Great article! Thanks

Idk if I’d call it a survival kit so much as maybe urban preparedness kit? Doesn’t seem to have much in the way of outdoor survival. For an urban kit maybe add some single doses of Tylenol, anti diarrhea, things like that. Also potentially a bandaid and single use antibiotic cream or something like that

People have different ideas of what survival is, also it really depends on your environment. When I think of a survival kit, it means I will survive. I will be cold and hungry and dehydrated and bloody and maybe not even clothed, but I will survive. Obviously, repairing your clothes will allow you to retain more body heat, so you put the sewing kit in. Just depends on what you think you NEED in your area you intend to survive in... In my few instances where survival was as close as I ever wanted it to be, i really just needed a light source and a lighter. I've been able to make knowledge, experience and luck fill in the rest of the gaps. I digress, I recommend you carry a small surgical razor blade in this kit, even though you have a knife in your other pocket. Do what you will with my advice as it may very well not pertain to you.

This is my small survival kit I always carry in my cargo pocket. A mylar blanket is always in my other cargo pocket and a SAK and a flashlight on my belt.

Should I add anything or you have some questions, tips? Feel free to comment.

Add a folder knife or small multitool to your kit, it will really help you in the outdoors. I would also include rehydration powder and anti-diarrhea tablets as those can save your life.

Tourniquet

Former Boy Scout here. Flashlight, First Aid kit, Toilet Paper, matches and a knife.

Ductape, Knife, Tarp, rope, hatchet, flint and iron firestarter

A knife and magnesium fire starter.

A knife

Can opener and extra parts for the long hauls. I could survive 30days in the mountains with just clothes on my back. Tools just help. Try not to fish too much. Brown bears are nasty. Dont get wet. Also plant knowledge. I keep a boy scout handbook in bug out bag for others. ( I also keep a backpackers field manual that is far useful / weighs the same, the BSA Handbook needs to be cut down by 20% at least for survival. Badges and community topics arent helpful, rescue swimming and structure building are more efficient. Plant knowledge is regional and easier to remember. Self preservation jogs memory.) Just throw me inside your bag, plop me out, tell me where to.

Starting with the ability to ride out 72 hours at home without each utility is the starting point you should aim for. Building an evacuation kit for 72h on the road is also highly recommended. These two goals have a lot of overlap, by buildings your bugout bag you've also got most of the capabilities for home, however focusing on the home first can lead to making bad gear choices.

For example: boiling water is an essential capability in both bug-in and bug-out. A car camping stove is very convenient for home use, but too heavy for a fast and light bag. A lightweight backpacking stove is slightly less convenient but just as effective, and weighs only a couple of ounces so is ideal for a bag. Focusing on the bag allows you to avoid buying the wrong kit first time around.

I'll post an example BOB list separately, though it should be personalised to your specific needs and local climate and terrain.

Regarding home preps, consider how to work without each utility, here are some ideas:

• Water

  • Stored and preserved water
  • water bob to extend capabilities
  • plumbing connectors to access potable water in heating tanks
  • grey-water storage such as rain butts and pools
  • well or pump for surface water

• Sanitation

  • disposable tableware to avoid cleaning
  • biodegradable bags for disposing of solid waste
  • spade to bury waste
  • non return valve on sewage if necessary

• Gas (or electric heating/cooking)

  • propane tanks and camping stove
  • Mr heater propane burner
  • solid fuel backup heat source (some can provide hot water also)
  • solid fuel

• Electric

  • led headlights
  • led lantern
  • candles and lighters
  • backup battery / inverter for essentials like water pumps, medical devices, phones and security cameras
  • dual fuel generator
  • temperature alarms in freezers

most important to have the number of the Utility company on speed dial to report the power outage, came home one day and several neighbors in the street complaining about utility company not responding fast enough to the outage and none of them had called in

Another thing good to have - a water bob. It’s a big bladder that you put in your bathtub and filled with water. It can store up to 100 gallons. If there is a projected mega storm or other situation that might result in a possible multi-day power outage, you fill it up just to be on the safe side. That way you have plenty of fresh drinking water and it’s more sanitary than just filling up the bathtub with water.

Candles and matches. They can generate heat in addition to light. Extra batteries for the flashlights. Those little chemical hand warmers can be good, depending on where you live. If floodwaters are a concern, things like water purification tablets and filtration straws can be smart. Some of those mylar thermal blankets are probably smart.

Do you plan to hunker down at home? Do you have Backwater valve(s) in your sewer system? Everywhere is not the same, some cities do others do not. New houses probably old houses probably not. Risk of sewer back up and ways to mitigate it should probably be a priority to research and get sorted.

