There are really only two ways to stay alive during the zombie apocalypse:

1. ✗Be really, really good at killing zombies.
2. ✗Be really, really fast (that assumes that the zombies are coming only from one direction. And that they're the slow, shambling variety. Let's face it, if you're surrounded, you're still screwed).

OK, there's a third:

Be valuable enough so that other people will kill zombies for you and try to keep you alive.

One of the best ways to be valuable in ANY type of apocalypse is to KNOW STUFF. Stuff that will help you and others to survive.

It takes years and training to develop most skills, like fighting and killing, making cloth from cotton (let alone how to grow and process cotton, wool, and every other type of fiber), or brewing up useful pharmaceuticals from common plants and chemicals.

But shopping, being the person who know how to get stuff NOW, that's pretty easy to learn. It's just not obvious to many people. So while the others are learning how to shoot crossbows (which you've got to admit is a pretty feeble zombie killing tool), you just need to know where the good stuff is AND what kind of stuff you'll all need. Suddenly you're someone worth keeping alive.

Just try not to slow everyone down and keep the whining to a minimum. The whiners are the first to go come the zombie apocalypse.