Top Twelve Prepping Items After Water And Food

0:00If your phone is on solid and the power is out, what's going to wake you up when a tornado warning drops at 2 a.m.? Prepping isn't about fancy gear, it's about the boring stuff. The boring stuff that keeps a small problem from becoming a life-changing disaster. Some perhaps can literally buy you minutes to react to the emergency. Then you're not panicking, you're acting. Once be honest, most people aren't under-prepared because they don't care, they're under-prepared because they don't know what actually matters. Today we're breaking down the practical non-negotiable items every home should have before the next emergency shows up. Welcome to practical prepping, today is March 9th, 2026, and this is episode 545.

1:06This is the prepping podcast with no bunkers, no zombies, and no alien invasions. Just practical prepping, where we teach everyday people how to prepare for life's emergencies, disasters, and crises, and we're here to help you get prepared, I'm Krista. And I'm Mark and if you'd like the expanded notes for this episode, go to practicalprepping.info forward slash 545, and there you'll find not only the episode notes, but you'll find a link to everything that we mentioned here in the podcast. We're covering the top 12 prepping items that we have suggested after water and food from our own podcast. And we're going to treat these first three as one item because we consider these to be non-negotiable, they will protect the lives of your family and hopefully your property as well. So let's start with things that protect your family.

2:09First is a NOAA weather radio. And that's NOAA. Yes, and this provides real-time emergency warnings. And the National Weather Service puts out any kind of warning, whether it is a severe thunderstorm, whether it's tornado, snow warnings, avalanche warnings, which we don't care for here in North Carolina, but don't think we have that threat. Right. But this will wake you up in the middle of the night and you need one near the bedrooms. And if you have a house that your bedroom area is somewhat distant from your living areas, then have two. This is where two is one, one is none in that case. Well, in our area, a lot of times in the Southeast, we live in Alabama, we do often get tornado warnings at night in the dark and in the midnight hour, one o'clock, two o'clock. That's not unusual for our region.

3:10And I will tell you that our NOAA Weather Alert Radio is loud enough to wake these two old bears up from a deep, deep, deep sleep. And I'm glad that it does. They're easy to program lots of information about how to do that properly. You really want that because that does buy you some time. And time is critical if you've got a storm coming. Next is the fire extinguisher. We want at least one fire extinguisher on every level of the home. And at least in the kitchen and in the garage. And these are stop small fires before they become catastrophic. And everybody needs to know where they are. Everybody needs to know how to use them. And we use the pass method. P-A-S-S. Yes. And it's an acronym. And it's for pull. We pull the pin in the fire extinguisher. A is aim. You aim at the base of the fire.

4:11Not the flames. You aim at the base of the fire. And then you squeeze and then you sweep back and forth across the base of that fire to get that fire out. And you also need those pressure gauges checked and the expiration dates confirmed. Now Mark, you were a firefighter and I remember you telling me a story about how you were able to offer the service for a fee to have someone's fire extinguisher recharged. Our fire department offered that and it was just a service to the community. And if someone used a fire extinguisher, they could bring it to us if it was a refillable one. And we would take it apart. We would repowder it and all of the things that needed to go. We had the O-rings. We had the valves. We had anything to fix what might be broken. And it was a very nominal fee that really just covered the cost of what we were doing. And so it was not a big profit thing.

5:13And so it all went back into the gear and equipment that we used for that. If you use one, if you have one that is extremely old and even if it's showing good pressure, if it's 40 years old, you might squeeze it and it goes, and that's the end of it. Right. Have that checked or replace it if it's 40 years old, just replace it. Yeah. No big deal. The third item that we consider a must have would be both smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Now, you want a smoke detector on every level of your home. That's mandatory. In fact, that's within modern U.S. code to have that type of protection. You want them near the kitchen and in the hallways near all the bedrooms. You also want that carbon monoxide detector, which would be mandatory if your home uses any of the open flame heating or gas appliances, auxiliary heat sources.

6:17Most important because carbon monoxide is silent and somewhat undetectable. It can get you before you realize it. You want to test the alert function. Both your smoke detector and your carbon monoxide detector have test buttons. You want to make sure you maybe test once a month just to make certain that it's loud enough to wake you from a deep sleep. And please remember to have replacement batteries on hand. You know, a lot of times with this time change weekend, a lot of people think about changing the batteries. It used to be every six months we changed the time. Now it's every eight months. So you might just want to check, just test it monthly and change is needed. So we're including these three in one, the NOAA weather alert radio, fire extinguishers and smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. These have been known to save lives and spare property. And we believe they are mandatory for your preps. Number two is a first aid kit and a trauma kit. You want a boo-boo kit for minor injuries.

