In February 2021, the Texas grid failed. I watched from Iowa as friends in Austin scrambled for food while grocery stores sat dark and empty. One buddy—a guy who always said he’d “get around to prepping”—called me on day three. His voice was tight. His family had half a loaf of bread, some condiments, and a box of cereal. That’s it.
Here’s what stuck with me: it wasn’t some apocalyptic event. No bombs. No pandemic lockdown. Just ice. And within 72 hours, people who’d never missed a meal in their lives were genuinely scared.
I’ve been prepping since 2012. Back then, I made every mistake possible. I bought expensive freeze-dried meals I couldn’t afford. I stored rice in the wrong containers and found weevils six months later. My wife thought I’d lost my mind when I came home with 50 pounds of wheat berries and no way to grind them.
But here’s what a decade of trial and error taught me: building emergency food for one week cheap isn’t about spending hundreds of dollars at specialty survival stores. It’s about understanding what your body actually needs, buying smart at places you already shop, and storing it properly so it’s there when everything goes sideways.
The uncomfortable truth? Most people overcomplicate this. They watch YouTube videos about elaborate food systems, get overwhelmed, and do nothing. Or they panic-buy a bunch of random stuff that doesn’t make a coherent meal plan.
You don’t need a bunker or a second mortgage. You need a simple, practical system.
This guide is everything I wish someone had handed me back in 2012. We’re going to cover exactly what foods to buy, where to find them cheap, how to store them properly, and how to actually eat well during a crisis—all for less than most people spend on a weekend of takeout.
I’m not going to sell you anything. No affiliate links. No “premium courses.” Just the same advice I’d give my brother if he called me tomorrow and said, “Zach, I’ve got $50 and a week to prepare. What do I do?”
Let’s get into it.
Why One Week? The Reality of Most Emergencies
Here’s something nobody tells you about emergencies: the vast majority last less than seven days.
Power outages. Winter storms. Supply chain hiccups. Local flooding. Even the early days of COVID—the initial shock period when stores were stripped and people didn’t know what was happening—that acute phase was about a week before systems started adapting.
A 2023 FEMA study found that 72% of households affected by natural disasters regained access to normal food supplies within 5-7 days. That’s not to minimize longer-term events—they happen. But if you’re just starting out, building a solid one-week food supply puts you ahead of 90% of your neighbors.
I remember talking to a family after the 2008 ice storms in the Midwest. They’d lost power for nine days. The husband told me, “If we’d just had a week’s worth of food that didn’t need refrigeration, we’d have been fine. Instead, we ate cold canned beans for three days and then drove 45 miles to stay with relatives.”
That’s what we’re solving here.
The goal isn’t to prepare for the end of the world. It’s to make an uncomfortable situation manageable. To keep your family fed and calm while the neighbors are panicking. To avoid the desperation that makes people do stupid things.
A week of food isn’t just physical insurance. It’s psychological stability. When you know you can feed your family no matter what, you think clearer. You make better decisions. You’re not fighting crowds at the grocery store when you should be protecting your home.
Start with a week. Master it. Then expand from there.
The Real Cost: What “Cheap” Actually Means
Let me be direct with you: “cheap” means different things to different people.
For this guide, I’m working with a target of $50-75 per person for a complete week of emergency food. That’s approximately $7-10 per day. A family of four? We’re talking $200-300 total.
Now, before you say that’s not cheap—consider what most people waste money on. A single freeze-dried emergency bucket from those survival companies runs $80-150 and provides maybe 20 meals worth of actual calories. It’s marketed to scared people who don’t know better.
I bought one of those buckets back in 2014. When I finally cracked it open during a test weekend in 2019, the portions were tiny, the sodium content was through the roof, and my kids refused to eat half of it. Seventy-five bucks down the drain.
Here’s what actually works: buying regular food—stuff you’d normally eat—in shelf-stable forms and larger quantities. Rice, beans, oats, canned goods, peanut butter. Nothing exotic. Nothing requiring a chemistry degree to prepare.
