Up To Speed A Preppers Guide

By Galen Fries

No scare tactics here. We all know bad things can happen and don't need to be scared into wanting to protect our loved ones.

Up to Speed: A Prepper's Guide is just a discussion about what steps and in what order to take them in order to be ready for disasters, manmade or otherwise. It's good information with some humor thrown in for flavor.

The book has been carefully broken up into levels of importance. It begins by addressing a survival mindset. It then goes on to discuss ways we can set ourselves up for success when it to comes to reuniting with loved ones, having a home to come home to, and finally what we should consider as we step out of our homes in order to keep our families safe. Up to Speed tries to take the daunting task of protecting what is truly important to us and break it down into small manageable pieces.

This is not a survivalist book. This is just a discussion and shouldn't be considered the end-all in preppers' manuals. In it you will find references to many other books that will supplement your preparedness library.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 17, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889822974

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Forward, March!

The Survival Pyramid

Health and Personal Well-Being

Tears and Fears

EDC (Everyday Carry)

EDC for Your POV

Preparing to Get Home

The Why

The Plan

The Security

The Ammo

The Move

The Bag

The Shelter

The Water

The Food

The First Aid

The Comfort and Convenience

The Get-Home Bag List

Preparing to Bug In

The Why

The Plan

The Security

The Bag

The Shelter

The Water

The Food

The First Aid

The Comfort and Convenience

The Cache

The Why

The Cache

The Plan

The Cache

The Containers

The Cache

The Security

The Cache

The Shelter

The Cache

The Water

The Cache

The Food

The Cache

The First Aid

The Cache

The Comfort and Convenience

Rebuilding for the Future

Preparing to Bug Out

The Why

The Plan

The Security

The Bag and Containers

The Move

The Shelter

The Water

The Food

The First Aid

The Comfort and Convenience

Final Thoughts

The Up to Speed Library

About the Author

cover.jpg

Up To Speed A Preppers Guide

Galen Fries

Copyright © 2024 Galen Fries

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2024

ISBN 979-8-88982-296-7 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88982-297-4 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

For my family, both of blood and of choice

It is important to be kind to one another. It is equally…important to be prepared.

—John M Davis

Forward, March!

My name is Galen Fries (pronounced Freeze). I am a veteran of the US ARMY and ARMY NATIONAL GUARD with thirty years of service to this great nation. Between 1986 and 2016, I participated in two Gulf Wars, was stationed in a variety of places, worked to secure our Southern border, trained with military members from around the world as well as our own police and border patrol, and would do it all again but better if I could.

A retired sergeant first class, I have been an avid prepper since Y2K. Before that I was no different than 99 percent of folks, but when my, along with many other, military unit took the Y2K threat to our infrastructure seriously by posting armed guards in their weapons vaults for New Year's Eve 1999, it hit me that I should probably take it seriously as well.

My worst nightmare would be to find myself unable to care for my family, so I went to work building skills and gathering equipment to do just that if ever the shit actually did hit the fan. I suddenly saw that regardless of the threat we might face in a future catastrophe, it was my own lack of preparation and knowledge that was the real enemy. I realized that my lack of forethought was the biggest danger to me and mine and I went to work to rectify that situation as fast as I could with the limited resources I had available. While on one hand, I had very little money to get started, on the other I realized that the stakes were so high that not being prepared could easily cost me my family's lives.

I'm not here to waste either of our time; therefore, I am not going to start this guide like the multitude of other authors out there who go on and on about why you should be reading their book. You are already here, so let's get right into it, shall we? I'm writing this book mostly for my kids as well as other people I care about and am doing it in such a way as to bring them up to speed or…to steal another term from the military, make them combat effective as fast as possible. Please don't think that I am in any way condoning combat or suggesting that you should pick fights. One hundred percent on the contrary, there's no one that loves peace as much as a soldier. If you're the guy with the tin foil hat just waiting for some sort of collapse so you can shoot shit, it's time to move out of your mom's basement and stop playing so many video games. Go find a significant other to balance yourself out a little bit… Please close this book and return it for a refund. Seriously, we won't miss you, and I don't need your money.