7:20I use mine a lot. I carried in my EDC bag and I'm reaching in there to get a band aid or something all the time. Yes, because he's a lolly. Yes. They're known for that sort of thing. Lolly's, in fact, the kids joke and say they did a lolly. He bumps ahead and scrapes knees. But you also want to trauma focus kit for larger injuries. Now let's break these down. A basic first aid boo-boo kit is the adhesive bandages. Maybe I think I've got a couple of two-by-two's in mine. I think I've got just a little bit of gauze in there that I can wrap a finger if I have to. Couldn't wrap an arm with what I have in mine. You might have those little pre-packaged individual alcohol wipes. I do have those. I do have some over-the-counter medications in there. Some of those can be very important at times. I modium comes to mine. Yeah, that. And pain reliever. Pain reliever.

8:20I think you also carry a little small tube of antibacterial ointment. I do. And so if I'm skinned up somewhere, I can put that on there just to keep the infection down on that. A trauma kit is a totally different animal. And this is more like the high-fac. I've actually built my trauma kit even quite different from a lot of trauma kits. But you want to have an arterial tourniquet in there. And that's for that bright, red, spurting, bleeding in the extremities. Right. Don't use it to stop bleeding from the head. You can't put a tourniquet around the neck to stop bleeding in the head. You've got to use other methods. That's kind of a joke there, okay? Oh, okay. Okay. And an Israeli pressure bandage. This is designed by the Israeli military, and it helps you build a compression bandage

9:22around that because we're always told, you know, cover it in whole pressure. Yeah, pressure to stop bleeding. That works. This helps do that. You might want to consider some hemostatic clotting agent to go in there. In mine, I have various sizes of bandages, and I have multiple rows of gals to hold those bandages in place. And I have some adhesive tape in there that I can use to hold the gals in place. And I've actually had a couple of occasions to witness Mark using his trauma kit in the field. And both of these occasions were car accidents. The first one we were traveling on a major interstate highway through a very large city. And we witnessed the tractor trailer collide with a very small little two-door car. And they both slammed into the left side guard concrete about four cars ahead of us. So we all saw it.

10:23We pulled safely off to the left to get out of traffic and Mark immediately did two things. One, he jumped out of the car and put on his very bright yellow-green safety vest. And then he grabbed his trauma kit because he could sprint right up to that car and that truck to evaluate, has there been any serious injury? Because it takes a few minutes to get 911 called and get somebody up there. And fortunately the truck driver actually exited his truck and also came back to the car. He was not injured. He was rattled and shaken up, of course. But the most important thing was the young lady behind the wheel of the car. She was conscious and I don't think she might have bumped her head or something, but there was no traumatic injury. But Mark is a trained medic and he would have known what to do while I'm back there calling 911 to make sure that help was coming and it did. And the second time he and I were driving in the dark of night on a two-lane country road in Alabama. It was chilly and there was, we topped a hill and came over and the car passed us at

11:29a very high rate of speed and behind us. We heard the impact. I think that car actually crossed the median and struck the car behind us and we heard the impact we pulled off in safety. Mark did the same thing he did before. He grabbed that safety vest. He grabbed that trauma kit. He ran, sprinted with his flashlight across the street while I'm calling for help because my most important function is not to get in the way. My most important function is to get authorities there as quickly as possible and to give them some idea of where we were. This was not a normal road. We travel it but we don't know it that well. So I gave them some landmark descriptions and the dispatcher knew exactly where I was calling and could ping on my phone and within moments there was help on the way. So you never know. I mean, if you feel comfortable working with a trauma-focused kit, you need to get some training on that if you need that, get that training. But having those items can certainly buy your victim some time or someone that you're

12:31trying to help with a stranger, loved one, doesn't matter. We've all been in cases where we may have witnessed something traumatic happening and I sure would want somebody to sprint into action if it could. The thing here is if you are prepping for a long-term situation, you definitely need that trauma kit and in fact you need to make it even bigger than what I carry in the car because that may be your medical help for an extended period of time. Very often. If you're prepping for a long-term, let's say grid down situation, then have that kit made and ready to handle whatever injuries come along. All right, let's move to number three. One of my favorites is flashlights and have extra batteries. These are essential for navigating power outages safely, even in your house. If you think I'm kidding about this, turn all the lights out and walk through your house.

