Practical Prepping Podcast
Episode 533: Building Resilience Without Spending a Fortune — Eighteen No-Cost and Low-Cost Prepping Activities
Hosts: Mark & Krista Lawley
Date: November 17, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Mark and Krista Lawley share 18 actionable, budget-friendly steps for building personal and family resilience. Focusing on realistic emergencies—like power outages, storms, and everyday disruptions—the hosts provide creative, practical ideas to strengthen preparedness without the need for expensive gear or fear-based scenarios. Their goal is to empower listeners with skills, organization, and resourcefulness rather than just “stuff.”

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Emergency Planning and Family Organization

• Create or Refine a Household Emergency Plan
  • Include pets, meeting points, communication methods, and key contacts.
  • [02:14] Krista: "You want to create…or possibly refine your emergency plan for your household, including your pets and your family. Now this would include meeting points, communication methods and key contacts."
• Memorize a Family Code Word
  • Useful for authentication during emergencies, for child pick-up, or as a signal to leave immediately.
  • Practice with family members.
  • [03:27] Mark: "Another thing is a word that means if I say this word, get up and leave, period, no matter what we're doing. And I used to use the word rutabaga for that…if I see something, I could say that word and it means don't ask any questions, get up and leave."
  • [03:15] Krista: "And that kind of authenticated that it came from us."

2. Boosting Water Resilience

• Store and Rotate Water in Labeled Containers
  • Set aside and label containers for tap water; rotate storage every 6–12 months.
  • Stale taste and container leaching should be monitored.
  • Free resources available on water storage safety.
  • [04:35] Krista: "Anyone that has listened to this podcast… knows that water is my number one prepping item."
  • [05:02] Mark: "Clean storage equals safe water."

3. Navigating Your Home in the Dark

• Family Exercise: Practice Moving Around Without Lights

  • Crawl to exits; familiarize everyone with paths, doors, windows, and obstacles.
  • Relevant for both power outages and fire escapes.
  • [05:41] Krista: "Can you crawl to an exit from anywhere in your house?…practice as well and get familiar with crawling around…in complete darkness."

• Emergency Services Perspective

  • [06:18] Mark: "I've crawled through, back in my few years with the fire department, I've crawled through houses that were so smoky you could not see where you were going."

4. Inventory, Rotate, and Maintain Supplies

• Regularly Check and Restock Preps
  • Examine pantry, first aid kits, tools, and batteries.
  • Maintain a clear idea of current supplies and needs.
  • Rotate food, water, and batteries regularly to avoid spoilage and dead stock.
  • [06:57] Mark: "Go through your pantry, go through your first aid kit, go through your tools, note what's missing. And this helps you to shop smarter later."

5. Prepare for Power Outages with a ‘Lights Out’ Kit

• Assemble and Store Where Accessible
  • Candles, lighters, batteries, flashlights, radio—all stored where you can find them in the dark.
  • Keep flashlights handy in multiple spots.
  • [08:22] Krista: "Make a lights out kit that consists of candles and lighters, batteries, flashlights, a small radio and store it where you can find it in the dark…"

6. Practice No-Power Cooking

• Use Camp Stoves, Grills, or DIY Rocket Stoves (Outdoors Only!)
  • Experiment with indirect heat (baking, roasting) on grills.
  • Never cook with combustion indoors.
  • [09:16] Krista: "Practice some of your cooking without electric power. So try using a camp stove, a barbecue grill…outdoor cooking. I want to make that very clear…"
  • [09:48] Mark: "Possibly try using that grill in a new way…you can do a lot more things like baking."

7. First Aid and Basic Survival Skills

• Learn and Practice Basics for Free
  • CPR, wound care, splinting; check for free community courses or online resources.
  • Basic knots, fire building, water purification, navigation by map and compass.
  • Practice before emergencies strike.
  • [10:09] Mark: "You also want to learn some first aid basics…Those are things that we need in our toolbox of skills."
  • [11:22] Krista: "The more you practice something when it's not an emergency, the better your mind can go there when you do have an emergency…"

8. Document and Information Backup

• Digital and Physical Copies of Key Documents
  • IDs, insurance, deeds, medical info—scanned and/or in waterproof bags.
  • Store on USB drives and physically in safe spots.
  • [12:58] Mark: "Create copies of important documents digitally and physically…Even though we have file cabinets… I can also put my hands on it digitally if I have to."

9. Physical Fitness as Prepping

• Endurance and Strength Exercises
  • Walking, body-weight workouts, carrying loads—all free.
  • Fitness is “survival power."
  • [13:39] Krista: "Fitness power is survival power. And I’m preaching to myself when I'm saying this…just get more physically fit."

10. Home Safety Checks

• Inspect and Secure Hazards
  • Check smoke/CO detectors, gas leaks, loose wiring, and anchor furniture.
  • Example: Cat alerting to gas leak at 3AM, prompting swift action and averting disaster.
  • [14:50] Krista: "Conduct a home safety check…inspecting your smoke alarms, your CO alarms, securing the furniture and noting any hazards like a gas leak…"

11. Rotate and Maintain All Preps

• Check Expiry Dates, Battery Health, and Consumables
  • Use a “battery buddy” to organize and transport batteries, especially during holidays and emergencies.
  • [17:20] Mark: "But check your batteries…from time to time I go through there just to make sure we don’t have a leaking battery in our battery buddy…Very, very handy."