The cheapest emergency food per calorie:
- White rice: approximately $0.05 per 100 calories
- Dried beans: approximately $0.07 per 100 calories
- Oats: approximately $0.06 per 100 calories
- Peanut butter: approximately $0.12 per 100 calories
- Vegetable oil: approximately $0.03 per 100 calories
Compare that to freeze-dried camping meals at $0.40-0.60 per 100 calories or MREs at $0.50+ per 100 calories.
The math doesn’t lie. You can build a nutritionally complete emergency food supply using basic staples for a fraction of what the “prepper industry” wants you to spend.
Here’s my rule: if you wouldn’t eat it on a normal Tuesday, don’t put it in your emergency supply. During a crisis, familiar comfort food does more for morale than exotic survival rations ever will.
Caloric Reality: How Much Food Do You Actually Need?
This is where things get ugly for most preppers.
I’ve seen countless “one week food supply” lists online that would leave an adult legitimately hungry. They look good on paper—nice variety, lots of items—but when you add up the calories, you’re looking at 1,200-1,400 per day. That’s a weight-loss diet, not emergency sustenance.
The average adult needs 1,800-2,500 calories per day just to maintain body weight during normal activity. During a crisis—when you might be hauling water, dealing with cold temperatures without heating, or handling physical labor—that number goes up, not down.
Here’s my baseline for emergency food planning:
- Adult male: 2,000-2,200 calories per day minimum
- Adult female: 1,600-1,800 calories per day minimum
- Children (4-12): 1,200-1,600 calories per day minimum
- Teenagers: Same as adults, sometimes more
For one week, that means:
- Adult male: 14,000-15,400 total calories
- Adult female: 11,200-12,600 total calories
I learned this lesson the hard way during a training weekend in 2017. My wife and I decided to live exclusively off our emergency food supply for three days. By day two, we were both irritable and tired. I’d seriously underestimated how many calories we actually needed.
When I recalculated everything, I realized our “one week supply” was actually about four days of adequate food. We would’ve been miserable by day five.
Don’t make the same mistake. Calculate your household’s actual caloric needs, then build your supply around real numbers—not wishful thinking.
A simple planning formula: (Number of people) × (Average calories needed per person) × (7 days) = Total calories required
For a family of four with two adults and two kids: (2 × 2,000) + (2 × 1,400) × 7 = 47,600 calories minimum for the week.
Now we have a real target to work toward.
The Core Four: Building Your Foundation
After testing dozens of different food storage approaches over the years, I’ve settled on what I call the Core Four. These are the foundation of any cheap emergency food supply.
Rice: The Ultimate Emergency Staple
White rice stores for 25+ years when kept properly. It’s cheap, versatile, and provides solid calories. One pound of dry rice contains roughly 1,600 calories and costs around $1-2 at most grocery stores.
Here’s what you need to know: white rice beats brown rice for emergency storage. I know that goes against everything the health blogs tell you. But brown rice contains oils that go rancid within 6-12 months. White rice, with the bran removed, stays good for decades.
For one week, plan on 2-3 pounds of rice per person. That’s around $4-6 worth of food providing 3,200-4,800 calories.
Beans: Your Protein Powerhouse
Dried beans are the cheapest protein source you’ll find. Pinto beans, black beans, kidney beans—whatever you’ll actually eat. One pound costs $1-2 and provides approximately 1,500 calories plus serious protein and fiber.
The key with beans: they require cooking time and water. During a crisis, you need a way to boil water for at least 45 minutes to an hour. Keep that in mind for your overall planning.
For one week, plan on 2-3 pounds of dried beans per person.
Oats: Breakfast Solved
Rolled oats are cheap, filling, and require minimal cooking—just hot water and a few minutes. A 42-ounce container costs $3-4 and provides around 2,400 calories.
Here’s a trick I learned: oats don’t have to be breakfast food. Mix them with beans and rice for bulk. Make savory oatmeal with salt and oil. During a survival situation, variety matters less than sustenance.
For one week, plan on 2-3 pounds of oats per person.
Cooking Oil: The Calorie Multiplier
This is the overlooked secret of emergency food. Cooking oil packs more calories per ounce than almost any other food—around 120 calories per tablespoon.