As this book was being written, a kid from Conklin, New York, shot up a grocery store in Buffalo. I don't pretend to know all the facts in this situation, but it appears to have been a racially motivated shooting.

This event hit me pretty hard. Although I currently live in the Northwest, I grew up between my mom's house on Binghamton's south side and my dad's in Conklin not ten miles away. I attended the same high school this kid did, mowed similar grass, and rode my bicycle on similar country roads. By nineteen, I had joined the military, and my life would change drastically in the next few years. When I was in Iraq, my mind would wander back to those lazy days with the cicadas humming in the trees. This kid shared all that and somehow…as it seems…came out of it with a great deal of hatred for his fellow Americans.

Whether this is the case or not, we can point our fingers at our leadership for problems we may have or issues we face as citizens, but to do harm to another American out of hatred is disgusting to me.

Way to make Conklin famous, asshole!

As I said above, I have spent most of my life serving the American people, and regardless of race, political party affiliations, religion including Islam, gender, sexual preference or identification, or any other differences they may have as Americans, they are all We the People, and I took an oath to protect them and their rights under our Constitution. That said, you have the right to protect yourself as well as others against a deadly threat with deadly force. In my personal opinion, if no deadly threat exists, then likewise does any justification to use deadly force on another American. In some states, the active commission of a felony against you is also grounds for deadly force. But having been in this prepper community as long as I have, I can't tell you how many times I've heard people talk about shooting their fellow Americans for minor infractions, such as trespassing or even just thinking differently about subjects both social and political. I am a sheepdog, and the following passages are for like-minded sheepdogs.

The term sheepdog, used by Lt. Col. David Grossman in his book On Combat, is paraphrased to describe a person with the capacity for violence who also has a deep love for their fellow citizens, a person who takes it upon themselves to protect others.

This book is a conversation about what steps and in what order we should take to be ready for whatever may be our future. Depending on what level of prepper you already are, from very advanced to just starting out, I hope this book can fill gaps in your plan, or it helps you develop your first plan. Again, I will do my best not to waste your time. I do greatly appreciate you taking the time to read this and welcome your feedback as well as your insight. If you're an old crusty prepper like me and you think I left out important stuff, or you're brand-new to this and think I didn't explain something quite as well as you would have liked, let me know, and your thoughts will be taken into consideration as I make revisions to this and other works like it.

Another thing I would like to get out of the way is the fact that I'm old now, and I don't speak politically correct fluently, but that's not for the lack of trying.

Do the best you can until you know better, then do better.

—Maya Angelou

There is absolutely nothing put into this book with the intention of offending anyone…except for maybe criminal rat fucks and dirtbags out to do harm to others. This book is equally for all peace-loving people who just want to take care of those around them. If you fit that description, welcome home.

The Survival Pyramid

I would like to begin by taking a moment to explain the survival pyramid. This is a structure whose base or foundation is the will to live. Like any pyramid that is large on the bottom and pointy on top, this is that largest and most important part. A person with no previous survival training or equipment has a better chance of surviving a disaster if they possess the will to live as opposed to a highly trained person with all the knowledge and equipment readily available to them but who has lost the will to survive.

Take for instance an example of a young couple flying a private plane in less than ideal conditions over a remotely populated area. The passenger has expressed apprehension about going up in what is obviously poor weather. However, the pilot dismisses the other's fears, overconfident in their ability, and takes off anyway. The aircraft experiences heavy icing, and the plane crashes, killing the passenger. Now this particular pilot has had extensive survival training, and the plane has a wealth of survival equipment stashed on board. The pilot, however, is so distraught and heartbroken over the death of their passenger that they don't even bother unbuckling their seat belt and instead dies from otherwise easily treated injuries.

