My Mom, whose idea of survival preparedness is keeping an extra quart of water in the fridge, knowing my fascination with survival/outdoor equipment, bought me a shake light. Now I have been leery about buying one of these because of the bad experiences that people here and others I have talked to have had with them. This particular light she bought at a dollar store (for a dollar) has three button batteries. I figured it would work for a little while and never work again. I was pleasantly surprised to find that after I drained the batteries the first time and shook it for the required 30 seconds it actually gave me the 30 minutes of light as it stated it would. While it isn’t a light I will use all the time it will and has found a place in one of my kits. The moral of my rambling is while we look for the best gear we can afford there are viable “cheap” options out there the can surprise us.

You'd be surprised, at what cool things you can find at a 99 cent store.