Originally Posted By: Art_in_FL

One thing to remember here is that if your stocking up insulating clothing for a group, extended family, to stock a remote shelter, or as a reserve your going to want solid and effective but inexpensive designs. Careful selection of inexpensive designs can mean you can equip an entire family for less than the price of what it would take to fit one person with top-of-the-line name brand gear.
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Inexpensive fleece can fill that role and it is so cheap you can buy it on sale by the half-dozen and scatter it around in twos and threes so your never too far away from some warm clothing. For yourself and your family and friends.


Truer words can't be spoken. Seasonal shopping is a must if you're equipping a small tribe or family, which means buying closeouts offseason just as outlets are bringing in new stuff for rain or cold. Earlier this year I stocked up on 200 weight fleece, all good quality Marmot jackets, for about $30 per for emergency supplies for 4. While buying the Marmots, REI told me one was out of stock, and they offered me a 20% coupon - much to my surprise I found that Marmot makes a Precip rain jacket with a longer waist than their backpacking weight rain jacket, and it too was on outlet sale - $39.93 before discount. That filled my need for a rain jacket to wear while standing around, marginally better coverage than another Precip that I own. I like to keep a rain jacket and fleece in my car in case I'm out without one.

I also pulled the trigger on a bunch of Patagonia Capilene 2 and 3 long underwear which was too cheap to pass up, and wears really nice on the trail. As my kids have grown we've passed off some of his clothing to younger cousins, it gets light wear unless one of the kids actually takes a liking to it, that or making a clothing donation to Salvation Army when we run out of people who fit into it is what I expect.