My best friend was on the other side of the spectrum of survival, and used several less expensive solutions. He was able to comfortably live with far less and used a little creativity to solve problems as they appeared.

Generator: He had a Honda 2kW with extended tank. He initially was running it for one space heater but found it to be so inefficient that he just used it for entertainment and electronics during the day. (This is not included in $200 total but is not necessary, as you will see.)

Water: Collect it in buckets. Five-gallon buckets from Home Depot can be a real commodity, and boiling the water they collect in a small crawfish pot gives you clean water for cooking food or for a hot bath.

Heat: Use a Mr. Heater Buddy tied into a 20-pound propane bottle. This is a hunter’s best friend in cold winter mornings, and most of us have them. They are approved for indoor use and can heat a room for days. My friend was able to heat his bedroom to 55-60 degrees for two nights and used approximately one-third of a propane bottle.

For cooking, he relocated his grill out of the wind and used a tarp to create a little outdoor kitchen and cut the wind. The heat from the grill made a comfortable outdoor area while cooking and kept the rain and wind off him.

With a few buckets, LifeStraw or Katadyne water filter, gas burner, pot, Mr. Heater Buddy, and a few propane tanks, he could have lived fairly comfortably for a week or more with a small amount of food storage. That is efficient survival.