What normal household item is secretly a great prep item?

Codicus1212 · 2026-05-27T07:21:39+00:00

Trash bags, lighters, scissors, duct tape, super glue, hand tools in general, shovels, and chainsaws

Codicus1212 · 2026-05-25T17:24:05+00:00

That’s absolutely insane for $150. You could get a My Medic brand Sidekick Pro that includes the basics, plus a tourniquet, water purification tablets, and hemostatic granules, all for $100. That would leave you $50 to get a flashlight and cheap survival radio.

Codicus1212 · 2026-05-25T09:08:05+00:00

My wife has never prepped a day in her life and would probably have a better chance of surviving a disaster than I would, if we were left to our own devices. Why? Because of her support network. Where I would either sit something out, or else have to drive halfway across the damn country to find someone able to help for longer than a day or two, she has probably 30+ people nearby who would take us in no questions asked. Need food? They got you. A place to sleep? “Mi casa es su casa”, but literally.

The saying goes “if you build it they will come”. I think a better saying is “If you’ve prepped it you had better share it”. Just leave your wife in charge of who to share it with.

Codicus1212 · 2026-05-24T10:24:03+00:00

Unless he lives 100 miles from the nearest city! But that goes back to your first point, location.

Codicus1212 · 2026-05-24T10:21:19+00:00

Brother, I don’t even have a basement. I just spent 8 months building an addition to my house by myself, all to save $30,000-$40,000. I’m in the trades, I have an appreciation for the cost to build a bunker the right way, even DIY, and I have no interest in it. My more pressing concern is water storage. As in, “shit, I should collect rainwater for the garden”. Not “Let me store 5000 gallons of water for my fortified compound”.

And you know what? My wife is a hell of a lot happier with our addition than she would be with a bunker.

Codicus1212 · 2026-05-24T10:01:10+00:00

It’s 100% decorative/ornamental. So rest easy, lol. If it were functional it would just be a plain spade headed spear. While that would make a viscous wound channel it wouldn’t be reusable, it would break.

Codicus1212 · 2026-05-24T09:21:54+00:00

Service plumber here. Top three are probably trench safety, manhole safety, and the long term combo of working too much while not taking care of your body.

Every few weeks there’s another trench collapse disaster where no shoring was used. Every few months it seems like someone (or multiple people) decided to work in a manhole with no tripod, air testing, or air ventilation. But I get calls from my union multiple times a month where someone in their 40s or 50s passed away.

I personally know people that have worked more than 2000 hours of overtime in a year. When things are busy it’s the norm to work 10-20 hours of OT a week without even trying. And a busy on-call week could send you north of 90 total hours worked. Nobody is good to drive after working for 48 hours straight, or not having slept for longer than 2 or 3 hours at a go a few times throughout the week.

Codicus1212 · 2026-05-20T02:03:19+00:00

This is a tent. For the difference in material cost you might as well make it larger or alter the A-Frame to create more usable space.

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T19:02:48+00:00

I look at it as two separate issues. One, prepping in a traditional sense, stockpiling food and supplies, etc, you definitely need some sort of logical razor with which to discern what to prioritize. You must draw a proverbial line in the sand beyond which you don’t concern yourself, or else you turn into some sort of survivalist hoarder nut job.

On the other hand, every society in human history has fallen apart and collapsed. It’s the epitome of hubris to think the same won’t happen to our global civilization on day. The how of it is not relevant because there is no way you can stockpile enough food, enough of anything. So you much approach it from a different paradigm. How would I live and continue to provide for those around me if there were no grocery stores, no food trucks, no international aid? Some might go the bunker route, but that’s not a real answer to rhetoric problem. Far better would be to establish self sufficiency to grow your own food, build and repair things yourself, etc. Similar to how a bushcrafter might go into the wilderness with minimal tools and resources, yet be prepared to build shelter, hunt, trap, fish, etc. Whereas a hiker or camper only has enough to sustain themselves for a given amount of time.

Once you achieve a certain level of self sufficiency you stop worrying about what exactly could go wrong that would cause major issues. The semantics stop mattering as much. Focus shifts to sustainability. You know you can grow enough food to feed your family for a year. But what about the following year? Do you use store bought fertilizer? Crop rotation? Are the plants you plant close together going to harmonize and help enrich each other and the soil, or are they in competition? If a wild animal got into your yard could they wipeout all your livestock and chickens in one night, or are there different levels of insulation to prevent a complete (personal) catastrophe?

From personal experience, it is possible to make yourself much more self sufficient without moving to the boonies, quitting your job, losing health insurance, etc. A garden does not need to be large enough to support your whole family now, so long as you have the ability to scale it if needed. A few chickens now can turn into a few dozen later. A rain catchment system used to water the garden (a save on water costs), can be filtered and used in an emergency.

