Welcome to Frugal Fridays where we share money saving tips, discuss living frugally and generally talk about personal finance issues. Current events have got me thinking about disaster preparedness this week. Everyone should have a disaster preparedness kit and plan. In California, we call them "Earthquake Kits" but, as you may have noticed, earthquakes are not the only disasters we may face. While it's true that everyone should have a kit, buying one pre-made can be much more expensive that assembling your own. So today's topic is how to frugally prepare for a disaster. Please use the comments to add your own suggestions for what should be included and sources for cheap supplies.
Before you follow me below the fold, please take a moment and go recommend the California Wildfires Liveblogging Mothership diary to keep it up on the recommended list. This is an amazing effort that has been going strong for almost 100 hours. Unfortunately, since the fires show little sign of slacking, the liveblogging needs to continue as well.
When I sat down to write this I thought it would be fairly straghtforward: figure out what should go into a kit and then find out where to get those items cheaply. It wasn't long before I realized this plan had a major sticking point: there is no definitive list about what should go into a disaster kit, because your needs will vary depending on what sort of disaster you are facing, where you are when it strikes and where you are when you are recovering. It turns out you don't need just one kit, but several. Here's the set that I've come up with. This may not be complete, but it should get you started:
- Evac bag: This is a bag of the most vital stuff you need that you can easily grab if you have to evacuate your house in a hurry. It won't contain everything you need to survive for days, but it should contain things you can't do without and can't easily replace.
- Home Survival Kit: This kit should contain everything you would need keep you and your family healthy and well for at least 3 days (a week is better) without access to power or water.
- Car Kit: This kit should contain everything you would need keep you and your car passengers alive if you are stranded somewhere for hours or days. If you live (or are driving through) a region with snow, you need to carry one of these at all times.
- Work Kit: If a disaster strikes while you are at work, you may be stranded there for a day or more before you can get back to your home and family. You may want to keep a small disaster kit there that will help you in that period of time.
Before I just start listing all the stuff that should go in each of these kits, I want to emphasize the frugal approach to building these kits. One key thing to remember is that much of the stuff that you will need in a disaster is the same stuff that you use in your every day life. You don't need to buy a duplicate set of everything you already have, you just need to assemble this stuff in one place and store it together. I like to say that my pantry is my earthquake kit. There is enough food and water in there right now to keep us going for a week or more. While it's true it will be inaccessible if our house were destroyed, so would any kit stored elsewhere in our house. It's also important to remember that many items in these kits have expiration dates, so you don't want to just stash this stuff away and forget it. You should use the items in your kit in your everyday life, and be sure to replace them when you start to run out.
Also, you should build your kits for the disasters you are most likely to encounter. Here are some questions you should ask yourself. There will be a different answer to these questions for every type of disaster. How much warning will you have? Will you be able to evacuate to a safe location? Will structures be standing and habitable or will you have to find other shelter? Will roads be passable? Will you have to shelter in place in your home or business? What will the community be like in the aftermath? Will the local infrastructure be affected or will stores and businesses still be operating? Will disaster relief agencies be able to set up operations in a timely fashion or will you be on your own? Will there be power, water, cell phone or landline phone service (if landlines go down, cell phones also go down)? If you have pets or other animals what will their needs be?
Another thing to keep in mind is that unless you are a hard core survivalist, the supplies in this kit probably only need to last you a few days, maybe a week. You don't need the most rugged gear you can find. A used item or a cheap knockoff that will last a few days of use may be just as good and a lot cheaper than quality items.
Where to Get Your Disaster Supplies
One of the best places to go to find a lot of good disaster supplies reasonably priced is your local army surplus store. Thrift shops can also be good places to pick up small backpacks or duffle bags, can openers, cooking utensils and other such tools. Costco has cases of energy bars and flats of bottled water. Cases of bottled water are often put on sale as loss leaders at discount stores. You may want to keep an eye out and pick some up when the sales happen. There are also on-line sources for lots of survivalist and disaster supplies. You may be able to save quite a bit of money by buying some survival items, like mylar blankets or energy bars in bulk. If you don't need an entire case of energy bars, perhaps you have a friend you can share with. Or you could assemble kits for your friends and family members as Christmas gifts this year.
What to Put in Your Evac Bag
Put all these items in a backpack or duffle bag that is easy to carry and keep it in a very handy location because you may need to grab it at a moments notice:
- Copies of Important documents and paperwork: Make copies of each of the following. Notarized copies may be better than non-notarized, but the important thing is to have the paperwork. Keep your originals in a fire safe or safe deposit box, whichever is better for you. A safe deposit box won't be available if the bank is not open, but a fire safe won't survive the intense heat of a wildfire. You may want to give another set of these copies to friends or family members who live far enough out of your area so that they will be unaffected by your local disaster just in case your bag doesn't survive the calamity. You could also scan them into your computer and then store them on a public server (for example, you could mail them to yourself and keep them on your mail server). Put your copies of paperwork into ziploc bags (double bagged):
- Passport, drivers license, birth and marriage certificates and car titles.