On the other hand, if the reverse were to take place and the passenger survived instead of the pilot with no training whatsoever and not realizing the aircraft had any survival equipment on board, they, through sheer tenacity and the will to live, make it back to civilization to survive the ordeal.

The will to live is the most important element in survival, taking precedence over training, skill, and equipment.

Next up and in the center of the survival pyramid is skill and training. These are less important than the will to live but more important than equipment. An example of this is having the skill it takes to drive a car being more important than actually having a car. If you have a car but have no idea how to drive it, the car does you no good. On the other hand, if you know how to drive a car, then you can drive any car that becomes available to you, such as a rental car, a friend's car, or a car in your business fleet.

Relating this example to a survival situation, knowing how to make a Dakota firepit, how to effectively use an axe, or how to snare an animal is more important than having a shovel, an axe, or a length of wire.

Okay…I bet you guessed what's next. Equipment makes up the tip-top of the pyramid, being the smallest and most insignificant part of the equation. That multibillion dollar industry of backpacks, guns, hiking boots, and so on is all the fun stuff we love to go out and buy, but if we are neglecting the skills and training necessary to use that stuff, then we are just hurting ourselves as well as our loved ones that are counting on us.

So there you have it, the survival pyramid from the bottom to the top. The will to live will be assumed from this point on in the text. Some of the prepping ideas you get from this guide may require you to build skills. I will leave it up to you to acquire the necessary training. Reading about necessary skills and developing necessary skills are two very different things. Also, gaining the skills is the first part, but then practicing those skills to keep them fresh is extremely important.

Let's move on in what is (in my own personal opinion) the order of importance to you and your family's survival.

Health and Personal Well-Being

As discussed above in the survival pyramid, the will to live is the most important piece of that puzzle. To carry that thought on and explore it a little deeper, let's take a moment to talk about personal health and wellness. Hopefully, as you're reading this, the world is pretty much as it was at the time this was written. The doctor is an appointment away. The emergency room is down the road. The dentist is sending you reminders to get your teeth cleaned. Your therapist probably doesn't need therapy, and the pharmacy is well stocked and filling your prescriptions within the hour.

In an environment after a disaster, none of the above may exist. If the emergency rooms are still functioning, they may be overloaded with injured, and if they're not functioning, the injured and sick will just go without professional care. Any dental issues people may have or develop after a shit-hits-the-fan event may similarly go untreated. Those of us without serious mental baggage before said event may find our new normal extremely stressful, and those of us that are experiencing mental challenges now may find a demanding environment completely overwhelming.

Therefore, before I'm even going to talk to you about preparing for a SHTF scenario, I'm going to ask you to do an honest personal inventory of your own well-being and begin to address the issues you know you're lacking in. If your teeth are in bad condition, it's time right now to make an appointment with your dentist and get that shit fixed. If you know that you are bad at flossing, it's time to fix that. If you are struggling with mental problems, having thoughts of suicide, or self-loathing, now's the time to deal with those thoughts. Sure, sucking it up and driving on may be working for you in this moderately peaceful environment, but when shit gets real and there are people depending on you, that is not the time to pull the I'm crazy as shit card out of your hat.

If you truly have the will to live, prove it now and get your shit straight.

Some things I would like to point out while I'm on the subject of taking care of yourself in a pre-SHTF world are the following:

Smoking has got to be one of the stupidest things people can do to themselves. When I was a kid, I asked my mom, who was a nurse, why she smoked if she knew it was bad for her. She said that she had gotten addicted before anyone really knew it was bad for them, and then when the science caught up, she couldn't quit.

I thought, Well, there's no way anyone my age would be stupid enough to start smoking because we all know how bad it is for us.

Unfortunately, Generation X wasn't as smart as I gave them credit for, and millennials aren't any smarter.

I could say smoking is killing you, but you've heard all that before. What I'll say now is that you're preparing for a world with no doctors, no cancer treatment, no ventilators, and you have people depending on you to be and keep yourself healthy.