A 48-ounce bottle of vegetable oil costs $4-5 and contains over 4,000 calories. Add a tablespoon to your rice. Cook your beans in it. It makes everything more filling and adds essential fats your body needs.
For one week, plan on 16-24 ounces of cooking oil per person.
Beyond the Basics: Building Complete Nutrition
The Core Four keeps you alive. But surviving isn’t thriving. You need variety, vitamins, and protein beyond what beans alone provide.
Canned Proteins
Canned chicken, tuna, salmon, and even Spam have shelf lives of 3-5 years and provide complete protein. A 12.5-ounce can of chicken costs $3-4 and delivers 30+ grams of protein.
My recommendation: stock 4-6 cans of protein per person per week. Mix it up. Tuna gets old fast—trust me, I ate canned tuna for a week straight during a training exercise and couldn’t look at it for months afterward.
Canned Vegetables
The vitamin situation in pure rice-and-beans eating gets sketchy after a few days. Canned vegetables solve this.
Look for:
- Green beans
- Carrots
- Corn
- Tomatoes (technically a fruit, but you get the point)
- Peas
At $1-2 per can, plan on 7-10 cans of vegetables per person per week. That’s one can per day minimum.
Canned Fruits
Morale matters more than most preppers admit. Canned fruit—peaches, pears, mandarin oranges, fruit cocktail—provides sweetness, vitamins, and psychological comfort.
During the 2019 training weekend I mentioned earlier, we opened a can of peaches on day two. My wife literally said it felt like a luxury. Never underestimate the power of something sweet during hard times.
Plan on 3-5 cans of fruit per person per week.
Peanut Butter
I’ve never found a better emergency food than peanut butter. Calorie-dense (190 calories per serving), protein-rich, requires no cooking, tastes good by itself. Kids love it. Adults love it. It stores for 1-2 years unopened.
A 40-ounce jar costs $5-7 and provides around 6,000 calories. One jar per person per week is a solid baseline.
Salt and Basic Seasonings
Here’s what most lists forget: plain rice and beans taste like cardboard. Salt, pepper, garlic powder, and a few basic spices transform survival food into something you’ll actually want to eat.
A few dollars worth of seasonings makes hundreds of dollars of food palatable. Don’t skip this.
The Complete One-Week Shopping List (Per Person)
Let me give you exactly what I’d buy tomorrow if I was starting from scratch.
Grains and Starches:
- 3 lbs white rice ($3-4)
- 3 lbs rolled oats ($4-5)
- 1 box pasta ($1-2)
- 1 sleeve crackers or hardtack ($3-4)
Proteins:
- 3 lbs dried beans, mixed varieties ($4-6)
- 2 cans chicken or tuna ($4-6)
- 1 can Spam or corned beef ($3-4)
- 1 jar peanut butter, 28-40 oz ($5-7)
Fruits and Vegetables:
- 4 cans vegetables, variety ($4-6)
- 3 cans fruit ($4-5)
- 1 jar of jam or honey ($3-4)
Fats and Dairy:
- 24 oz cooking oil ($3-4)
- 1 can evaporated milk ($2)
- 1 box powdered milk ($4-5)
Flavor and Comfort:
- Salt, pepper, garlic powder ($3-4)
- Sugar, 2 lbs ($2-3)
- Tea or instant coffee ($3-4)
- Hard candy or chocolate ($2-3)
Total estimated cost: $58-77 per person
That’s a complete, nutritionally adequate one-week food supply for roughly what many people spend on three days of normal groceries.
Scale it up for your household. A family of four comes in around $230-310 total.
Where to Buy: Stretching Your Dollar Further
The survival industry wants you shopping at specialty stores and paying premium prices. That’s garbage.
Warehouse Stores
Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s offer the best bulk prices on staples. Rice, beans, oats, and canned goods are typically 20-40% cheaper per ounce than regular grocery stores.
Here’s my move: I wait for Costco coupons on items I’m already buying, then stock up. Last year, I got 50 pounds of rice for $18 during a sale. That’s enough to feed two people for nearly two weeks at emergency rations.
Grocery Store Sales
Every week, your local grocery store puts different items on sale. Learn the cycle. Stock up when prices drop.
