Tak­en from a sur­vival forum and copied to a word doc­u­ment late last year for my own review going for­ward:

Now some peo­ple live in apart­ments like myself, I fig­ured we need­ed a thread for sug­ges­tions for folks like myself.  I’m pret­ty cre­ative and have some ideas that I will be enact­ing soon if not right away to make myself more self suf­fi­cient in my apart­ment.

Now I don’t think apart­ments should be your final des­ti­na­tion when it comes to liv­ing quar­ters and home­steading, I think it should be a tem­po­rary thing that we do while we save 30% to 40% for the down pay­ment (those num­bers are my goals) real estate is in my view the most sound invest­ment and can help you become far more self suf­fi­cient than if you live in an apart­ment your whole life.

So here are some of my goals to make myself more self suf­fi­cient while still liv­ing in my apart­ment.  Feel free to add what you might have done or what you have been doing or any ideas you might have!

These are in no par­tic­u­lar order!

• I’ve called up the guys who run the local com­mu­ni­ty gar­den to reserve a plot for next spring…good start to get some gar­den­ing skills and grow some of my own food even while liv­ing in an apart­ment.
• I’m look­ing in to what kind of food bear­ing plants are good for in pots that I can grow in my win­dows.
• I’m buy­ing a solar pan­el to charge bat­ter­ies and elec­tron­ics in case of grid down just in case my bat­tery sup­ply runs out so I can use flash­lights and emer­gency radios dur­ing grid down.
• I am going to make good use of my stor­age lock­er to store preps.  I also put some mouse poi­son in it just in case since I don’t have much con­trol over the clean­li­ness and what oth­ers store in their lock­ers.
• I’m going to learn basic food pre­serv­ing skills like can­ning and dehy­drat­ing while still in the apart­ment so I have that skill when I leave!
• I’m tak­ing advan­tage of what my par­ents offered me, which is to let me use some of their gar­den to grow food.  The more food pro­duc­tion the bet­ter!
• I’ve got some bat­tery pow­ered box fans and plen­ty of bat­ter­ies for them in case of grid down to keep my place cool in the sum­mer.
• I’m look­ing for heat­ing prod­ucts that run on bat­ter­ies (gen­er­a­tors aren’t my best right now due to gas stor­age prob­lems) to at least keep my bed­room warm in the win­ter if the grid is down so I can sleep well!
• Look­ing into a 24 hour access stor­age lock­er to keep some preps and gear in so I can keep as much of my food stor­age and stuff I’ll need asap in an emer­gency in my build­ing
• Max­i­mize stor­age space, I’m look­ing into the best ways to store stuff mov­ing for­ward.  Any fur­ni­ture I buy will have some kind of stor­age val­ue.  Also I’m look­ing at orga­ni­za­tion items to keep my stuff orga­nized in these stor­age spaces
• Clear­ly I’m buy­ing books and resources that can help me in the future so I have them, also so I can read them and get the most infor­ma­tion in my cra­ni­um asap
• Plan­ning on get­ting an Alarm­Force apart­ment secu­ri­ty sys­tem
• Stor­ing as much propane as I can in lim­it­ed space for my small grill — for cook­ing in grid down
• Buy­ing some tarps to cov­er win­dows if they get bust­ed out in a wind storm
• Learn­ing to sew, it can come in handy as a sin­gle guy if some gear breaks or I need to fix cloth­ing.  Plus I’m in the mar­ket for a sewing machine.  Men can sew!
• Learn HAM radio and get licensed.  Put HAM sys­tem in my truck and get a cou­ple hand­held radios
• Guns for hunt­ing and home defense
• (Obvi­ous) Stock up on food and paper plates etc etc
• mak­ing a plan
• Back­up phones that don’t need pow­er (need­ed whether in an apart­ment or not)
• Buy­ing hand tools so I can do some basic main­te­nance if need be

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I thought this was a pret­ty good and well thought out list, although some of it does not fit with my bug out phi­los­o­phy, the per­son that wrote this may be in a less sub­ur­ban and more rur­al set­ting than I am.  I can­not be sure if he or she even has a bug out plan.  How­ev­er, I give this per­son props for a well thought out list.