How do you put together solid 72hr+ kits while at the same time:

• Paying down your credit card debt
• Saving up to buy another car in the next few months and
• Planning on buying another house sometime in the next five years?

It seems a bit overwhelming. How do you folks do it?

-- Craig

Have a plan, priorities, small steps, research. The Dollar Store and Grocery Outlet and Thrift stores are good places to save $. BTW, paying off the Crdit card is part of preparedness.

Dave

take your time, do good research and spend your money on the best you can afford. But be prepared to buy other brand/model of equipment if the chance arise to get it cheaply. I rarely pay full price on any of my survival/bushcraft equipment. They are group bought, used or heavily discounted.

Simple - do NOT plan on doing it all at once

Let's think - water-shelter-food

You drink Soda? Know anyone who does? (if you don't even know someone who does...) Get some of the empty 2l bottles. Clean them, and you can store water in them - cost - about 30 cents/person (2 bottles/day/person)

Shelter - I'll leave that up to you

Food - You DON'T need MREs or the like. Most folks will be "shelter in place" or at a shelter. Think about canned foods you LIKE to eat. Soup? That's good. Instant Soup? Good. Ramen Noodles - heck, at 10 cents a pack, even if you DON'T regularly eat them....

The trick here is 1)Packaging and 2)Buy what you eat, eat what you buy. My wife loves tuna fish - I like tuna fish - my kids will eat tuna fish. My wife eats about 1 can/week. It's no real hardship, when Tuna goes on sale, to buy, say, 6 cans - and when we get down to 3, buy 3 more (or 6 if you are trying to build your supplies) - that way, there are always between 3 and 6 cans of Tuna in the house. I like soup - so I bought 8 or 9 cans - when we get down to 4-5, I buy more. The trick is, do NOT plan on buying it all at once. I keep some food in a go bag, but it's not necessary - I can walk by the pantry or cabinet in the kitchen and grab a LOT of food, fast

First aid stuff? You keep bandaides, etc in the house? Put them in the "Bag" instead of the medicine cabinet - now you walk to the bag if you cut yourself, and besides, if someone gets hurt, the first aid stuff is in one easy carry package

Think about it - you probably have most of the stuff for a 72 hr kit in the house RIGHT NOW, just stored in different places - so you just store the stuff in the kit - just remember to replace it as you use it

http://www.daveramsey.com/ Is a good resource for managing your money which is also a part of preparedness.
I find shopping at the discount clubs not only saves me money but also allows me to have substantially more than 72 hours worth of supplies on hand. My full size chest freezer allows me to take advantage of good process of good prices when I can find them and I try to buy a little extra each month to get and stay ahead of the curve.

Cut up the credit card.
Keep 'n repair the old car.
Another house???

Make due with what you've got untill you can actually AFFORD newer/bigger/better.

Sorry for the hard answer, but sometimes, that's all there is.

Troy

Sensible replies, all. I have some ideas now. Thanks for replying.

-- Craig

Wife and I are taking Dave's 13 week course now..good stuff.

So..since I really don't have a budget right now for anything other than debt...I'll let you in on some of the things that I am doing..that cost little of nothing.

I drink a 20 oz bottle of Diet Mt. dew every day...don't laugh..it's good stuff. save the bottle, wash it out fill 3/4 with water and freeze..ready supply of ice in power outage.

I also do as another suggested and save the liter bottles and fill with water..almost any decent size jug will work..NOT MILK.

Food is another issue..you have to actually go get it. I agree with other suggestions here...buy what you will actually eat. For example..I know that my daughter loves jerky of any kind..so I have some. Buy in small quantities over a period time so you don't kill your budget all at once. I try to buy one or two items every time I go to the store.

My new son is on formula...save all the metal(Similac) cans. Boil water, eat out of store water, food, medicine. You would be amazed how much medicine you can cram in one of those cans.

Those are just a few...get the water taken care of first!!! That's my suggestion. Then build from there.

For food items, coupons. Coupons are your friends, even if they can drive you crazy at times. And watch the sales for items taht have a good shelf life. If you have a couple of groceries fairly close, get all thier fliers and plan it out. Cooler with home made ice for the stuff that needs to be cool. It might add an hour to your weekend, but it can pay well.

Great advice! Take the time to read and follow the forums, listen to opinions, ask questions. Plan. Plan some more. Prioritize. Figure out what is the most imprtant gear for you to carry? Buy gear in that order of importance.

The other really really great advice is to buy the best gear first. While this may seem to fly in the face of reason, the reality is that you may find yourself buying three or four cheap crapy items trying to find something that work, and in the end you'll spend 75% of what you would have to get the best gear first off. On the other hand there are some relatively low cost, very high quality gear available - example include Opinel and Mora knives.

A few items that I thing are the best of the best - and reasonably priced:

Inexpensive folding lock blade knife: First, buy an Opinel folding knife from Ragweedforge.com. Choose from a variety of lengths for just $-$17. These will do everything you need until you can afford the best.

Inexpensive fixed blade knife: First buy a Mora from Ragweedforge.com. My favorites are the KJ Ericsson 711, 746, 731, 748 knives - unbeleivable knives for $12-$19. If you have smaller hands then go for the Frost 840/860 or the 740/760.

My favorite folding lock blade knife (for the price): Doug Ritter's RSK Mk1 - $105. Yes, expensive, but you'll never need another lock blade. I like the fullsize best, but EDC the mini.

My favorite fixed blade knife: Though I don't have one (I am OK with a folder for now) I'm becoming more than convinced that the Bark River Northstar is what I'd buy.

Mult-tool knives: Swiss Army Knives - my favs are the climber and hunter. I like the Leatherman Wave too, but it is sooo much heavier than the SAKs.

Pocket-sized light: Doug Ritter's Freedom light - $20
(I've purchased 4 so far - amazing lights, as bright as many flashlights - don't underestimate the value of the LED collar)

Baseplate Compass: Suunto MD-3 - $20
(A fantastic price for a solid professional quality compass)

Sparker, Whistle, Signal Mirror, Button Compass: Doug Ritter Personal Survival Pak - $25 (1st rate quality gear for a great price)

Hmmm, what am I forgetting???

A great shelter can be provided by large heavy-duty garbage bags available at Home Depot. Bic lighters so a fine job at low cost. Chlorine bleach and tincture of iodine provides low cost drinking water sanitation, though prefer the Micropur tablets. Nylon dress socks make great hiking boot liners (under wool socks).