Pay your bills and minimize them. Buy silver UD coins in bags and rolls, .22 caliber ammo in bricks of 500 and .22 caliber revolvers that use them. Useful trading items. Glass bottles of whiskey. Food items with long or unlimited shelf life. Learn useful skills to be valuable to a group who want to thrive and survive. Good side hobby activities.
U.S. coins (90% silver). Darn autocorrect.
Get some cash back credit cards. You can easily find some that will give you 2-3% cash back. Run everything you buy through those cards and set them to pay in full every month so you never carry a balance.
You save hundreds more dollars per year doing that.
Water. I got enough metal, now I collect water.