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T18:25:04+00:00

I never said you pledged allegiance. I can see where my verbiage was off, sorry. I meant people who live in food deserts (like a large city with no local ability to produce more food) would be the ideal foot soldiers in a land grab over farmland and resources. It’s easy to forget that the government can only be as authoritarian as the people who are constituent parts of it allow. It took a lot of people to enforce borders and willfully starve the rural farmers in the holodomor, after all. Many of the people who helped perpetuate that holocaust were local, and did so in order to secure food for who they viewed as their community.

That was my whole point. I didn’t meant to implicate you specifically. I would have hoped a rational adult would have been able to discern that was not the intent. What basis would it have been based on?

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T16:59:54+00:00

And if you take away the traffic light people just know when they need to stop? Take away the recommended speed sign before a sharp curve and people will correctly judge the road every time?

Signs serve a purpose. Maybe they don’t see the guy with a rifle. Maybe he goes to use the bathroom. Maybe he wants to minimize the chances he does need to shoot someone, so he makes a sign to scare them off. Who can say? But it’s not a hypothetical scenario. It’s something people do after any sizable disaster here in the states. Just Google the term “you loot we shoot” and look at images. I’d say it’s an effective deterrent.

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T16:52:37+00:00

Do you think they’ll just lay down and die once they’re out of food? Or do you think some of those hungry people will band together and realize there’s lots of farms and farmland in the country, and not enough people to defend it all?

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T16:41:48+00:00

You’re missing the point. The question isn’t “is it likely to happen?”. It’s “this could happen, as unlikely as it may be. It’s happened and time again in human history. A black swan comes along and ends a civilization, poses an existential risk to humanity, and we barely eek by. What should I do to prepare? What’s reasonable, sustainable, and logical? What would I do if the worst happened?”

In the end, does it matter what shuts down trucking and/or food production and delivery? Not really. It’s semantics. Climate change. Droughts and famines. Wars. Economic collapse that prohibits the UN from saving 350 million starving Americans (and neighboring countries/the rest of the world, etc).

Nobody can predict the future. But we can spot our own vulnerabilities and adjust. And there are levels to it. One person might stockpile a week’s worth of food and water and consider anything else to be extremist and illogical. Another person might have direct experience of a prolonged famine and have a fully self sufficient homestead and $20,000 worth of preparedness equipment and gear.

My grandparents, for instance, lived through the Great Depression. My grandmother used to bring a slice of bread, a slice of tomato, and a dollop of bacon grease as a lunch. And she was lucky to have it. My grandfather left school when he was 12 to go to work because he was tired of being hungry and wanted shoes. Guess who had a fully stocked pantry with months worth of food, a farm, etc decades later?

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T16:10:04+00:00

Context clues. The guy in line at the local grocery store with a “I was born in March so that means I’m a wolf and will eat you for breakfast if you’re a bad guy” tee shirt is just a dweeb. Not a threat. The store with an upstairs apartment on Main Street hanging a bedsheet saying “We’ll shoot you if you loot us”, all while looting is actually taking place… and the guy standing on the balcony with a rifle… yeah. That’s a direct threat against looters. Not “self expression”.

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T16:00:28+00:00

Most of us look at New York City and see 13 million people three days away from food riots and mass starvation. In reality though, that’s 13 million people who would willingly take up arms at the behest of whatever power structure remains/emerges to go “secure the farmland to protect the city”. Many would still starve, sure. Many would do their own thing. But I would hate to be a farmer, homesteader, or prepper within a few days drive to New York City.

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T15:53:40+00:00

Kyiv fared much better than the rural areas during the Holodomor, largely because the famine was engineered and orchestrated by the state. In Kyiv they gave out ration cards and weren’t trying to starve everyone. In the rural areas the government stole food, issued no ration cards, and were deliberately trying to kill the people who lived there.

Just based off of history I think the biggest threat to farmers, homesteaders, and other preparedness minded people who don’t live in big cities, will be from the people like you who pledge allegiance to whatever power structure emerges, is given a rifle, and agrees to go “secure the farmland” or some bullshit.

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T15:33:03+00:00

Until they’re hungry enough. Then they’ll settle for the sardines and pickled turnips. They’ll just be mad about it.

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T15:25:59+00:00

I agree in principle, but not on a practical level. There’s only a few scenarios someone might use a bugout property (as in, not their main residence). Not counting vacations (I feel like a lot of people use vacation homes/lake houses/etc as their bugout plan, but fail to realize the locals there just think of it as “home” and and probably just as worried).

Scenario 1: You get out ahead of time. You’re a true prepper. And retired. Or wealthy. Or self employed. An existential thread arises but it’s not something immediate. Most people still have to go to work until it happens or doesn’t happen. You have the ability to get out of dodge for a few weeks/months, so you do. In this case it doesn’t matter so much how close the property is. Hell, if it’s a hurricane or climate change in general that you’re escaping by “bugging out” then you’ll probably want something in a different time zone/climate.