Water, water, water.

You’ll die much faster without water than food. Even in a fully functioning society, it takes emergency aid a while to arrive. You need water. You might not be able to get to the store or the store may be out. This happens REGULARLY in places with hurricanes etc.

The US no longer has a normal functioning government, so that emergency supply of water is even more important. Keep at least a week’s worth always. If a disaster seems imminent, fill other available containers like pots, bathtub for flushing, etc. Also get something like a Lifestraw.

Prep water if you prep nothing else.

Great post!

Speaking to tip number 2—I only started in January and I do have to follow a strict budget. It’s amazing though how quickly the pantry can start to fill up when you make a commitment to get a couple of extras each paycheck. I have been mostly shopping at places like Aldi, but I also go to Ocean State Job Lot and Ollie’s (I even used a gift card I received for Christmas to TJ Maxx for cleaning supplies, hygiene needs, and jams/olive oil/spices), stores that sell buy outs and overstocks.

It was daunting at first because my cupboards were bare. I’m physically disabled and care for a disabled adult son. It seemed like an impossible task but once I made the decision to do this, I actually feel more empowered. I even have begun to branch out and just bought a dehydrator and a vacuum sealer.

Even if all you can do now is make a list or clean your shelves in your pantry or pack your b.o.b., it’s still possible.

What are your thoughts on having and knowing how to use a basic toolkit? Items like hammer, nails, screwdrivers, screws, basic assortment of imperial & metric sockets, pliers, snips, etc.

Another prep is knowing where your main water shut off valve is. Also, turn off your power and try to do a day. See what you miss most. Did you not have enough warm clothes or blankets? Did not having a coffee ruin everything?

Paying off debt has been just as important to me as the rest of prepping has been. I had a credit card debt mess and I’m down to one to pay off plus student loans and some collections.

I feel like it’s given me the wiggle room to invest in more supplies because I’m not accumulating more interest to eventually pay back down, so, in my head, I’m technically (and actually) saving more money in the long run by paying off debt as part of prepping.

Sure, like everything else you’ll want to rotate it but about 2 years.

UK based myself, my general starting points would be knowing your biggest risks of why you're prepping. I'm very much a prep for Tuesday kind of person, so recently we've had burst water mains, extreme weather and power cuts, they're the 2 biggest threats for us most likely.

To start with for everything - food, water, power, you'll probably need all 3 for any sort of problem. Water (We had a recent water main burst leaving us out for several days, 500ml bottles for drinking, 5l bottles for flushing toilets. The 5l bottles won't need replacing as much and can be kept past their use by date if its only for basic things and not drinking (as long as there's nothing growing in it!) It took 2 days for the water company to set up bottled water supply stations.

Food - Get enough for at least a couple of days, canned foods work best, but honestly boil in the bag camping meals are easy to store and infact not too bad to eat. I don't use much in the way of canned food routinely so I keep 3 days worth of boil in the bag meals and honestly once they are coming up to their use by date - it'll do as a quick meal when I can't be bothered cooking! This can be for power outages, winter storms, flooding where you can't get out etc. You'll also need a way to cook said food and most importantly - make tea! I have a portable gas camping stove with 6 small bottles of gas that can do me for a few days as well as a spare fire dragon stove.

Power: Generators and transfer switches just aren't really common here at all, but at the very least a few decent capacity power banks to keep phones, vapes and torches charged for me, I've got several Anker ones and they work a treat. Plenty of batteries for torches and camping lanterns too.

First aid and fire safety are also a given, I've got a bleed control kit with tourniquets, celox, chest seals etc - working in security you can deal with some nasty stuff and getting the training to use that is also important although public bleed control kits and stop the bleed courses are common in stabby cities. I've got water and foam extinguishers in the house, foam and powder in the car.

Local threats to you might include flooding, you may wish to get floodsax, a hydrosnake or some good old sandbags, that's a common threat for us in the UK - a pair of fishing waders goes a long way too, you don't want to be walking in flood water but sometimes needs must, I wouldn't bother going with a drysuit and all that jazz unless you're in a really bad flood area.

Another local threat for us was fire - in a local battery recycling plant, that thing let off toxic smoke for days, I bought air purifiers and still had leftover FFP3 masks from covid for going outside cause that was nasty.

Pandemic risk too - you never know, masks, gloves and cleaning supplies never go a miss either!

Just a few things to think about!

