No simple answer. It depends upon the hike, the prevailing conditions, your familiarity with the area, and your experience in this environment. However, I wouldn't recommend a desert hike starting at 10 AM without a canteen(s) and water, or a start into a gathering winter storm without a good jacket and bombproof fire making capability. It boils down to - your knowledge, skill, ingenuity, and experience are more critical than any equipment.

Bill,<br><br>If the P-38 is unavailable, I'd get whatever other small, reliable, & cheap can opener was available. Conceivably it would be a church key type of opener. While not elegant, puncturing enough holes around the can lid would eventually open the can. <br><br>I'd love to have bought a SAK, but a real one is not possible within the budgetary constraint. I would not get a cheap knockoff. They are frequently designed & manufactured poorly to unservicably, and the steel may be to soft to hold a decent edge. A kitchen utility knife has no moving parts & only 2 parts in total: a metal shaft for blade & tang, & a handle. You can make a good one cheaply. Kitchen utility knives are not bad knives. If used carefully, a kitchen utility knife should suffice. Note that Peanut & you spend $14 for a knockoff, only 1 or 2 item(s). That left only $36 for the rest of the kit. I'm not criticizing his choices for him; they're just not all that I want for me. I'm not spending 28% of my budget on a single tool. <br><br>I think Leatherman tools are expensive for a glorified pair of pliers. I have tried several inexpensive multitools. They turned out to be cheap junk. You do tend to get what you pay for. A good multitool is worthwhile. You just can't get them cheaply. I gave up on that matter. My wife, son, & I now have 4. Youngest son will probably get one too when his hand is big enough to properly & safely operate one.<br><br>[Incidentally, $14 is about what my son's SAK Tinker cost wholesale a few years. Unfortunately, Chris omitted my favorite vendor (where I can buy everything they have wholesale) from the town.]<br><br>BTW, I bought the 1 quart bottle of chlorine bleach. ;-)) <br><br>Two crucial difficulties with the scenario are: 1. $50 is a very harsh & restrictive constraint; 2. The 2 vendors available severely limit alternatives. In the stated situation, that may be all we really would have available. Therefore, it's realistic to consider what we would actuallly do in such a severely limited market. OTH, those outside the USA, have an entire world for a market. They, & we, have vast alternatives. For non-Americans, the parameter was too narrow. Even with an unlimited budget, I doubt we could get a really good kit from the described vendors. However, if we assume one is really a rural general store with extensive offerings, then...<br><br>Anyway, I'm grateful to Chris for posing a scenario. It was a fun & provocative exercise. I hope we get more.<br><br>John

Would you believe that my friends and I played this game for real? Three of us with two days off with a combined 18 bucks and change.<br><br>1. Begged for one of those little knives at Subway.<br>2. Bottle of tincture of Iodine<br>3. 2 2 liter bottles of Fanta Orange on sale for .79<br>4. 2 8' by 10' 2mil plastic painter's tarps<br>5. Cricket lighter<br>6. 2 large cans of some kind of Chef-boy-hardee product.<br>7. Bic lighter and a book of cheap paper matches<br>8. 1 lb bag of Mahatma rice<br>9. Filtched condiments from Subway (18 plus change is after we ate lunch at Subway!)<br>10. We found some lashing string and picked up alot of goodies on the trail. Yuppies can be pretty careless with their toys....<br>11. We topped off our sodas and did the Standing Indian- Albert Mountain loop in North Carolina (on the A.T.) with nothing more than the clothes on our backs and the mentioned items.... And we had a few bucks left over for gas to get us back to Athens, GA. Actually, we ran out of Gas in Clayton, GA but the manager at the Racetrack gas station there gave us five gallons because she was good friends with the lady that ran the summer camp I went to wneh I was a child...

Actually, the "modern" country store. I live in a smaller college town, and like most small towns, Hell has devoured most of our stores. Yes, I mean Wally World. The reason I quoted web sites was for evidenciary purposes, and Coglan's stuff and knock-offs are readily available there.<br><br>Peanut

>>>Would you believe that my friends and I played this game for real?<br><br>Outstanding! Can you imagine the company executive's eyes at one of those personal developnt or team work seminars if the instructor gave them $50 and three days to get from point a to point B. (Throw in a midway check point to ensure they cross the terrain!). Sure beats the "write down the items you'd save from the wrecked place" exercise.

To actually play the game as prescribed...<br><br>1. $20 Knife. Case, Buck, SAK.. whatever they had<br>2. twin pack of lighters, or 1 and matches, no more than $3<br>3. 2 2 liter bottles of cheapest soda >$2<br>4. 1oz bottle tincture of Iodine $1<br>5. Spool of twine, pref. nylon. $3<br>6. A few cans of Food, total $6.<br>7. Bag of rice $2<br>8. Trash bags $4<br>9. Cheap compass to round it out to $50 plus tax.

