If he is the type of person that likes to tinker and build his own stuff he can save a lot of money. And it allows you to also customize store bought item to better suit your personal needs better.

Some of us (myself included) take a fair amount of joy making or modifying things to fill our needs. The internet is full of like minded people that post their ideas along this line.

Update:

Stealth fitness plan:

• Walking and carrying golf bag [about 25 pounds], 9 holes [about 2 miles] 3 times a week [weekday dawn patrol], to increase to 18 holes [about 4 miles].

• Weekend naturalist half-day courses at hilly regional park, mostly foraging / primitive skills, roughly once every three weeks.

• Gearing up to do some cycling for aerobics.

• Going to keep handing him heavy stuff to carry.

• Going to invite him to orienteer events.

Wilderness land navigation/ survival skill course is summertime [hot days, cool nights], state park, developed campgrounds and trails, about 1 ½ days.

Gear: Bringing him along to my monthly thrift store run.

Clothes, boots: he’s got what he needs for now and will be wearing them playing golf. [I could use a couple things!].

Dirt time [camping out]: Problematic. All I can do is encourage and invite.

I expect he will wind up replacing almost all of his initial gear over a few years if he sticks with it.

I will pass along a printout of all your great comments and suggestions.

Thanks.

Sidenote: The Walmarts here in Houston are clearing out their hunting gear and two-packs of heavy wool socks are going for $5.00

Academy Sports has all their thermal underware going for 30-50% off.

-Blast

I'm with Blast. Buy good socks when they're on sale and buy extras when they are. No matter how fat or thin you get you're always going to need the same socks.

My sock drawer is a mish mash of socks. Other than the black dress socks I wear to work, every other pair is different and all the major brands are represented..Fox, Wigwam, Wright, etc. Some are very expensive which normally sell for over $10 a pair but were only 2-4 bucks a pair because I waited for the bargains. Now that I have extras I have put a pair in each of my car kits as warm and dry spares and stored permanently in my gear where I'll use them.

I wish I had socks in the car last summer. I went into a walmart in August and while I was in there it rained and hailed...lucky me I parked right over the drain that backed up and had to wade knee deep water to get to my Jeep.

What is free is he can invest his own time and initiative to research this site and others to get gobs of info. Try to avoid alot of hand-holding. If he really wants to do this then he should research and experiment(backyard camp trying new skills). He could get plenty of stuff for a few hundred bucks and save the rest for later. I would not let him borrow my knife, I'd rather just give it to him as a way of saying "welcome to the outdoors". That way he doesn't feel bad when he breaks your knife. He feels bad that he has to buy one. Then, I would march him down to a store and get something of his own. A military-style K-BAR or something similar would be fine (inexpensive), let him figure it out. I am not a representative of K-BAR.

I going along with Benjamin and others here....

I recommend a bank account. Deposit the $600 and see what develops.

Decent walking/hiking shoes, not high end boots, and some sox are all I would buy.

Beg, borrow, rent, make do with stuff he has, on all the other stuff. Form opinions, do some research and then start spending slowly on items needed.

+1 on that.

There is a lot of great information on this site, start slow and pick up what knowledge he can before making a purchase.

Or he can just send me a check for $600.00 and I'll hook him up.

Really though, you can go out and spend tons of money on gear or learn through others, not to mention actually getting out there hiking, camping etc.

An AMK PSK and good first aid kit would be a good start.

http://www.adventuremedicalkits.com/kit_...kitNO=0140-0707



Blitz

Hi diweste,

Generally speaking,the best thing for your friend to do is to increase his knowledge base, it weighs (and for the most part) costs little as well.

Please invite your friend to spend some time on Equipped To Survive Forums and look around. I'm forever poking around looking at various threads and links, the older threads present a great amount of shared wisdom.

The previous posters have made several excellent suggestions as well.

Regards,
Comanche7

Edited for better readability by C7

+1 to that Bob. Also shop craigslist, ebay and check the local REI store for their used stuff bulletin board.

Teacher

Maybe a camping hammock or 2 man tent