking | Roughly one 1 lb propane canister per 2 hours of burner time. |
| Manual can opener | 2 | The famous single point of failure. Two, because they break. |
| Matches, lighters, ferro rod | Several, stored dry | Redundant ignition, in a waterproof container. |
| Warmth: sleeping bags, wool blankets | 1 set per person | A winter outage is a heating emergency before it is a food one. |
On carbon monoxide, since it kills people after every major storm and it is entirely preventable: nothing that burns fuel goes inside. Not a generator in a garage with the door open, not a charcoal grill in a fireplace, not a camp stove on the kitchen counter, not a propane heater that is not explicitly rated for indoor use. Put a battery CO alarm in the house and treat it as part of this kit.
Tools, repair, and communication
You need fewer of these than the internet suggests, but the ones you need are specific.
- A way to shut off your utilities. Water main and gas shutoff, plus whatever wrench yours requires, stored where the shutoff is. Know where they are before you need to find them in the dark.
- Multi-tool or basic hand tools. Pliers, adjustable wrench, screwdrivers, utility knife, work gloves.
- Duct tape, plastic sheeting, tarp, paracord. This is the temporary-repair kit: a broken window, a leaking roof, a tarp over what got wet.
- A battery or hand-crank radio. A NOAA weather radio is the one information source that works when cell towers and internet are down.
- Fire extinguisher. One rated ABC, and it has a pressure gauge you are supposed to look at occasionally.
- Cash in small bills. Card readers need power and network. A couple hundred dollars in tens and twenties covers a lot, and nobody will have change.
- Documents. Copies of ID, insurance policies, deeds, medical records, and prescriptions, in a waterproof folder and backed up somewhere off-site. Also on the list in our 72-hour kit guide, because it matters in both the grab-and-go and the shelter-in-place version.
- Pet supplies. Food, water, medication, litter, and a carrier. Pets are the single most commonly forgotten dependent in household planning.
How much: the same math as food, different units
You do not need a new planning system for this. The one from how much food to store works fine: pick a number of days, multiply by people, multiply by a per-person-per-day rate.
The trick is that the rate is easier to find than you think. For anything you already buy, you have months of data in your own habits. Count what is in the house today, note it, and look again in two weeks. The difference is your household's actual consumption rate, which beats any generic table because it reflects your family and not an average one.
Sensible tiers, matching the way people build food storage:
| Tier | Covers | What to have |
|---|---|---|
| 72 hours | Most outages, one bad storm | Light, batteries, first aid, hygiene basics, one fuel source, cash |
| 2 weeks | A serious regional event, the realistic target for most households | Everything above at 14 days, plus sanitation bucket, full first aid, extra fuel and meds |
| 1 to 3 months | Extended disruption, matching a deeper food supply | Bulk paper goods, hygiene by the case, spare parts, deeper medication buffer |
A rule worth applying: your non-food supply should not badly outlast your food supply, or the reverse. A one-year food supply paired with two weeks of toilet paper and a month of medication is not a one-year plan, it is a two-week plan with a lot of wheat behind it. If you are working toward a one-year supply, the non-food side needs to scale with it, and it is the cheaper half.
Non-food supplies expire too
This is the part that surprises people. Food storage gets rotated because everyone knows food expires. Half of the non-food kit also has a shelf life, and because it has no date stamp anyone looks at, it quietly goes bad in place.
| Item | Realistic usable life | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Alkaline batteries | 5 to 10 years in storage | Self-discharge, then leak and destroy the device they are in. Store them out of devices. |
| Lithium batteries | 10 to 20 years | Worth the premium for anything stored long-term. |
| Rechargeable power banks | 2 to 4 years | Lose capacity whether used or not. Recharge every 3 to 6 months. |
| Liquid bleach | 6 months to 1 year | Loses potency steadily. Old bleach is not a reliable disinfectant or water treatment. |
| Sunscreen, most OTC medications | 1 to 3 years | Lose potency. Generally not harmful, just progressively less effective. |
| Prescription medications | 1 to 2 years typical | Varies by drug, and a few genuinely should not be used past date. |
| Rubber and latex: gloves, tourniquets, seals | 3 to 5 years | Dry out, crack, and tear when you finally use them. |
| Adhesive bandages, medical tape | 3 to 5 years | Adhesive fails, so they will not stay on. |
| Propane canisters | Indefinite fuel, valves degrade | Check for corrosion and leaks, especially if stored warm. |
| Fire extinguishers | 5 to 15 years | Lose pressure. Check the gauge annually. |
| Water filters | Varies, often 5+ years unopened | An opened, used, and dried-out filter is done. Note that in writing. |
| Paper goods, soap, plastic sheeting | Effectively indefinite | Keep dry and off concrete and these are genuinely buy-and-forget. |
The two that catch nearly everyone are alkaline batteries left inside stored flashlights, and liquid bleach bought for water treatment years ago that no longer treats water. Both fail silently and both fail precisely when you reach for them.
Storage conditions apply here too. The same heat that shortens the life of stored food also cooks batteries, degrades medications, and dries out rubber. A hot garage is a bad place for a first aid kit for exactly the same reasons it is a bad place for cooking oil.
Where this actually falls apart
The failure is not usually that people never buy this stuff. Most households own most of it already, scattered. The batteries are in a kitchen drawer, the first aid kit is in a bathroom cabinet, the propane is in the garage, the trash bags are in the pantry, and the extra prescription is in a suitcase from the last trip.
Nothing is missing, exactly. It is just that no one can answer how many days of any of it you have, and nobody knows that the bleach is from 2023 and the D cells behind the lanterns leaked last summer. The stuff exists; the knowledge does not. Then you buy a fourth box of bandages and no batteries.
The fix is the same one that works for food: write it down once, with where it is and when it ages out, then let something else remember. Our guide to taking an inventory covers the first pass, and doing it with your phone takes about twenty minutes per room.
This is also the specific reason StockWell is not a food app. It tracks any item in any storage area you define, so hygiene, first aid, batteries, and fuel live in the same inventory as the rice, with their own categories, quantities, locations, and expiration dates. The expiring-soon list that tells you to eat the canned chili is the same list that tells you the bleach is past useful and the lantern batteries are five years old. One system, because in an actual emergency you are not going to check two.
If you do only three things
- Buy the bucket and the seat. Ten to twenty dollars for a 5-gallon bucket, a snap-on toilet seat lid, contractor bags, and a bag of kitty litter. It addresses the highest-consequence gap in the average household and almost nobody has it.
- Fix the batteries and the meds. Pull the alkalines out of every stored device, buy three fresh sets in your standard sizes, and ask your prescriber about 90-day fills at your next appointment. These are the two things you cannot improvise.
- Count what you already own and write it down. Walk the house once with a list of the categories above. Most people discover they are eight weeks deep on one thing and three days deep on another, and they never would have guessed which was which.
Food is the part of preparedness that feels like progress, and the part with the shopping list everyone already has. The rest of it is dull and cheap and finishes the plan. A pantry with a year of wheat in it and no way to flush a toilet is not resilient, it is just well fed for a while.
StockWell tracks all of it in one inventory: what you have, where you put it, how much is left, and what is aging out, whether that is a can of beans or a bottle of bleach. Free to start.
Quantities and shelf-life figures here are general planning guidance, not guarantees, and this article is not medical advice. Decisions about prescription medications, including extended supplies and use past an expiration date, belong with your doctor or pharmacist. Follow the manufacturer's instructions for any fuel-burning appliance, and never operate one indoors. See our Terms for more.