"Doomsday" to many folks is a power outage longer than a few hours, which is not an uncommon event. Grocery stores go empty in a couple of days, service stations can't pump gas, no heat in the majority of homes, and no way to cook any food you might have. My home is total electric and would be crippled in a power outage except for the "preppie" stuff we began after we built the house in '83. I've never calculated exactly how long we could survive on our current stock, but it would be several months....maybe a year with tight rationing and thinning of the deer herd that inhabits our woods.
There's a wood stove in the basement with a couple of cords cut and ready with several acres of woods and a Stihl chain saw for backup. One end of the basement is lined with shelves full of canned goods and a useful assortment of food stuffs that we keep restocked and rotate as we use it. Cooking can be done on the wood stove, propane and/or multi fuel camp stoves, or the microwave when the generator is running. Coleman lanterns, kerosene lamps, and a good assortment of led flashlights and batteries are a must. The equipment shed has a backup generator and several drums of stabilized gas, also rotated via lawn mowers, vehicles, and two tractors. We have our own well and can obtain water via the generator or manually, if needed. So far, the only "disasters" have been a few days of power outage from blizzards and ice storms, and we cruised through them with no problem...even had TV, showers, and most of the comforts. Of course, just in case things might really get serious, plenty of guns and ammo is a given....
There really was no single big expense other than the generator, and the rest was built up slowly, over time, and caused very little strain on the pocketbook. I guess we were "preppies' long before the term became popular.
But seriously I remember using newspaper as a kid
