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this post was submitted on 09 May 2026
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Assuming you're in the US, I imagine most places aren't going to have long-term power outages, at least not yet. So I don't think a small solar panel is worth the investment in this context. Small devices just don't use much energy compared to heating, cooling, and cooking. They're fun little gadgets though.
It's primarily gonna be rising costs across the board, and secondarily supply line issues due to that, with compounding effects for some commodities. Obviously anything that's imported (almost everything in the US) is gonna get hit harder, anything with complex manufacturing that has to be shipped to multiple places during assembly, etc.
A bidet is an easy choice, you can get one for like $20 and hook it up yourself.
Getting anything necessary to cook cheaper food might be worth the investment. A pressure cooker, rice cooker, and/or crockpot. There's some pretty cool solar cookers out there too. Doesn't hurt to have a month or more of dry goods like (imported) rice and beans. They're still cheap and last forever.
Trying to figure out a heating/cooling plan might be worth it. Temperature change is energy intensive so if electricity/gas costs spike during seasonal extremes a lot of people are gonna be seeing four figure utility bills out of nowhere. Find the report of your monthly usage during the hottest/coldest months and extrapolate to higher unit costs. In some cases it's more efficient to climate control a single room than a whole house/apartment (but don't let your pipes freeze in winter). I got a window heat pump for this.
Uncommon necessities like medications are worth stocking up on to whatever degree possible, since supply lines are unpredictable and random shit can become difficult to obtain. This includes a weaning plan as a backup, if that's relevant.
Most important is networking in your community.
Solar and batteries are incredibly cheap right now. But you're still looking at like $1500 minimum as far as mitigating energy cost spikes. If you install everything yourself, panels are like $0.50/watt new, $0.30/watt used. Plus $500-1500 for an inverter. If you need to run at night or during bad weather then batteries will ~double that cost.
When I was planning it out I figured ~$2,500 might be enough batteries/solar to run like a small heat pump to control a single room or RV/van.
If you grid tie or (legally and safely) use wall-plug or plan for primarily using electricity during the day, you can get by without batteries. In places with hourly or peak electric rates (utility company charges lower rates at night than during the day), that can be viable.