I'm new also, but what i can say, if you plan to stay put, is bulk up your food supplies, go a bit deeper on long term food that you already buy, such as tinned goods, rice...so it doesn't mean you waste it. Eg if you already keep a couple tins of tuna, try keep a dozen. If you want long term food storage, buy some Mylar bags and oxygen absorbers from Temu ( or equivalent) and put aside some dry food. My goal is to have a few months worth of dry food, grasually building up to it though due to budgets.

Wait: You've been driving now without knowing how to change a tire?

This is one of the things my father taught me when I was learning how to drive, and I taught my son how to change a tire (and change the oil, and check/top off the fluids, how to jump-start a car, etc.) when he was learning how to drive.

I mean, I'm assuming you're driving a British car, right? Not knowing these things is just asking to have your ass handed to you. Trust me, I owned a British car (Triumph Spitfire), and many of my buddies back then had them too (Austin Healy Sprite, MGBs and MG Minis, and one TR7).

Warning triangles, and a couple of squares of carpet for ice. Lighter than cat litter and reusable.

I recommend these two articles as a starting point:

https://theprepared.com/prepping-basics/guides/emergency-preparedness-checklist-prepping-beginners/

https://theprepared.com/bug-out-bags/guides/bug-out-bag-list/

My husband and I have split our kit in half and have been working towards obtaining different skills and preps for what we're doing. 

He focuses on our bug out vehicle, kitting it out and our house escape plan so we can escape by any means necessary depending on the event happening.

While I'm focused on our individual BOB's, food and water survival, hygiene, mental health and shelter.

There's a lot more to our prepping, but that's it in its simplest form. Our focus is to keeping our family safe.

I feel Antibiotics is a tough one to prepare for. I’ve been grabbing a lot of wound care items alcohol, peroxide, antibiotic soaps to try and prevent infections before they start. For viruses and other diseases I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to keep those at bay/treated.

Yup. Got 200 lbs of it sealed up in 5 gal buckets (with desiccant and O2 scrubber packets) in my long term emergency food closet.  I also store a lot of pinto beans. You could survive on rice and beans, it would get really boring, but they have all the macro nutrients you need.

Not to mention store bought kits 95% of the time are full of gimmicks and cost more than if you pieced them together with the exact same stuff that they got from Alibaba.

Got me a sweet get home bag that albeit cost over $100 its fully suited to make a situation into inconvenient camping if need be with no gimmicks that just take up weight.

^Sokka-Haiku ^by ^Blitzdog416:

Rice is pretty damn

Versatile across kids to

Teens to pets to adults

^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.

And if you need something that doesn’t require prep those shelf stable microwave and eat rice bags are great. They’re precooked and can be eaten unheated if necessary.

I’m just starting out so I’m focusing on water, water purification items. I’ve bought a couple standard kits to get a baseline of food items that have long shelf life a long with a small medical kit to supplement the items I’ve already accumulated through work. I’ve begun to supplement the food kits based around my kids tastes (snacks really, canned veggies they like). I’m probably two shopping trips getting a few more items that will be geared to their needs just need to get some more vitamins, allergy meds, Tylenol and Motrin, and then some feminine hygiene products for my wife and daughter. Then I’m going transition to get food and other items stored up for my pets and items for making my property more self sufficient.

I’m thinking the size of a duffle bag, what tools, medical items and survivalist gear would you put in it?

Knife with a 6" blade, paracord, plastic tarp, 2 wool blankets, tinder bundle, stormproof matches, first aid kit, camp cook set, silicone collapsible water bottle, charcoal water filter, mountain house 4-day food supply pack. It's everything you'd need to get situated, light enough to carry for miles on end, and can be easily secured to a pack frame.

Bible and a handgun

Leatherman.

Vicks

Medic kit, fire kit, clothes, shelter, food, water purification, knife

A knife is utterly essential

Depends what kind of fleeing you are considering.

Some will have tents and fire starters and paracord to build traps to catch small animals to eat etc.

I prefer to take a far more practical approach. If I am fleeing, it’s likely in my vehicle, so that functions as shelter. I have a pretty decent supply of food at home, so I could throw some in to flee that would be far more reliable than trying to catch and cook food in the wild. There are also all sorts of crisis where cash is still going to work just fine. So I keep plenty of cash on hand.

And for many crisis, stating in place at home is going ti be the most practical solution anyway.

Now if you have some reason to believe you will need to hide in the woods for a few weeks at a moment’s notice, then you should prepare for that, but the first step to emergency preparedness is to decide what types of things you are preparing for.

One of those Swiss pocket knifes

Essential Oils. It's literally right there in the name.