I’ve been tracking prices at my local Hy-Vee since 2015. Canned vegetables hit their lowest prices in January and September. Peanut butter goes on sale every 6-8 weeks. Rice and beans drop around Thanksgiving.
Patience turns a $75 supply into a $50 supply.
Dollar Stores
Don’t overlook dollar stores for canned goods, pasta, and basic seasonings. Dollar General and Family Dollar often have perfectly fine shelf-stable foods at rock-bottom prices.
Word of caution: always check expiration dates. Dollar stores sometimes stock items closer to their sell-by date.
Ethnic Grocery Stores
Asian and Hispanic grocery stores typically offer better prices on rice and beans than mainstream supermarkets. A 25-pound bag of rice at an Asian market might run $15-20 compared to $25-30 at a regular store.
I’ve got a small Asian grocery about 20 minutes from my house. I drive there twice a year for bulk rice. Worth the trip every time.
What About Amazon?
Amazon prices on emergency food are usually terrible. They’ve figured out people panic-buy and price accordingly.
Where Amazon does work: bulk seasonings, specialty items, and larger quantities of staples during sales. But always compare against local options first.
Storage: The Part Everyone Screws Up
I ruined my first serious food storage attempt in 2013. Spent about $150, stored everything in the original packaging in my basement, and came back six months later to find weevils had gotten into the rice and the beans smelled off.
Proper storage isn’t optional. It’s the whole ballgame.
The Enemies of Food Storage
Your stored food has four enemies:
Oxygen causes fats to go rancid and allows insects to survive. Remove it.
Moisture leads to mold, bacterial growth, and clumping. Keep it out.
Light breaks down nutrients and can affect taste. Store in darkness.
Heat accelerates all degradation processes. Keep it cool.
The Bucket Method (My Preferred System)
For bulk grains and beans, I use 5-gallon food-grade buckets with gamma seal lids. You can find these at hardware stores, restaurant supply shops, or online for $7-12 each.
The process:
Fill the bucket about 90% full with your dry goods. Drop in a 300cc oxygen absorber (buy these in bulk on Amazon for pennies each). Seal the lid tightly. Label with contents and date.
Done properly, rice and beans stored this way last 10-20 years. For a one-week supply, you don’t need that longevity—but the same method keeps your food fresh and pest-free for the 6-12 months before you rotate it.
Mason Jars for Smaller Quantities
For seasonings, sugar, and smaller portions of grains, wide-mouth mason jars work great. Cheap, reusable, and you can see what’s inside.
Canned Goods Storage
Canned goods are already packaged for long-term storage. Just keep them in a cool, dark location. A pantry shelf works fine. A basement shelf works better.
Rotate your stock. Mark the purchase date on each can with a Sharpie. Use the oldest stuff first. This isn’t a time capsule—it’s a living system.
What About Freezing?
Freezers work great until the power goes out—which is exactly when you need emergency food.
I keep some frozen protein as backup, but I never count it as part of my core emergency supply. If the grid stays up, great. If not, I’m still fine.
The Water Question
We haven’t talked much about water, but here’s the reality: most of this food requires water to prepare. Rice needs water. Beans need water. Oats need water.
Plan on storing at least 1 gallon of water per person per day for drinking and food preparation. For one week, that’s 7 gallons per person minimum.
Bottled water from the grocery store works. Fill clean 2-liter bottles from your tap and add 2 drops of bleach per liter for longer storage. The method matters less than actually having water available.
Cooking Without Power: Methods That Actually Work
Your beautiful emergency food supply is useless if you can’t cook it when the electricity dies.
Camp Stoves
A basic propane camp stove costs $30-50 and runs on those small green propane cylinders. One cylinder provides roughly 1-2 hours of cooking time. For a week, plan on 3-4 cylinders minimum.
This is my primary backup cooking method. It’s simple, reliable, and uses fuel that’s widely available.
Safety warning: Never use a camp stove indoors. Carbon monoxide poisoning is real and it kills fast.
Charcoal and Grills
If you already own a charcoal grill, you’ve got a backup cooking system. Stock up on charcoal and lighter fluid. A 15-pound bag provides several hours of cooking time.