Chewing tobacco isn't any better. Again, no doctors, cancer treatment, or oral surgery. Oral disease is going to kill a shit-ass ton of motherfuckers in a post-SHTF world. Are you going to willingly go to the altar of sacrifice for this addiction, and if so, are you willing to take your family there with you? How well are they going to get along in a brutal world without you beside them?

Addiction is a word that means you have lost control over whatever substance you're addicted to. You have become a slave to it to the point that it controls your actions. How fucking sad is that? Right, you're tempted to put this book down right now because facing addiction is not why you're here. You're here to read about the funner shit. Survival and caring for those that depend on you is a responsibility, and it's not about what's fun.

This is just you and me here; take this opportunity to stop and ask yourself what the fuck you're doing. Quitting isn't going to be easier tomorrow so just grab your balls…or your vaginas and put that shit—whether it be alcohol, drugs, or anything else that has control over you—down.

Oral hygiene could possibly take a total of ten minutes out of your day to get it right. Here's a block of instruction:

Swish with 3 percent hydrogen peroxide for twenty seconds. Spit but don't rinse.

Floss with string floss, making sure to curve the string in and around your teeth at the gum line.

Brush your teeth with an Oral-B toothbrush and Arm & Hammer PeroxiCare toothpaste…

Note: You're going to find that I'm an opinionated ass as you make your way through the following text. In many cases, I will tell you what I think is the best product for one thing or another. If you don't agree, that's fine, but you can't say I didn't tell ya.

Continue to brush for at least one minute. Now rinse.

Clean up your mess because in any situation where you are forced to spend an extended amount of time with others, such as a lockdown for a pandemic or just in a regular day-to-day relationship, you will have more social issues with one another if you're not cleaning up after yourself. This is true both pre- and post-SHTF.

Perform the above regimen twice a day excluding the hydrogen peroxide part, which should only be done once daily. Do this after breakfast and before bed, and your pearly whites will last a good long time. On top of that, you will be keeping your gums healthy, so even if your teeth have some issues, such as a crack or an infection, you may require a root canal or you might even lose that tooth, but you won't lose them all.

Hearing conservation is thankfully becoming more popular; however, there are still a substantial amount of folks that don't take hearing protection as seriously as they should. When we are around any noise that we would have to raise our voice to be heard over, we are experiencing hearing loss if we aren't wearing hearing protection.

Losing hearing is not the only thing I'm trying to save you from right now. If hearing loss was just about not being able to hear as well, some of us that live near freeways or railroad tracks might welcome a little hearing loss. To begin with, hearing less isn't a good thing when maybe your family's life will depend on you using all your senses to be alert to threats, but sometimes your hearing doesn't go away, so much as be replaced by a high-pitched scream called tinnitus. Tinnitus can come on in the form of buzzing or other unwelcome noises in your head that are impossible to shut off. To me, tinnitus sounds so much like that ultrasonic dental tool that, while the hygienists apologizes for the unpleasant noise of the machine, I hear nothing. This is what I sleep with every night. If you don't currently have tinnitus, use hearing protection and save yourself the constant torment. If you do have tinnitus, use hearing protection and save whatever hearing you have left.

Foot and toenail fungus, once you get these, they are just something you have to manage for the rest of your life. It is important to first understand where they come from, and that is public floors, locker rooms, and other places we go with no shoes on. Next it is important to know that one leads to the other. Do not scratch one itchy foot with the nails of the other one because you're driving that fungus under your toenails. If you do get foot fungus, the only remedy is using a fungal cream on and off for the rest of your life because that stuff never really dies. Toenail fungus can be killed by rubbing the product Tiger Balm on and under toenails in the morning and before bed for about three weeks. After three weeks, you can switch to Vicks VapoRub for the next three months, rubbing it on and under toenails until the fungus is absolutely dead. Then never scratch one foot with the other one again, or it will come back. Tiger Balm is more potent than Vicks, but it turns toenails yellow and makes feet look gross.

Tears and Fears

All for freedom and for pleasure. Nothing ever lasts forever.