12. Offline Resources Backup

• Download or Print Survival Guides and Quick References
  • Maps, PDFs, instructional charts for when power or internet is out.
  • [18:26] Krista: "Download or print your critical resources. Now this would be free survival guides… can be saved offline or printed for blackout situations."
  • [18:47] Mark: "The new free resource on water for the guide…gives you the formula for mixing bleach…"

13. Prepare a Quick Evacuation ‘Go List’

• Write and Post the Items You’d Need to Grab Quickly
  • Note where each item is kept; highlight everyday essentials for evacuation.
  • [19:36] Mark: "If you only had ten minutes to leave, what would you grab? Write it down and keep that list visible…write down where you put it…"

14. Learning Manual Alternatives

• Open Cans Without Electric Openers, Wash Laundry by Hand, Start Fires Safely
  • Practice with manual can openers and simple methods to gain confidence.
  • [20:31] Mark: "Well, practice opening cans without an electric can opener."
  • [20:50] Mark: "Go out there and practice [lighting a fire]. It doesn’t have to be a big fire…learn to start a fire."

15. Run a ‘No-Power Drill’

• Simulate Blackouts to Identify Weaknesses
  • Spend an evening or weekend without electricity.
  • Test lighting, cooking, and entertainment plans.
  • [21:35] Krista: "Run a no power drill…Spend a whole evening with no electricity…see how well you cope…test your cooking skills and your lighting skills and your Entertainment skills."
  • [22:21] Mark: "48 hours will give you a pretty good idea of where you're lacking in that."

16. Collect Tinder and Make DIY Fire Starters

• Use Everyday Materials (Wax, Cardboard, Dryer Lint, etc.)
  • Experiment with techniques (wax + dryer lint, petroleum jelly + cotton balls).
  • Repurpose ends of candles for new lights.
  • [22:46] Mark: "Collecting tinder and making DIY fire starters…can be repurposed into useful light and heat sources…My first try…could use some improvement."
  • [23:21] Mark: "First time I tried the dryer lint thing…went back and added some candle wax with it and it worked real well..."

17. Shelf-Stable Meal Planning

• Cook ‘Prepper Dinners’ from Pantry/Stored Food
  • Experiment to find tasty options; don't neglect seasonings.
  • [24:00] Krista: "Experiment with making meals only from your canned, your dried and your stored food storage, just to see what works best for your family…Don’t forget your spices."

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Family Code Words
  • Mark: "If someone says ‘your mommy and daddy sent me to pick you up’, what's the code word? If they give the wrong code word: run." [03:15]
• Physical Preparation Awareness
  • Krista: "Fitness power is survival power." [13:39]
• On Pets as Unexpected Heroes
  • Krista: "Our cat saved us because we had a gas leak, didn’t even know it." [15:34]
• Practical Experimentation
  • Mark: "Go out there and practice [lighting a fire]…don't cheat and use a fire log..." [20:50]
• Learning to Cope Without Power
  • Krista: "Be very faithful to keep that electricity off. That's gonna test your cooking skills and your lighting skills and your Entertainment skills." [21:35]
• Emphasizing Skills Over Stuff
  • Mark: "The more you know, the less you have to carry." [Intro paraphrase; running theme]

Segment Timestamps

| Timestamp | Topic/Quote | |-----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------| | 00:01 | Setting the scene: Everyday power outage preparedness | | 02:14 | Emergency plan and family code word | | 04:35 | Water resilience as top prepping priority | | 05:41 | Navigating the home in darkness | | 06:57 | Regular supply inventory and resupply | | 08:22 | Lights out kit—essentials and storage | | 09:16 | Practicing cooking without electrical power | | 10:09 | First Aid and survival skills: learning and practicing | | 11:22 | Importance of practicing skills before emergencies | | 12:58 | Digital & physical document backup | | 13:39 | Physical fitness: free prepping activity | | 14:50 | Home safety check; gas leak story | | 16:57 | Rotating consumables, the ‘battery buddy’ | | 18:26 | Downloading/printing critical survival resources | | 19:36 | Creating and posting a go list with item locations | | 20:31 | Learning manual alternatives: can openers, laundry, fire | | 21:35 | Running a no-power drill | | 22:46 | DIY fire starters and collecting tinder | | 24:00 | Shelf-stable meal planning from storage only |

Closing Remarks

This episode is a practical, no-nonsense guide to prepping for real-world emergencies—focused on building habits, skills, and resourcefulness rather than acquiring expensive gear. Krista and Mark encourage every listener, regardless of experience level or budget, to take small, doable steps, experiment, and involve the whole family in preparedness. Their memorable stories, clear advice, and emphasis on lifelong learning embody the motto: “Stuff happens. Stay prepared.”

For deeper resources and downloads mentioned in the episode, visit: practicalprepping.info/533
Connect: practicalprepping.info/contact