13:35Yes, because suddenly your furniture has moved. We just get disoriented in the darkness. And it's not that we don't know where we are in there, it's that we don't necessarily know that furniture has moved a foot closer to our little hope. We have no depth perception in the dark. That flashlight really helps with that. We suggest multiple flashlights of different sizes, and this is dependent on the purpose of the flashlight. I have one on my keychain, I can use it outside inside. If I need to just get to the lock on the door, that little keychain flashlight really works for me. That one's a strange light, it's not just a little mini light. It's powerful, it actually charges up on a phone charger type cable, and it'll keep a good charge. I think it's like 300 lumens. Yeah, it's a bright little keychain flashlight, the light. I carry one in my pocket all the time, that's probably 150 lumens, it does what I want.

14:37It lets me go to the shop and back, it lets me find things in the car that I dropped, it lets me find things outside the car that I dropped. And he's telling you truthfully, because I went up to him one day and I said, hey, do you have a flashlight? And he gave me the look and he said, are you kidding me? Of course I have a flashlight, that was a rhetorical question, that's like asking me if I have a knife, but you can't. But stage those lights around the house, we have them in the bedroom, we have them in the studio in the middle of the house, we have them in the family room where we spend time sitting in our recliners and enjoy that very much. But there's a flashlight in a little carousel right there between us and we can grab that. We've got an LED lantern on a bookcase behind Christus chair, we can get to that, a few more feet to get to the prepper pantry, which is where our lights out kit is with the

15:43additional LED lanterns. We also keep one on top of the refrigerator because that's pretty easy to find in the dark and it always stays in the exact same spot so that I can grasp it without even having a worry. Right. If you're buying flashlights, go to the dollar store and buy some cheap ones for the kids if they're blue kids, they're going to want a flashlight, I mean. Make them part of your lights out plan. In my little three-year-old grandsons, South Papal, they wanted to play with this flashlight. So it would need recharging after they finished or need new batteries because they played with it and you couldn't get it away from them. If you're using flashlights in the house, the kids are going to want to have their own. Cheap ones are good for that. We have stock extra batteries for every required size. We have multi-size lights and so we stock multi-size batteries.

16:44We've got one flashlight that's at 9,000 lumens and I promise you it could shine out in the backyard and planes could land in our yard. I mean, it's brighter than sun. But that's the one that you want to check what went bump out in the backyard. Number four is one of Christ's must-haves. Absolutely. You need a manual can opener. Not saying you can't use an electric one, but power goes out and your electric one's just a bump on the counter now. But I've even gotten to the point that I don't even use my electric can opener anymore. I stopped using it years ago and I have about three really good can openers and a couple of cheap backups just because. Then after several years of use, a very high quality can opener can suddenly feel like it's failing and I don't want to struggle with my can opener. I have arthritis in my hands and it really lets me know if I'm struggling with a can opener. But that is so essential. It's amazing to me how many people have a thousand cans of food in their proper pantry

17:46and not one can opener. So get you a can opener. Now we also have friends that do a lot of hiking and camping and outdoor and they like using their little P-38 or their little hiking camping type can opener. Hey, whatever you want to use, use it. But make sure that you have several so that if one fails, you've got that backup. You don't want to be trying to hack open a can with your fixed blade knife because it's going to ruin the can and the knife. Number five is a multi-tool and or a sturdy knife. When it comes to multi-tools, we like the leather man and the Gerber. Sitting in the chair right now, I'm carrying a Gerber on my belt. I've carried leather man. I enjoy both. But get quality. This is where you do want to buy quality. But it provides pliers, knives, screwdrivers, all can opener, all kinds of different things in one compact device.

18:48And it's great for minor repairs and small survival tasks. But for larger tasks, you may want to consider a good fixed blade knife. And this is for the more substantial cutting or the chopping needs. I cannot chop with my multi-tool. So what kind of fixed blade do you carry? I carry a K-Bar, a US Marine Corps issue that went through Vietnam. Wow. That's a great knife. Really? And if I've got to do some minor chopping, I say minor, if I've got to do some chopping, I'll use that. If I've got to do some major chopping, I go to the garage and I pull out the machete or the axe. Or the chainsaw. Or the chainsaw. Yeah. That's my default. But I do carry a multi-tool on my belt every day and I use it quite often. Now another thing that I carry every time I leave the house is my proof minimalist pocket