—Tears for Fears

Now I am asking, what brings you here? What worries you? What keeps you up nights? What's your center of gravity? Do you live in an earthquake zone, a flood zone, or tornado alley? Are you concerned about social unrest, a volcano, an EMP (electromagnetic pulse), or a coronal mass ejection (CME)? Is it a pandemic, a hurricane, a financial collapse, or… The list goes on of the things that could threaten us as individuals living in a fragile society. Or are you simply just reading this because a loved one asked you to? Regardless, the important thing is to narrow your concerns down to one thing… What's the major thing? What's the biggest dog on this list for you? There might be something else I didn't mention, but whatever that one thing is, let's put that front and center in our minds as we continue on. When I use the term Shit hits the fan or SHTF event, that's what you will think of.

Before I go on, let me just take a moment of your time to talk about our last SHTF event, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. What a fiasco!

I began writing this book in 2020, but since it is 2022 now and this project still isn't done, I have the ability to go back and add some insight that I've gained during those past couple years.

This is not a political book, nor is there any argument or information in it designed to make anyone question their political affiliation, but what a fiasco this pandemic has been for us all. We may have vast differences of opinion as to why or who mishandled this outbreak, but I think we can all agree that our leaders, be them from whatever side of the fence you personally want to point at, dropped the ball big time. Just the conflicting information our media was reporting about the disease was enough to drive us nuts. It pitted us as Americans against one another and seriously showed our weaknesses when dealing with a deadly virus.

Regardless of how deadly you feel the COVID-19 virus is now in hindsight, you can't deny the fact that there was a time when none of us had any idea how deadly it was or wasn't, and that's exactly the time when we needed to have our pandemic game on point, and we did not… Again, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone in particular. I'm just saying that America showed a weak and indecisive response to what could have been even a much deadlier disease than it was.

Don't get this wrapped around your scrotum thinking that I'm bashing Trump, Biden, or Nancy Pelosi. Let me say that some folks may have had the right ideas about how to deal with this SHTF event and some didn't. There was so much infighting that the response we saw as Americans was pretty pitiful.

Was that said in a neutral-enough manner that we can all move on and get some positive takeaways from this situation? Great! Moving on…

So what happens when we face the next pandemic? Before COVID-19, a lot of us were very worried about some weaponized pandemic sweeping across the land so swiftly as to take down our society before we could get a grip on how to handle it. And this was when we thought we had a solid plan to respond to such an event. Knowing now how weak our response was, I thank God that COVID-19 wasn't deadlier. With over 1,000,000 Americans reported dead from the virus at the time this was written, that's still pretty serious even for you guys and gals who think the numbers are exaggerated. Cut that number in half, and that's still a lot of dead folks. Again, not trying to ruffle anyone's beliefs here. I'm pointing out the threat we faced if that weaponized virus we were worried about before hits our shores now.

Collectively we are over this pandemic. Masks are off, and we are back at the bar hanging out with our buddies. We hear reports of the Delta variant, and we get a little nervous. We might throw our mask on again as we head into the hardware store. News of Omicron hits… Wait… Omicron? When I was a kid, I learned the Greek alphabet, and omicron does not come after delta, so…there were ten variants they didn't bother to tell us about? Who knows? It's neither here nor there. When the news of Omicron hit, as a nation, we were over it. In one ear and out the other that news went. And I fear that's how we will be when some truly deadly bug hits us. By the time we're taking it seriously, we'll be dead.

So regardless of where you are on this COVID-19 thing, don't be the guy or gal that doesn't take the next thing someone is warning us about with a grain of salt. This just might be the SHTF event that takes you down. If you want a conspiracy theory, you might even say that COVID-19 was spread in order to desensitize us for the next really nasty disease so we would go into it with our eyes closed. Maybe, maybe not… I'm just saying that it couldn't have worked better if it was a well-thought-out plan.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming.