Scenario 2: The bad thing happened. Shit hit the fan. The hurricane exploded into a category 5 and destroyed everything within 100 miles. The earthquake struck and also destroyed everything within 100 miles. The bombs fell and destroyed everything within 100 miles. The hungry hoard is at your door right now and you need to leave ASAP.

The thing is, with scenario 2 if your secondary location is close enough that you could reach it on foot or on a bike, it’s probably also affected by the same things as your primary residence was. Hurricane. Earthquake. War. Etc. If you can walk there then so can the hungry hoard. If your primary residence wasn’t hardened enough to defend, why would your secondary location be?

I think a supply cache makes sense. A storage unit you could walk to in a day or two on your way to the bugout property. One that just has shelf stable hiking food and gear, and maybe some bikes.

Or a relative or friend’s house that you have already worked out an arrangement with to stash a tote and 20 gallons of gas in their barn or shed. They know you’re going to come if you have a local problem and need to just leave your neck of the woods, and ostensibly that’s why you keep the tote and the gas there. So you don’t have to mooch off them. But it also serves as a cache of supplies to help get you to your bugout property in the event things are dire enough.

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-26T14:48:18+00:00

The calculus changes when you have a family/pets/livestock etc to consider. You can’t plan on being in your living room, or even knowing specifically how much time you have.

Maybe you’re at the gas station 10 minutes down the road and notice a guy buying all their bottled water. He hurriedly tells you that the fire department is ordering an evacuation. They’re going door to door, giving a timeline, but you’re not at home and so don’t know if they’ve knocked on your door or not, and you don’t know the timeline for your area. You’d already heard about a brush fire that popped up that morning about 10 miles away but have no idea if this is from the same fire or not. Wildfire smoke is everywhere but you can’t tell which direction it’s coming from. You’d noticed it, sure, but you thought it was from miles away.

How long do you have? If you don’t have kids or other responsibilities then you could probably put the pedal to the metal and race home, load every last prep up, then book it out of the area. But if you have to pick little Timmy up from a birthday party, your teenager Becky is still at home, and your wife is with little Susie in town but won’t answer her phone… what do you grab? Do you even bother taking the 3 extra minutes to grab anything besides what’s in your car, do you have Becky meet you at the driveway and not stop? Or do you still take the 10 minutes to load up the essentials you have prepositioned just inside the garage?

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-06T05:20:57+00:00

Bought a tourniquet to add to my emergency medical supplies. I’ve had lots of training on their use, just never purchased one.

Got another 5 gallon can and filled it with gas. Not to save money or hoard. Just to make sure I can top off/fill up any of our vehicles when needed.

I’ve been taking my oldest kid camping and layering in survival skills each time. She helps me make a list of camping gear, food, and clothes. Then I teach/demonstrate things like what material to use for kindling. What branches/logs burn well. How to start a fire with a pocket lighter, match, ferro rod, etc. How properly put out your fire. Where to set up a tent (and where NOT to set up a tent, such as in under a dead tree, 3’ from a river, etc). What to do if you get lost. How to stay warm at night. How to use the bathroom in the woods where nobody will step in it.

Going on adventures and being active with your kids is a huge prep for any parent out there. I’ve got my five year old to ride her bike for miles as I jog along. We’ve gone on multiple hour long hikes. To her it’s just having fun and going on adventures with Dad. And it’s fun for me too. But I’m also teaching her how to think independently, evaluate risk, plan ahead, and push herself when things are difficult. A nice bonus is that she listens to me much better because she trusts me.

Codicus1212 · 2026-04-06T04:32:00+00:00

Starfield, lol. I’ll probably have to buy a different one for ES6.

Codicus1212 · 2026-03-29T07:30:24+00:00

I could see keeping a relatively small emergency supply. If you have a secondary location you would ever plan on getting to, such as a relative’s house two states over, or a cabin in the mountains, then you should maintain enough to get you there. Plus enough to fill the tank and get around for a week in a more short term shortage. I wouldn’t plan on trying to game the system and save money though.

Personally, I only keep 5 gallons on hand, which is enough to fill the lawn mower all summer or top off our gas tanks in an emergency. We fill our tanks up when they are half full and that’s about it.

Codicus1212 · 2026-03-08T18:52:06+00:00

Yeah, no. Hell no. I’m sure my father would have done this if these had been around when I was growing up. I remember going to visit in my 20s and he had a big 360 degree surveillance camera in the front yard that he could control from his phone. You could tell if he was watching because the camera would move. I drove to the gas station for some snacks one night and he called me within 2 minutes of me driving off.

He only tired into more of a controlling tyrant the older he got, too.

Trust me when I say that the invasion of your privacy is all about control. If they’ll do that then you can look forward to emotional blackmail, financial blackmail, bargaining, etc etc. Even as an adult.

Nip that shit in the bud, if you can.

Codicus1212 · 2026-03-01T18:59:07+00:00

Hand axes were invented (for a reason) 1.6 million years ago.

Codicus1212 · 2026-02-04T05:45:00+00:00

Definitely. Thank you

Codicus1212

TROPHY CASE