19:51wallet. It's high quality, RFID blocking. It holds up to 25 credit cards and it comes with a lifetime warranty. And get this warranty. If it breaks, if it gets stolen, even if you lose it, they will replace it. I've been carrying this one for over two years now and it looks just as good as it did the day I opened the box and I don't have to worry about someone stealing my credit card information with one of those scanners. So go to carryproof.com, C-A-R-R-Y proof, carryproof.com and use the discount code prepper and you'll get a 10% discount on your order. Now let's get back to the show. I want to talk about number six on the list and this would be alternative heat and alternative cooking sources. Two things. In the cold weather, you're going to want to stay warm and every single day you're going

20:52to want to eat. So how are you going to prepare that food? Think about this. Invest in a portable camp stove. We have a two burner portable camp stove. It can use a propane or butane. It is an outdoor, the one we have is an outdoor camp stove and I think most camp stoves would be an outdoor use. But butane is fine for using indoor. But to be honest, I've used our propane indoor. Crack a window in the kitchen. I'm just heating up soup or something. I've done that when the power was out. We've got a like a stovetop old-fashioned coffee pot and I'll tell you what, that makes some of the best coffees I've ever had in my life. That good old percolator, you know, like I call it the Marshall Dillon coffee pot, you know, anyway, back to our show. So yes, portable camp stove, great for that just depends on how much propane or butane you're able to use. But at least you'll have a cooktop where you can prepare meals.

21:55Now staying warm in the cold weather, we do use an indoor safe propane heater. We have the Mr. heater, big buddy, and ours has that fan attachment that helps to blow that warm air all around the room. And I'm telling you what, that bad boy is efficient. We heat an entire basement and I mean a very large basement area in our daughter's home when we stay in those guest quarters and we have to turn Mr. Heater down in the middle of the winter in North Carolina because it's very efficient, it's very warm. Again to explain that, we got kicked out of the guest room when the little one came along and it became a nursery, right? So we sleep downstairs in an unheated basement and that Mr. Heater, big buddy, does a great job. We'll put a link to that as well in the show notes, but keep a fuel supply and you want to store that safely and appropriately. Propane has no expiration date at last forever.

22:57As long as the container is intact, you can store that propane. But when you're using it, you want to have ventilation and you want to have a carbon monoxide awareness point. Yeah, which they do have down there in that basement, they do have those detectors. Yeah, and we carry one with us when we go camping, we use it in the tent. We're really happy with it and with the carbon monoxide detector, I'm not afraid to use that at all. And they do make various sizes of the Mr. Heater. Yes, the big buddy, the buddy, and the little buddy, just depends on what you're looking for in the area that you're looking to heat. Now, let's talk about number seven, an emergency cash fund. A lot of times in major disasters, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquake, floods, blizzard, things, payment systems and ATMs go down and no digital method of payment is available.

24:00Right. So you need to carry some cash and you need to maintain some cash at home and have this in small denominations so that you can use that, I mean, you may not be able to get change. That's, yeah, that's right because if you're just stacking your wallet with $100 bills and you may be in a grid down situation or a power out of situation and you've got $100 bills, the, you may or may not be able to get change back for your $2 purchase. That tank of gas may cost $100. Right. So do think of it as one, you know, in our domination of money, one's five, tens, 20's at the most because that's a more reasonable amount of currency that you're able to and negotiate with. And store it securely, but where you can get to it. Of course. We actually keep hours inside our gun safe. It's in there in a pocket in the door. So it's protected by fire as well? It's, it's to some degree protected by fire.

25:02A lot of times those things can, these little fire safes, a lot of times it doesn't burn it, but it cooks it, yeah, yeah, that's happened. So one thing I thought about doing for our very important documents is putting them inside one of those little century safe, but that inside the safe, the safe. And so that gives us double fire protection there, good call, but store that securely, but where you can get to it. Now, let's talk about your sanitation plan. Don't you love to talk about this, but you know what, hey, we're human, we're going to produce waste. What's your plan? Because if you don't have a plan, it's very hard to come up with one in the middle of a crisis when you're dealing with everything else. It's crucial. If you don't have a decent plan, you may be risking illness. You know, you need to have what we call a poop plan for human waste.