EDC (Everyday Carry)

This is a list of things you carry with you on an everyday basis. This is a basic list that you will augment with your individual needs, but having a few basic items on you will serve to help you get through any situation that might arise, from cutting open a package at work to defending yourself in a dark parking lot.

Situational awareness

Keeping our head on a swivel and not ever completely letting our guard down can help us in more ways than just identifying a potential hazard before it becomes a problem for us. By maintaining a mindset that something bad could possibly happen, we prepare our mind to deal with challenging situations before they present themselves.

Lt. Col. David Grossman speaks on the situational awareness mindset and refers to our different states of mind in colors as we walk out our doors.

The white mindset is absolutely relaxed and not paying any real attention to our surroundings. This is us walking down the street looking at our phones, in deep conversations, or with our mind elsewhere on our jobs, problems at home, and so on.

The yellow mindset is where we have our mind in the present and on what is going on around us. This isn't to say that we're afraid, just conscious of our surroundings and aware of the fact that danger may or may not be at hand.

The red mindset is being consciously aware of a real danger and being able to use our mental faculties to deal with it appropriately. Upon recognizing a threatening situation, we take well-thought-out measures to protect ourselves and/or others from it.

The black mindset is when we freeze, we can't think, and we don't know whether to scream, run, or just stand there and piss ourselves.

Lt. Col. Grossman says that time and time again it's been shown that someone who keeps themselves in the yellow mindset can easily transition into the red mindset when the need arises, yet rarely if ever finds themselves in the black mindset, while, on the other hand, those that maintain a white mindset often go straight into the black mindset when presented with a real threat.

But beyond just preparing our mind to deal with a threatening situation, having situational awareness can help us stay out of trouble by allowing a would-be attacker to see that we are ready for his shenanigans. Remember that the criminal is going through his own decision-making process as he decides to attack us or the next unfortunate person. If he sees that we are aware of our surroundings and prepared to take him on, he might just decide that we are more trouble than we're worth, and he'll wait to attack the next person.

The obvious advantage to maintaining situational awareness is seeing potential problems as well as potential opportunities as they come over our horizon. Hey, we don't have to just be negative Nancys about this; people meet other interesting people due to them having situational awareness. Heck, you might run into your soulmate by having your head on a swivel rather than looking at your not-so-smart phone.

Glasses, reading or otherwise, to include sunglasses and contacts

Being able to see well is probably the most important part of our day for those of us dependent on our eyesight along with having the eyewear itself, having accessories like a case, microfiber cleaning cloth, contact solution, etc.

Wallet or purse

This is the original EDC item and contains our ability to purchase items and transportation. It contains our IDs, permits, and membership cards. It should contain a spare key to your house and car as well because getting locked out of your own stuff is a bitch.

Cash is still king. With numerous threats to our financial system, having enough cash on hand to fill your gas tank from empty to full and to buy two weeks of groceries is a good rule of thumb. $300 or $400, depending on the kind of car you drive and the amount of people you're buying groceries for, should be plenty. And I'm not talking about a regular trip to the market. You won't be buying any Oreo Double Stuf cookies and chocolate milk when your world gets turned upside down. You won't want all this cash in one place. As you pull your wallet out to pay for a small item, it shouldn't be apparent that you have much cash with you. Having a separate money clip or ankle wallet will allow you to not show off all the Benjamins at once.

One thing that is small enough to slide into a wallet like a credit card but could also be carried in a purse is a REVLON Men's Series grooming kit. This thing is the Swiss Army knife of grooming kits and comes in handy all the time.

Again, the size of a thick credit card, it includes scissors, a nail file, a small knife, tweezers, a ballpoint pen, a toothpick, and a LED flashlight. Although it's made by REVLON, it is a translucent charcoal gray that doesn't look the least bit feminine. A Swiss Army knife is great, but it's hard to stuff one in your wallet. Of all the stupid survival credit cards, this one has proven to be the most useful to me.

