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72-Hour Kit Bag Dump After 10 YEARS!
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May 21, 2024
Dumping out your 72-hour kit in front of people after a few(?) years is kind of like letting a stranger go through your underwear drawer. But it's high time I looked at what we have in our kits and then take the opportunity to update these kits so they're actually useful. There's nothing worse than an emergency kit full of unusable stuff and expired food. Let's all make sure that never happens to us. Pantry Preparedness is a trademark of Income School LLC, an Idaho Limited Liability Company
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0:00
How's it going my friends? Today I'm going to do something vulnerable. No I won't be sharing my
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feelings but I am going to do something else. I'm going to allow myself to possibly get pretty
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embarrassed and here's why. This is a 72 hour kit. Some of you would call that a bug out bag
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They're kind of a little bit different thing. 72 hour kit is essentially a kit of stuff to take
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with you to be able to survive and have the basic needs that you have for an individual person at
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least in one bag for 72 hours for three days. The idea being if there was an emergency where you had
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to leave your home, you could take this with you and it would provide you with the necessities for
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72 hours. I mean also it works when you're at home if for some reason you're cut off from power and
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water and stuff. You should have enough stuff in here to be able to get by food, water, etc
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and other necessities. We're going to see the state of this 72 hour kit
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I put this thing together a long time ago, well over a decade ago using a backpack I got
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secondhand in college. It's tearing apart but also the last time I remember looking inside of here
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was probably three years ago and I remember all of the food being well expired and so I remember
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taking it out. I don't remember putting any back and so that's a little bit embarrassing
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This one here too, this one is one that was put together for my wife I think by her mom years ago
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before we were married and we've been married for a while. So likewise they've been sitting in my
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garage gathering dust hanging on the wall ready to take in an emergency but I'm curious how useful
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they're actually going to be. So what I'm going to do today is a bag dump. We're going to go through
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the stuff that's in these kits real quick. We're going to just see how they measure up but one of
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the things that I really want to do on this channel is I want to go through the journey of putting together the ultimate 72 hour kit for I'm going to say for an adult but also for a child
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I have five of my own kids ranging in ages from three up to eleven right now and so I need stuff
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for them too. This is not meant to be able to take care of a family of seven for the course of three
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days. So we're going to start with mine. I'll set this one aside and again I'm kind of embarrassed
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like this is the pocket that used to have stuff in it and it has nothing in it right now. So I
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don't know what's there. There's another pocket on this side likewise empty. I'll start with the
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front pocket. To be honest like when I have a 72 hour kit I do like bags with lots of pockets or
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dividers at least on the inside because I do like to be able to segment things and put things just
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keep it better organized. Okay I have a ziploc bag with I don't know like seven band-aids in it
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So there's that. I do have an emergency blanket not a bad thing to have although I recently did
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some testing on emergency blankets and I think I have something better. We'll talk about that when
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I put it together. Here are some gloves, latex gloves. You know if I had to do anything first
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aid or whatever but these look pretty browned. I don't think they were this color when we put them
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in. That's a cheap and easy thing to replace maybe something to consider replacing every
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couple of years. This is the little toiletry kit looks like a little hand towel, a little bag of
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toothpaste. I don't think there's a toothbrush in here and then some wipes which is kind of nice
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baby wipes. I always keep in my car actually a pack of dude wipes. They smell more manly I guess
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They're basically the same thing. Having had five kids I gotta tell you wipes are like the best
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thing ever. Even though I don't have any kids in diapers like my wife's purse has wipes in it. My
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car has dude wipes in it. They're also awesome for camping and stuff and way better than dry paper
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I also have here some basic medicine. Just by looking at it I can tell that's that's
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Pepto-Bismol. I've got some naproxen I think. Shoot these should be better labeled
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And then this looks like maybe a Benadryl. So I definitely need to look at the label on the
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pills see what's in them and then if I'm going to have medicine I better make sure I label it
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But naproxen is uh those look big for naproxen. That's what I would assume it is because what it
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is is uh it's an NSAID so it's an anti-inflammatory but also a pain reliever like ibuprofen. I tend to
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take ibuprofen more often but naproxen which is Aleve it lasts longer per pill so there's that
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Nothing else in this front pocket. So you know medication wise and stuff okay I don't have any
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soap in there or a toothbrush so that's something that uh I would definitely want to change
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All right okay I do have food. And it's broken up into days so like it's a 72 hour kit right so it's day it's by day right
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This is my day three bag. Look at those peaches. It says 2013 on it. So there's that. I have like
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some uh here's a can of chicken yeah white chunky chicken. Overall not bad but just old right. Most
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of this stuff even though it's long lasting food it's probably long expired and I might do something
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different nowadays. This is actually pretty cool. I'm actually okay not okay with how old it is but
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okay with uh the state of this right. I mean like not a bad 72 hour kit. Three days worth of food
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Enough food. I mean I've got like a breakfast bar, some hot chocolate, some oatmeal, some chicken
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a little bit of like steak jerky, some fruit. Not a bad little mix of things but the crackers
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are going to get smashed over time. These are pretty beat up and they're going to go bad over
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the course of a year or two. So I should probably be replacing the food or at least a lot of the
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food in here about every year. I don't really like that because uh time passes so dang fast. I just