- Copies of your credit cards (front and back) if they are lost or stolen or you need replacements, the number you need to call is on the back of the missing card.
- Insurance company info and policy numbers.
- Bank statements or bankbooks.
- Any bill (like cable TV) with your name and address that you can use to establish residency.
- Your most recent tax return
- Your eyeglass and medication prescriptions.
- A list of contact numbers: insurance agents, doctors, friends, and family. Designate a single contact person (who lives outside your area) you and all your family members know to call and contact after a disaster. The long distance phone system may work even if the local phone system goes down.
- Your will and your durable power of attorney for health care.
- Money: A small amount of cash or travelers checks will be useful for incidental purchases if merchants can't process credit cards. Coins for payphones may also come in handy if the cell phone system goes down or if your cell phone loses charge (assuming you can find a payphone!). A prepaid phone card could also be useful, but they expire if you don't use them, so you would need to keep replacing them every year if you include them.
- Prescription medication in the original bottles: If you take regular medication, get an extra month of your prescriptions filled. Keep those in your kit and then replace them with the new ones each month.
- Spare keys: copies of keys to your home and vehicles. Maybe keep copies of keys to your friends' home and vehicle keys too.
- Small first aid kit: Bandages, antiseptic ointment and aspirin.
- Swiss army knife or Leatherman type tool: This is one area where the cheap knockoff is perfectly adequate. You don't need an original Leatherman (but arent' they cool!).
- Flashlight: check the batteries every so often, or better yet use a crank powered light. LED lights are very bright and use very little power, but their batteries eventually decay from age.
- Computer hard drive backup: Backup important fiiles to a CD, DVD or USB drive. Update these backups routinely.
- Indelible Markers, paper, and duct tape: You can roll a bunch of duct tape around a pencil instead of keeping a gian roll in the bag. If you have to leave a message or note for someone, these could come in handy.
- Other small items: Sanitary wipes, tissues, paper towels, safety pins, matches, and mylar blankets.
- Local and regional maps
- Power Bars: You really don't need to deal with your blood sugar crashing in the middle of a disaster.
- Battery or crank powered radio: Some of the crank powered versions come with a jack you can use to power your cell phone. I haven't seen any for less than $25 (here's one for that price that doesn't have the cell phone jack). If I find anything better, I'll update this.
- Baby items: Food, diapers, wipes, etc. You don't need to stock an entire nursery, just enough to get you through a day or so.
- Pet items: A copy of the microchip or other registration information. A current photo of your pet (in case it gets lost.) Keep your pet carrier handy and keep some pet food in your bag.
- Spare cell phone charger: You may be able to find a cheap extra charger for your phone from one of the knockoff providers on-line. Try typing the name and model of your cell phone and "charger" into Google Product Search to see what you can find. If you can get both a AC (wall socket) and DC (car) charger, that's even better.
If you notice, there is one vitally important thing I didn't put on this list: water. It is heavy and you don't need to be lugging it around when you are trying to run out of a burning building. The stuff in this bag won't keep you alive for days, but it will make getting to a shelter and later recovery that much easier. Note that most shelters won't let you keep pets with you, but some will have ancillary pet shelters located nearby.
If you want to see what hard core survivalists do, google the term "bug out bag" and check the links. These are bags that carry everything they need to leave civilization behind for six months. Not exactly small enough to grab at a moments notice, but damn impressive, in a scary-paranoid sort of way.
What to Put in Your Car Kit
Your car kit should contain much of the same things in your Evac Bag, with the exception of things like paperwork, spare keys, computer backups and prescription medication. You only need the stuff in your car that is necessary to survive until you are rescued. You don't need the battery powered radio either, since every car comes equipped with one already. In addition, you should carry in your car:
- bottled water
- more power bars (these both come in handy during long road trips - use these supplies regularly and replace them when they get low)
- signal flares
- extra blankets
- warm hats (you lose a lot of heat through your head)
- sturdy shoes
- heavy work gloves
What to Put in Home and Work Kits
In the interest of space, I'm not going to post detailed lists of what should go in your other kits. There are some really good resources for all sorts of disaster kits on the web. I'd start with these two and then check out the other links I've listed below for even more lists.
Further Resources
If you want to read even more, here are some good resources I've found:
Frugal Tip of the Week: If you want to get new books in trade for your old ones, try Paperback Swap or Bookmooch. These services operate very similarly: you put up a list of books you have. If someone requests one, you send it to them (you pay postage) and you get a credit. You can use the credits to request books from other users (you pay nothing).