One more thought I'd like to share about wallets concerns RFID protection. Although this was an issue when contactless payment cards first came out, it was quickly fixed, and the vast majority of credit cards out there today with the metallic EMV chips have no RFID capability, thereby negating any need for a RFID-protected wallet. So pull that camouflage trifold back out of retirement and rock that shit like it's 1992.

A good-quality one-handed opener knife

These are quick to deploy and come in handy for so many things. It should be noted here:

The first rule of a knife fight is to not get in a knife fight.

The second rule of a knife fight is that there are no rules in a knife fight.

Keep your knife sharp because a dull knife is very dangerous. Here is the first of many skills I will allude to as being important to have. If you don't know how to sharpen a knife, look into ceramic sharpeners and sharpening stones either being a good choice to put a decent edge on a blade. Used together, they can just about make a spoon into a razor.

Lighter

Whether it be a classic Zippo or plastic disposable one, the ability to make fire is the single thing next to our opposable thumb that separates us from the wild animals.

A watch

Because cell phones are prone to dying and having some way to measure time might be advantageous to you while adhering to a predetermined plan you may have made with others in a survival team. More about this later.

Nope, a smart watch doesn't count because it is dependent on frequent charging, just like your phone. I'm talking self-winding, solar, quartz, or a manual-winding watch here, and it should have a water-resistant rating of at least one hundred meters. Anything less and you just have a dress watch that will likely fail as soon as it's submerged in more than a foot of water.

Hand sanitizer and a mask

I don't think I need to explain either of these after 2020, but the folks in downtown Manhattan might have benefited from having a mask with them on September 11, 2001. A pandemic isn't the only time a mask might come in handy. Hand sanitizer because gas pumps and restaurant menus were gross long before COVID-19.

Yes, you're testing and improving your immune system by exposing it to germs. That works when the hospital is right there for you and your health insurance is good to go. In a SHTF event when people are depending on you, you can't afford to get or be sick.

Individual personal items

Females may want to consider having a silicone urination device that will allow them to pee standing up and/or pee in a bottle. The fact that males come with a urination hose as standard equipment is an unfair advantage that can be somewhat equalized with one of these devices. After all, getting caught with one's pants down is bad enough when we're just speaking figuratively.

Then consider needed items such as medication, inhalers, hearing aids/batteries, personal/feminine hygiene items, and the like.

Personal security device

A handgun or pepper spray. We will discuss these items further below, so please read on before you get yer knickers in a bunch.

Appropriate clothing for the current weather conditions

Finding yourself outside in the weather is a significant possibility despite your best-laid plans. This includes taking insulated boots with you as you walk out of the house on the way to the office in your dress shoes during the dead of winter. If it's unrealistic to carry these items, then for God's sake wear them.

Along with being aware of our surroundings, the above list are items we should consider having with us regardless of where we are going.

In the following text, we look at making a plan and kits that are more extensive and designed to help you a great deal in a variety of situations. The first of which is your everyday carry for your personally owned vehicle.

EDC for Your POV

Silicone female urination device

I'm going to start by saying one of the most important items you can have in your car is a silicone female urination device and a few empty bottles that are 100 percent watertight when capped off.

I was stuck on Snoqualmie Pass for hours due to avalanche control, and a lady in the car next to me had to get out, pull her pants down, squat, and pee right between our vehicles. Whether or not she was personally embarrassed, you can save the females in your life that embarrassing moment by having one of these devices readily available in your car as well as something to go into. And even if you don't have a female in your life, how much of a hero will you be if you stop that lady from yanking her pants down on that snowy mountain pass and hand her this device so she can discretely pee inside her own car. Or she'll think you're a total creeper, but at least you tried to be helpful, right?

Phone charger

Some cars have wireless charging these days, and while that is very convenient, it could leave you in a bind if you had to charge your phone from something other than your car. Having an extra charger stashed in your vehicle that will charge from a 12-volt source as well as 110 volt may be useful.

To go along with this theme of keeping our primary means of communication charged, a USB power pack might be a good idea to have with you as well.

Spare tire, jack, lug wrench

How can you even begin to call yourself