Again, outdoor use only.
Alcohol Stoves
Denatured alcohol or HEET (the automotive fuel additive in the yellow bottle) can fuel simple alcohol stoves. These are lightweight, cheap, and the fuel stores safely.
I keep two DIY alcohol stoves made from soda cans as deep backups. Cost me nothing to make and they work.
Sterno and Canned Heat
Sterno cans provide a small, controlled flame for warming food. They won’t boil a pot of beans efficiently, but they’ll heat canned goods and boil small amounts of water.
Keep 6-8 cans as backup. They’re cheap insurance.
Fire
If you have outdoor space and can safely build a fire, wood costs nothing and cooking over open flame is an ancient skill worth having.
I practice this at least twice a year—usually during camping trips. It’s slower and requires more attention than a stove, but it works.
The 7-Day Meal Plan: What Eating Actually Looks Like
Theory is nice. Here’s what a week of eating from emergency supplies actually looks like in my house.
Day 1
Breakfast: Oatmeal with powdered milk, sugar, and raisins (if you stocked them). Coffee or tea.
Lunch: Peanut butter on crackers. Canned fruit.
Dinner: Rice and beans with canned chicken mixed in. Canned vegetables on the side.
Day 2
Breakfast: Oatmeal with peanut butter stirred in. Tea or coffee.
Lunch: Tuna mixed with a little oil and eaten with crackers.
Dinner: Pasta with canned tomatoes as sauce. Canned vegetables.
Day 3
Breakfast: Rice porridge—cook rice with extra water, add sugar and evaporated milk.
Lunch: Bean soup—mash leftover beans with water, season heavily.
Dinner: Spam fried with rice. Canned corn.
Day 4
Breakfast: Oatmeal with honey or jam.
Lunch: Peanut butter and honey on crackers.
Dinner: Rice and beans, different seasoning than Day 1. Canned green beans.
Day 5
Breakfast: Oatmeal with canned fruit mixed in.
Lunch: Chicken salad—canned chicken with a little oil, salt, and pepper.
Dinner: Pasta with beans. Canned carrots.
Day 6
Breakfast: Rice porridge with jam.
Lunch: Crackers with peanut butter and jam.
Dinner: Everything fried rice—rice, vegetables, any remaining protein, egg powder if you have it.
Day 7
Breakfast: Oatmeal, any remaining dried fruit or nuts.
Lunch: Bean and rice soup—stretch whatever’s left.
Dinner: Finish perishables, start transitioning back to normal food hopefully.
The pattern: rotate your proteins, vary your seasonings, and don’t eat the same thing twice in a row if you can avoid it.
Feeding Kids: Special Considerations
Kids are picky eaters under normal circumstances. During a stressful emergency, they get worse.
I’ve got two children. Here’s what I’ve learned through actual testing.
Stock What They Already Eat
This isn’t the time to introduce new foods. If your kids eat peanut butter and jelly at home, make sure you have peanut butter and jelly in your emergency supply. If they like canned peaches, stock canned peaches.
Comfort Food Matters More Than Nutrition (Short-Term)
In a one-week emergency, your kid isn’t going to develop scurvy from suboptimal nutrition. But they might have a complete meltdown if everything tastes weird and stressful.
Stock some crackers, some familiar snacks, some treats. A bag of hard candy costs $2 and might save your sanity on day three.
Involve Them in Preparation
My kids have helped sort and store emergency food since they were old enough to carry cans. They know where it is, they know why it’s there, and they’ve eaten practice meals from it during our family “blackout weekends.”
When the real thing happens, it won’t be scary and foreign. It’ll just be something our family does.
Smaller, More Frequent Meals
Kids do better with smaller portions more often. Plan for snacks between meals rather than three large meals.
Common Mistakes That Ruin Emergency Food Plans
I’ve made most of these. Learn from my failures.
Mistake 1: Buying Food You Won’t Eat
I once bought a case of canned sardines because they were cheap and protein-dense. Nobody in my family eats sardines. Those cans sat in the basement for four years before I finally donated them.
