Bug-out bag for a buck: prepping on a dollar store budget
We took $40 to a Dollar Tree and built a real go-bag. Here's what made the cut, what didn't, and what we'd swap if you have $80.
There's a thing prep blogs do where they tell you to spend $400 on a bag. We took two twenty-dollar bills to the Dollar Tree on Old Hickory and walked out with a bag that would get a household of two through 72 hours. It's not perfect. It is real.
What made the cut: 16 oz of bottled water (six bottles), a hand-crank flashlight, a roll of duct tape, two emergency mylar blankets, a 50-pack of disposable rain ponchos (overkill, but cheap), three lighters, a deck of cards, a pad of paper and two pens, a sleeve of granola bars, and a tin of off-brand Vienna sausages your grandfather would recognize.
What didn't: the Dollar Tree first-aid kit. We opened one in the parking lot. Three Band-Aids, a wad of gauze, no antiseptic, no scissors. Walgreens has a $7 kit that's three times the kit. Spend the seven dollars.
What we'd swap with another $40: a real LED headlamp ($12), a quart of bleach for water purification ($3 for two gallons of bottled drinking, $0.50 for the bleach), a sharper knife ($8 at Big Lots), and a NOAA weather radio with a hand crank ($15 on sale). That's the kit.
The point isn't that the dollar-store bag is the right answer. The point is the bag in the closet beats the bag you're going to buy next month. Build the cheap one tonight. Upgrade it as you find money.