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you can't believe that that food was put in there in 2013. All right let's look in the big case
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All right in here I have this is like sweatshirt probably and maybe sweat pants
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So it's nice to have a change of clothes right. Sweats are great because as you change in size
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over time which shouldn't happen as much to us as adults but sometimes it does. Sweats basically
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the idea is to have a dry uh clean set of clothes that you can change into as needed over the course
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of three days. For kids something like sweats can work incredibly well because even if they get a
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little small because you don't change out the clothes every six months or every two months or
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depending on the age of your kid then it's anyway it's it's something that can kind of stretch with
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them. But also if it's too big that's okay too. So you buy a size or so too big and then if they
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need it great uh you have it. And even if they get too big for it whatever. And then I've got some
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underwear. I have a photocopy of my birth certificate and a photo of my family. I think my
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mom helped pack this like years ago. The idea I think also being that if they can identify who I
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am if somebody comes across me they can get a picture. Although that picture is terribly outdated
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But I've got a copy here my birth certificate just a photocopy. Again more of an identifying
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thing. And it's inside of just one of these um like for a binder uh paper or page protectors
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I have a laminator at home so what I might do in the future is just laminate it
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I don't know that they need my birth my birth certificate but maybe even a
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photocopy of my driver's license or something. And then everything else in here is just a whole
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bunch of bottled water. It's always weird to me that these bottles that are sealed over time
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lose water and they get smaller. Tells me the seal isn't amazing. It is also surprising to
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me that water has a best by date. This expired in 2014. I don't know how water expires other
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than the fact that over time it can grow bacteria and stuff. Now it's nice this isn't a backpack
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that's a dark place. It shouldn't really grow bacteria too well. And if I kept this in a fairly
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in a in a place where the temperature is fairly well regulated that would be good
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I don't. It's been in my garage so uh who knows what's in that water. That's the state of this
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bag. Let's go look at my wife's bag real quick. I don't blame her by the way for the state of
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her bag. I should have updated it probably many times since the last time we did
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We're definitely going to have to repack this with new food probably new clothes
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new everything. But also I want to do a better job because I don't think that uh you know maybe
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necessarily like the cliche standard 72-hour kit is ideal for everybody, right? I think that we
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should be planning for emergencies that could happen based on where we live, based on the most
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the most likely and maybe even the most dangerous but possibly likely scenarios that could happen
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where we live. I live in Idaho, southern Idaho. I don't need to prepare for a hurricane
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And as you can see I don't have stuff in here preparing for a hurricane. But there could be
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situations where I need to leave my home and I need to do it suddenly maybe with my family and
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we need to be able to get in the car and drive for a while. And three days worth of stuff is enough
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to get you to a destination pretty far away actually. And the idea behind having everything
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with you is if for some reason you can't get water, if I had to hike somewhere whatever
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I have the water I need, I have the food I need. But it's also just if I were in a situation where
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I did just need to hit the road, I can make as few stops as possible and still have plenty of
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resources to be able to get by and drive for multiple days like all the way across the country
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if needed. All right we're going to go ahead and open up the other one. Let me pack this up real
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quick. Here we go. Likewise I've got lots of pockets here on the side. This is my wife so it's
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got feminine hygiene which is smart. This one, I mean she's got razors and stuff
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That's pretty cool. I don't know that in an emergency I'd be as worried about. And then
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here's some toilet paper, just camping toilet paper. It's a smart way to go about this. I still
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like wipes better. But you know. Here's some Tylenol but it's Tylenol cold so congestion and
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stuff too. It's for head colds. Okay so we got those things. That's what's here on the sides
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I do like the idea of first aid being like in exterior pockets easy to get to. Here's a little
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sewing kit. That's actually going to come in potentially pretty handy. The packaging that
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it's in is ripped but it's actually in a little case. So if I needed to you know mend some clothing
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I could. Maybe not my top priority but here's a survival candle. 36 hours. So that's cool. I can
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get some light even without flashlights which I didn't have in my first one. This one does have
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a flashlight and this is better. I've seen in so many 72 hour kits like the super cheap plastic
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ones. But here's the biggest problem with flashlights. The batteries are all going to
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be totally dead by the time you actually need this. Nope that's not right. See I can't even
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get the back open. What I find is really common with flashlights that are stored for a long time
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with like alkaline batteries in them is that the batteries start to leak and then they ruin
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your flashlight. That could be part of why this won't open. There we go. See that? That's battery
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acid. Probably shouldn't be getting that all over myself. This flashlight's completely destroyed
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I'll be able to get that out of there but very rarely when this happens. I don't know if you can
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see that. And I've got it on the bottom here too. So anyway that's no good. I'm gonna mess with that
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and see if I can get that fixed. Maybe I'll show you how I do that too. Here's a little first aid
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kit. Looks like it's got band-aids, some cleansing wipes, a little bit of gauze. That's it. But hey
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this is the basics. We've got cortisone cream for anything itchy really. Matches, Strycon box
