Thought I'd make a place to toss around some ideas (and of course, critisicm) of John's $4000 emergency prep video.
I few thoughts I had on water and food prep:
Cast iron is the way to go. We switched a few years back (my wife actually made me do it) and they cook better, clean easy (get one of those stainless steel chainmail rags on Amazon for $10) and don't poison you which is a huge plus eh?
A great way to get cast iron is to look for Lodge outlet stores. If you're going on a vacation road trip, you will probably pass one. They sell BLEM cast iron for a fraction of the cost (and for everybody who's shot a BLEM PSA, we all know that BLEM just means "Nice thing for cheaper"). Lodge is not the BEST cast iron, but it is good cast iron, and if you polish the inside with some 400 grit sandpaper and break it in over a couple meals, it's better than teflon.
For suburban water storage, most city/suburb houses and even apartments have a great water storage container in them (two if you have a hot water heater). The first one is your bathtub. The weakness of your bathtub? The drain. The solution, have a couple 6mil plastic tarps on hand and line the thing with them before you fill it. And if you see an emergency coming, fill that sucker up. If it was a false alarm, pull back the lining and let it drain. If not, congrats on having water!
I'd also add to John's list some water bags. Platypus is a company that makes them (not the Stealth Arms Platypus) that I have used, but there are a ton of choices. It gives you water storage in a foldable solution, which is a big deal where closets are small.
Criticism: John, I invite you to just 'chop down a tree and burn it'. A dead one maybe (maybe) in July or August. I live one...have a nice time lighting that without diesel and a blowtorch. You ought to have your firewood chopped n stacked already to get it dry (needs about a year honestly), and if you can't do that (live in an apartment, etc.), I'd increase your reliance on foods that don't require cooking. This is honestly where I jump off John's "Canned food sucks" train. Canned food can be eaten at any temperature. If my choice was to store a bunch of fuel canisters and rice, vs just a lot of canned food, I'd go canned food. Fuel runs out, and honestly, you may not want to be sporting an outdoor fire and cooking setup (wood or propane) if things got bad in the city/burbs. You may just want to hunker down and eat cold baked potato soup in the dark. But maybe I'm weird like that.
My choice was to keep a lot of dried goods like rice, lentils, beans, split peas (cuz I have access to make a fire to cook on) and ALSO canned food. Why, because if I have to sit my family down and eat rice and beans every day for a month, I can change that flavor with a single can of soup every day, and when big things happen, it's the little things that count.
I agree - my fam of 5 stocks at least a month's worth of canned foods of various types - soups, meats, chili, various veggies, etc.
Mom and I are both preppers. Mom likes dry storage/mylar/oxygen absorbers/vacuum sealing. I like that for some things (bulk grain w. an oxygen absorber vacuum sealed in Mason jars, my wife mills it and makes our bread). One big problem I see with the dry storage is, you tend to have it packaged in large amounts, and if anything compromises the seal before you go to use it (rats are tenacious bastards - ask me how I know) you have a bunch of, at best, stale, but more likely mold-ridden or maggot-infested dry food.
Most dry-stored food also requires hydration to make it edible, which dips into your clean water reserves. Clean water is by far your most precious resource. Canned food is already hydrated, and as you said Daniel, in a pinch you can crack the can and eat it cold. Not pleasant, but you can apply heat if available, add extra spices if available, add extra canned meat to a canned soup for more protein, etc. without having to significantly deplete your clean water reserves. Also, individual cans being crushed/compromised is less of a concern than finding one of your plastic buckets with 6 months of rice dry-sealed in it has been chewed into/moved into by a family of rodents. Never heard of rodents chewing through metal cans or glass mason jars.
Also completely forgot to mention - cans can be easily bartered as currency - if you need some resource, and have plenty of cans, someone who's been trying to hold down moldy rice may be very happy to trade what you need for a few cans of beef stew ;)