Given:<br>non-home city, lost psk / edc, planned for Recreational hike, available country store and convenience store, $50.00 to spend.<br><br>I would expect that in this scenario I would have my hiking gear and would continue without too much worry since the lost items are redundant. I haven't lost my backpack and it's contents. I might redistribute some items to my pockets / belt from my backpack just to ensure that I would have them if I lost my pack.<br><br>Assembling a sufficient gear set to go on that hike without anything else from $50.00 is another matter. This is more akin to putting together a BOB for $50.00 than a PSK.<br><br>To play along here's the $50.00 BOB I would assemble from the country store / convenience store<br>price <br> <br>kitchen<br>$0.00 1 lb coffee can empty begged from the convenience store<br>if they serve coffee to thier customers there's a reasonable chance they will be discarding a coffee can during the course of the day.<br><br>$0.00 wire coat hanger begged from convenience store / country store<br>whichever store sells clothes to the locals will have these and usually will give them up if you pretend to have locked your keys in your car. The clothing manufacturers supply them with more all the time.<br><br>$1.00 can of canned meat of your choice<br>with the coffee can and the coathanger you can make a decent hobo stove and the can from the canned meat will provide the needed cook pot.<br><br>$2.50 Large Container of instant oatmeal<br>1 lb can feed a man for a few days though it's boring<br> <br>Water<br>$2.00 2 liter bottle of refreshment<br>refreshment, water carriage<br><br>$0.00 Handfull of straws from convenience store<br>tinder, solar still, seep<br><br>$1.50 iodine tablets, quart clorox, pool hypochlorate, powdered laundry chlorine, potassium permanganate etc. Whatever is available<br>water treatment. With this there needs to be some experience with the basic chemistry of whichever is available for these options to be useful and not posionous.<br> <br>Fire<br>$0.00 empty film canister begged from the convenience store / country store<br>if they process film for thier customers then they will be discarding film canisters. This will provide waterproof storage for the matches and tinder.<br><br>$0.00 As many as possible book matches from the convenience store clerk. If they sell tobacco products they will also give away book matches to any customer that asks politely the key is that you be buying something.<br><br>$1.00 Bic lighter<br><br>$1.00 24 birthday candles<br><br>$0.00 Handfull of toothpicks from convenience store<br>tinder<br><br>$0.00 local free news-paper / advertiser paper<br>tinder, ass-wipe, food wrapper<br>$0.00 plastic bag and paper bag from the store clerk <br>luggage, tinder, water carrying<br> <br>General tools<br>$3.00 box of lawn bags 10 bags<br>shelter, poncho, luggage<br><br>$5.00 SAK knockoff<br>blade, saw, scissors, awl, can opener<br><br>$2.00 nylon twine 100 - 300 feet<br>shelter building, fishing, securing luggage (trash bags), extra thread for sewing <br><br>$4.00 fishing tackle assortment<br>Should include 1 lure, 1 to 5 hooks, 1 to 5 sinkers, 1 worm minimum<br><br>$5.00 First Aid kit<br><br>$3.00 15 foot snare wire or picture hanging wire which is very similar but more widely available.<br><br>$3.00 duct tape<br><br>$2.00 Sewing kit<br><br>$6.00 compass<br><br>$4.00 bicycle inner-tube<br>slingshot, ranger-bands for securing shelter and luggage, tinder<br><br>$4.00 small led keychain flashlight<br><br>TOTAL - $46.00 <br><br>I would expect that I could manage a decent setup and survive for however long it took for SAR to find me or manage E & E till I arrived at safe-haven with this and a decent bit of skill. Of course a back-pack fashioned from nylon twine and a lawn sized garbage bag would be somewhat uncomfortable to haul around and cooking on a hobo stove made from a 1 lb coffee can is somewhat of a skill. Living on oatmeal and found wild food is boring but can be made to work. None of this works for long without the skill to use the expedient water treatments or knowledge of local flora / fauna or seasonably appropriate clothing to start with. Most of this might fit in the coffee can and that could be strung on the twine accross the shoulder to balance the 2 liter water on the other shoulder. If the oats come in a tin than that would be better. If you could find the oats as feed at the country store you could procure substantially more though of a somewhat lower quality. This might make it possible to move faster since you wouldn't have to stop to hunt / fish / forage for food. An extra film canister could make collecting tinder easier. This list and set of skills and talents are suitable in the urban environ as well if you find yourself homeless.