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matches. More matches. We got some basically neosporin. We have wax candles. They're somewhat
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melted together but that's cool. It's just been in the garage for like a decade. And then a little
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multi-tool thing. That's kind of cool. It's got a bottle opener, a little knife, nail file
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little tiny scissors, a couple little flat screwdrivers. The basics. It's kind of a cool
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little thing. You don't need the super fancy stuff either. You don't need like a super fancy
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multi-tool. It's just to make sure that you have those things with you. I tend to carry a lot of
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that stuff with me basically always or have it with me in the car. I often am carrying at least
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a knife if not a multi-tool in my pocket and so I don't necessarily need a lot of that in my 72-hour
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kit. But what this does is it guarantees that if I grab the bag I have this. So I'm good. Oh and
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then this. It's got a whistle. It's got a compass on the end. It opens up and is waterproof on the
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inside and has a lanyard. So basically you can put a bunch of matches in here and it'll keep them
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protected from water. Lots of stuff. I think my wife's mom put this together a long time ago
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She's a fantastic lady. Got some basic rope. I would probably use paracord today
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Here's another emergency blanket. Again we'll talk more about those soon. Some more toiletry stuff. So this one's got soap, deodorant, a little travel toothbrush
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This is a pretty good kit here. Some deodorant, some shampoo and stuff and then some 100% DEET
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Repel. It's gold. All right here we go. Put this back. Let's see what's in the big pocket
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Probably time to update some of this stuff just because some better materials are out now but
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man her kit's really good. Got a little water bottle, the straw. It's kind of nice if you're
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if you have any like drink mix or anything to have something you can shake it up in but
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a regular disposable water bottle works too. All right so we must have updated the food back in
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2013 she and I because it's the same thing. Day one, day two, day three. The peaches are brown
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Hers has a little cup you can heat stuff up in. Also this is something we often do is have a
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little bit of candy for a couple reasons. One is it can help with monotony if you're having to eat
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really plain food if you're using emergency rations or something like that but two is
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puts quick energy, straight sugar, very fast use carbs. I'll often use hard candy. Jolly Ranchers
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are fantastic. They last like forever. They don't really go bad as long. They do kind of melt and
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stick together, get kind of messy over time so there's that. Hers has some utensils. Mine doesn't
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because I guess men don't think about those kinds of things sometimes. I know that's a generalization
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Not all men are like that. I am. I don't grab napkins when I walk through a buffet line. I just
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don't think to do that and then afterwards I'm like dang I wish I had a napkin. Anyway three
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days worth of food. It's the same stuff we had in mind. Cool we're gonna move on. All right now
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we just have the big pocket left. Similar stuff right? We've got
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oh that looks like a net bag. What does it say? Hooded scarf. Okay we've got that. We've got some
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gloves. Actually we've got like we got a lot of socks, more gloves. We've got hand warmers
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It's not a bad idea. Got more of these water bottles that have smashed over time. We've got
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a pair of pants, a shirt, just regular other stuff. Yeah just underwear basically and then
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water and then she's got oh this is a little tent. So she's got an actual like this is maybe
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a two-person tent. I haven't even pulled this out and set it up ever before. Probably have to do
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that sometime soon. Also not a bad little idea just in case for some reason or another you're
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gonna need shelter because you're hitting the road. So anyway there we go. She also has a few
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trash bags. Again not a bad thing not just to collect trash, your own trash. I think in an
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emergency we might not be as worried about littering but also it's a great thing to just
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be able to throw stuff into as needed. I find that having trash bags or at least grocery sacks or
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something readily available is often very helpful and it's often overlooked. Pretty good little 72
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hour kit. I think this one's off to a really good start. I'd love to hear from you though. What are
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some of the things that you find to be most beneficial to put into an emergency bag that's
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like a go bag. You can just grab it, you can go and then you'll have all of the necessities at least
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and even some other things that aren't maybe necessary but helpful, particularly helpful for
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an emergency where you need to be able to grab the bag and get out of town. So I'd love to hear
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that from you. Let's talk about it in the comments below. I am also very soon going to put together a
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video where I'm going to do lots of research but also I'm going to go through a discussion
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My brother, he's great. We were just talking about this. He's going to talk to me a little bit too
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He's had some pretty cool ideas about things that you can do to make the stuff that you have
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just more effective instead of like different types of water bottles that have a multi-use
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kind of stuff. So multi-use tools also really great. So I'd love to hear what your thoughts
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are in the comments below so we can build the ultimate 72 hour kits for ourselves and for our
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families. And other than that I hope to see you in our next video. This channel is all about
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preparedness. And preparedness for me goes beyond emergency 72 hour kits, bug out bags
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shtf kind of stuff. It goes beyond canning and preserving food. Preparedness for me is all about
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preparedness for whatever it is that life's going to throw at us. And that takes a more holistic and
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just entire approach to the way we live our lives. Being more aware of what's going on around us
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And being physically capable to move our bodies and to carry a heavy bag for many miles if
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necessary. There's a lot that goes into preparedness that goes beyond just gear and just food. So we're
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going to be talking about all sorts of that kind of stuff here on this channel and over on our website at pantrypreparedness.com. Thanks for joining me today