In This Day and Age, Disaster Can Strike at Any Time - Make Sure You're Prepared

Disaster can strike anywhere and at any time. Your survival will depend on how quickly you can respond to the danger and how prepared you are. You should keep a survival kit with you everywhere you go. While some companies market survival kits, they can be very costly. As a result, you may decide to only purchase one and then you’ll not have access to it during an emergency. Many are also poorly put together. With the help of this guide, you should be able to make multiple cheap kits for the price of one expensive commercial kit. Since making your own survival kits are so cost-efficient, you can custom tailor them to fit things like the seasons or where it is you are traveling.

To start off, you need to understand the essentials of survival during an emergency situation. Fresh water, food, clean air and warmth top the list. This should be the foundation of your survival kit. You will obviously need some type of container to hold the items. A cardboard box will suffice as long as it is shielded away from the elements, like a car trunk or closet. An ice chest would be significantly lower the risk of damage to your items. You should purchase a couple of gallons of drinking water from your grocery store. The problem is that these normally don't last over the duration of a crisis. Therefore, you'll want to purchase some purification tablets also. These tablets can be placed into any water source and make it safe to drink. They aren't that costly, so it would be very wise to buy a couple of packets. Collect water from snow, rivers and streams, drainage ditches in the empty gallon containers and use the tablets to ensure that the water is clean.

When choosing food for your survival kit, the number one factor should be longevity. Next up should be how easy it is to cook. Taste should also be a factor, but remember that you're eating to sustain yourself. Jerkies are good because they last a very long time and need no preparation. Canned soups and vegetables are also a very great choice due to how long you can keep them stored. You'll also want some foods that can be prepared by only hot water. Packets of ramen noodles will easily fit this category. Also good contenders are potted meats. Try to avoid generic junk foods such as candy bars and chips. Candy bars will melt, and chips go stale quickly once opened.

Your survival kit will also need canned heat and matches. Canned heat is very useful to cook with. It's like a super powered candle that runs off fuel inside of a can. Some of the more expensive models are self-lighting, which would eliminate the need for matches. You could use the canned heat to both cook and light anything else that needed to be lit. Also get pots and pans similar to what you would see in a mess kit. Make sure you include a first aid kit, and make sure the first aid kit comes with antibacterial creams and disinfectants. Include personal hygiene items such as toilet tissue, toothpaste, soaps and more to help prevent and control infections and disease. You may want to include a sleeping bag and blanket also.

If you can, include items such as cash, batteries and radios to keep in touch with the news, a flashlight, paper and pencils, games and books to pass the time, and basically any thing you deem important enough to include. When building your survival kit try and put yourself in the position of someone in a crisis. That should give you some insight of what you will and won't need. Remember that you may have to rely on this kit for an extended duration of time. Make your survival your number one priority. Good luck!