26:02And we actually did a podcast where we explored this topic in much more detail to help you out. Listen, we're your friends, we want to have, you know, we don't, we don't want to take crap from anybody. Sort of. So it was named the call of duty, the call of duty, when you got to go, you got to go. Now, we're going to put that episode, we're going to reference it and put that episode information in our show notes, but definitely give that some thought. It's going to happen. It's not a maybe it's, yes, this is going to happen. So have some kind of a system that's going to work for you to deal with this because this may actually happen to you. I hope you are learning some things from our podcast, you know, when we do our research, we're learning too, and we want to impart that to you. We would love to be able to share new ideas. And we hope that we've sparked a few new ideas for you to think about, maybe considering some new gear or upgrading some of your skills, maybe even thinking of some new plans

27:04of action you've never explored before, that's why we do this. We're learning, we're passing that on to you, and little by little and on and on, we're going to share ways that we can get along better as a society when we're prepared. And if you've received some value from this podcast, we would be so appreciative if you would help us by giving back a little, maybe you just love to listen to my Southern accent. I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, we would love your support. We do appreciate that. We have a long time supporter of the show that has supported us with today's cup of coffee, and that's Dr. Joy. Dr. Joy, we really do appreciate your support. We love the fact that you listen to our podcast and that you support our show, and we want to just give that opportunity to all of our listeners and friends as well. So go to practicalprepping.info, forward slash support. You're going to find some ways and some ideas that you can help keep this show going.

28:05Thank you. We appreciate you, and now we're going to jump back into the show. Number nine is a bandana, and I was carried one to church yesterday. I've quit carrying handkerchiefs. I just carry a bandana. It's one of the most versatile tools that you can carry. You can make an improvised bandage with it. You can make a sling with it. You can pre-filter water. You can have protection from sun, wind, and dust. There's just so many things, and you can actually rip it up and use it in your poop plan. If you're in the woods, you could do that. You could cut up pieces of it for fire starter. I mean, there's just so many things that can be done with bandana. And then fairly inexpensive. You could actually go to some of these even rural supply stores. Sometimes they'll actually sell bandanas in a package of six. You know, that can be a very reasonable price for something that can be so versatile.

29:07And just as versatile is number 10, which is paracord. You remember the paracord bracelets? Yes. How popular they were. They actually serve a purpose. You can take them apart and use them for courting. The amount of courting cordage that's in there really depends on how big your wrist is and how big your bracelet is. And there's different widths of paracord. Yes. You can make them as wide as you want. It's lightweight. It's high strength, cordage. You can use it for making gear repairs. You can make a shelter with a tarp by draping it over, making an a-frame. Or you can make a lean to shelter. There are just so many things you can do with that. You can secure items to a pack or two of the vehicle. I've seen that. I've tied down things on the trailer and in the back of the truck. And you can even take it apart and use the inner strands for fishing line or for emergency

30:07shoelaces. Oh, absolutely. We learned that trick from a hiker. Number 11 is heavy duty contractor bags. The thickness allows them to be repurposed. You can use them for a lot of things. And they need to go into your put plan as well. They're great for sanitation. You can transport water with them. Just don't use the same bag. You can transport water. You can use them as a ground cover. You can make a makeshift shelter with the large contractor grade garbage bags. And these are more often found at your home improvement stores. I have learned in our area, I don't find the contractor bag in the local, like, local small grocery. Wal-Mart maybe you can find cut. It has to say contractor on the box because that is a specific thickness and it's a very heavy thickness. Yes, it's plastic and I know some of you aren't cool with plastic.

31:09But in an emergency situation, it's better than not having the plastic. Right. And because you're carrying the heavy duty contractor bags and you may have a whole bunch more uses for it. Number 12 is duct tape. Now this is considered a non-negotiable prepping item in the prepping community. It is so versatile. Farmers carry it, truck drivers carry it. Military carries it, police carry it. And the joke is you can fix everything with either WD-40 or duct tape. That is a proven fact. If it moves and it shouldn't, you use the duct tape. If it doesn't move and it should, you use the WD-40. Good call. It's good to have. It's good for quick fixes on broken gear. I actually had a problem with my CPAP mask hose and I had to go back to an older head gear

32:11that I've been using. And I showed Krista today that I've got duct tape around that head gear. Yeah. It's about time to order a new one for that. Would it get to that point? Yeah, I think you're right. It's held it in place and that's kind of thinking outside the box. You can use it to seal drafts around windows and doors. You can use it for improvising tools. You can tape a knife to a limb to make a spear. You can make a splint with it. You can even make a drinking cup with it. There's all kinds of ways that you can fashion duct tape into some usable item. Now we need your help, friends. We want to keep this podcast coming to you. We enjoy it. We hope that you do. We want you to go to practicalprepping.info, again, forward slash support. Practicalprepping.info, forward slash support. You'll find several ways you can support the show. You know, like Dr. Joy, you can buy a coffee membership.

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