Stock what your family actually eats. Emergency situations aren’t the time for adventurous eating.
Mistake 2: Ignoring Rotation
Emergency food isn’t a museum exhibit. It needs to rotate through your regular eating habits.
I use the “first in, first out” method. New purchases go in the back; old stock gets used first. Every six months, I do an inventory check and move anything getting close to expiration into our regular meal rotation.
Mistake 3: All Calories, No Nutrition
You can theoretically survive on sugar and white rice for a week. You’ll feel terrible, your digestion will revolt, and your mood will tank.
Balance matters. Protein, fiber, fats, vitamins. Your body needs all of it, even in an emergency.
Mistake 4: No Way to Cook
Bags of rice don’t help if you can’t boil water. Stock fuel, lighters, matches, and cooking equipment alongside your food.
Mistake 5: Forgetting Water
I touched on this earlier, but it bears repeating. You need water to prepare most shelf-stable foods. You need water to survive period.
Water is more critical than food. Stock it accordingly.
Mistake 6: Telling Everyone
This one’s controversial, but here’s my take: loose lips sink ships.
During the Texas freeze, some folks who’d been vocal about their preps had neighbors showing up asking for help. Now, I’m all for community. But there’s a difference between helping your neighbor and being the neighborhood grocery store.
Keep your preparations relatively quiet. Help people learn to prepare themselves. Don’t advertise that you’re the only family on the block with food.
Expanding Beyond One Week
Once you’ve got a solid one-week supply, expanding is just multiplication.
Two Weeks
Double your quantities. That’s it. Same foods, same approach, twice as much.
Estimated additional cost: $50-75 per person.
One Month
This is where you start thinking about variety more seriously. A month of rice and beans gets psychologically difficult.
Add more protein options. Add comfort foods. Add some luxury items—coffee, chocolate, alcohol for adults who drink. Mental health matters over 30 days.
Estimated cost: $150-250 per person for a complete month.
Three Months and Beyond
Now you’re into serious food storage territory. You’ll want to invest in proper bulk storage containers, oxygen absorbers, and possibly mylar bags.
The principles stay the same. The scale changes.
Testing Your Plan: The Most Important Step Nobody Takes
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most preppers have never actually lived on their emergency food.
They’ve got the supplies. They’ve got the storage. They’ve never tested whether any of it actually works for their family.
Test your system. Pick a weekend. Turn off the refrigerator (or just don’t use it). Eat only from your emergency supplies. Cook using your backup methods.
I do this once a year minimum. Every time, I learn something. Last year, I discovered our camp stove fuel had degraded and wasn’t burning efficiently. The year before, I found out one of my kids had developed a peanut allergy we didn’t know about.
Better to learn these lessons during a practice run than during a real emergency.
Here’s my testing protocol:
Day 1: No refrigerated foods. No microwave. No standard stove. Emergency supplies and cooking methods only.
Day 2: Continue. Note what’s running low, what’s working, what’s frustrating.
Debrief: What did you miss? What would you add? What can you remove?
Document your findings. Update your supplies accordingly.
Final Thoughts: The Real Point of All This
I’ve given you everything you need to build a cheap, practical emergency food supply for one week. Shopping lists, storage methods, meal plans, cooking systems.
But here’s what I want you to actually take away.
Preparedness isn’t about fear. It’s about responsibility. It’s about looking at your family and deciding that if something goes wrong, you’re not going to be helpless.
The world is more fragile than we want to believe. Supply chains stretch thin. Weather gets extreme. Systems fail. We’ve seen it happen over and over.
Building a one-week food supply won’t prevent bad things from happening. But it gives you breathing room. It gives you options. It means that when your neighbors are panicking, you’re calm—because you’ve already handled the most basic need your family has.
Start small. Start now.
Go buy a bag of rice and a bag of beans this week. That’s $5 and a day’s worth of food for your family.
Next week, add some canned goods.
The week after, grab some oats and peanut butter.
Before you know it, you’ll have a week’s worth of food security. Then two weeks. Then a month.
The best time to prepare was yesterday. The second-best time is today.
Stay calm. Stay steady. You’ve got this.