Don't waste your money on those buckets of emergency food. The portion sizes are ridiculously small -- a "2 week supply" might get you a few days of actual real world calories. They are full of carbs, sugars, and salt. Almost all have no actual meat, just TVP. They are very expensive for what you get.
Invest in a stovetop pressure cooker and learn how to use it. You can use it over a campfire if you need to. Dried beans and grains cook in a fraction of the time -- and precious fuel -- than regular cooking. Tough meat cooks fork tender.
Buy and store only foods your family already likes and eats. Use your stored food and replenish as budget and space allows. Buy an extra can or two of anything you use. Over time you'll build up a good food reserve at a fraction of the cost of those stupid prepper buckets.
Bugs and vermin plus heat and humidity WILL ruin your non-canned food storage if you don't package it properly. Break bulk quantities down to meal-sized units and vacuum seal with oxygen absorbers, then put them in a vermin proof container. Rotate thru your stock as real food does not keep forever. If the bag is puffed up, or it smells rancid or like old linseed oil, throw it on the compost as it's spoiled and is unhealthy to eat.
If you don't know how to cook, learn now, not when you're bugged out in an emergency. Learn the basics of nutrition. You need protein to maintain your bones, muscles and organs, carbs for energy, and fats to make certain nutrients usable. You need iodized table salt to prevent goiter, not fancy pink sea salt from the vaginas of celebrities. You need vitamin C and calcium to keep bones healthy. A daily multivitamin had everything your body needs -- don't count on getting all your needs from food if things get scarce. Pre menopausal women need a women's multi vite with iron. Too much iron is a thing, so don't go crazy.
Don't go overboard on mega doses of vitamins -- you'll just pee out any excess, and some can be toxic in high doses (don't eat polar bear livers, mmmmkay?). Rotate thru your vitamins -- they don't last forever.
Take a lesson on how people in "poor" countries eat -- it's almost always a staple consisting of grain and a protein-rich legume, plus whatever veges they can get. These combine to make a complete protein. No meat or dairy needed -- these are expensive luxuries. Beans and grains can take hours to cook, which is why I recommend the aforementioned pressure cooker. 1/2 hour for dried beans versus 2 to 3 hours for example. Season appropriately and these are delicious.
Youtube: Julia Pacheco's channel is a goldmine of simple, tasty, economical meals using everyday ingredients. She shows every stage of thr food prep so you can learn while you eat. She has videos on minimal-budget meals if you are out of money and still need to eat. She even shows budget meal prep from the dollar store.
Wolfe Pit is another good channel. Most of it lately is of the "I dared myself to eat this gross packaged meal" type but he has a few "struggle meal" gems for ultra cheap but adequately nutritious food.
Be careful with DIY canning meats and non-acidic fruits, as they can cause botulism if not processed long enough at a high enough trmperature in a pressure canner. Botulism paralyzes your muscles including the ones that make you breathe. It's a terrible way to die.
Speaking of terrible and unnecessary ways to die, get a tetanus shot now, and every 10 years thereafter. A wound from a rusty nail or animal bite can lead to "lockjaw", another disease that fucks up your muscles, except in this case they all contract till your bones break and you die in agony. Vaxxes don't cause autism -- chances are you're already an autist if you're reading this, so you have nothing to lose in any case.
If you get preventably sick in an emergency scenario, you're nothing but a burden to your family and others in your group, and you lessen everyone's chance for survival, so don't be the one they chase out of camp to die alone.
