Prepper School! 15 Multiple Items for Survival

Sensible Prepper Live! Welcome, and we've got another installment on stuff you need to hoard. Stuff you need to buy. Now the one thing about it when it comes to prepping is we try to mimic the survival that we have currently, but sometimes that's just not possible. One of the things that's really easy to do is to take something and just say, okay this is what this is for, and then we limit the uses. We could have so many different uses for these items, and one of the reasons why we talk about this, and we've done a number of videos about multiple uses for items, is that you may not have something that's specifically used for that, and you're able to think outside the box, and that's the biggest thing here guys. Some of this stuff is just everyday living. You're just using it on a regular basis, and then you find out you don't have that item, and so you can find surrogates to be able to use for those things, and that's the big thing about it guys. Again, you've got to improvise to survive. It's really easy to get on Amazon, easy to run up to the store, pick up whatever you need, but this way you can improvise, and that's really what this is about. Now before we get started today, I do want to thank Tax Titans. They're a service that is just absolutely phenomenal. I've been an entrepreneur all my life, and once I found the right tax professional, it made my life so much easier, and guys with the IRS, you know, boosting up their agents with the reporting going lower and lower for different income coming in, especially with electronic banking, you know, it can be a scary thought, and Tax Titans puts taxpayers with tax professionals, and you can find them in your area. It's nationwide. In fact, the guy that started the company here in South Carolina is my personal accountant, and so this is close to my heart, so I was really excited about what he's put together. 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We're just going to kind of hit the highlights today, and then we're going to go to some questions, so if you've got some questions, just really appreciate Sarah Mack over there monitoring questions and getting them down, and she'll start getting them ready so when we take a break, we'll be good to go, so anytime you want to ask a question that's survival-related, we're good. All right, so first thing is, and this is a big one, there was a very renowned survivalist outdoorsman that was asked if he only had one item, just one item that he could take out into the wilderness, what would it be? And it was surprising because it was a heavy mill trash bag. I'm big on these, guys. If you watch my channel, you know that heavy mill trash bags are a staple for us. One of the big things about it, this is not a standard trash can, trash can liner. This is a contractor's bag, and you can get these at Home Depot, Lowe's, or any, in fact, I've even seen them now in some of the grocery stores, but it's a very heavy mill bag, and it's made for picking up yards, debris, or, you know, wood, and different things, and these bags are super tough, and they're super big, and they come in these huge rolls, and guys, they're more expensive than your standard trash bags, but these things are just incredible, and some of the uses for these, one of the big ones, of course, is it can be used as a shelter, and just put it up, take paracord, and tie it to it, get the ends, make yourself a shelter. You can put it with logs and different things to brace it up, and it's going to keep you dry wintertime. Now, even in the summertime, guys, if it gets rainy, it can get cold. The temperatures can drop down, especially if you're outside, and so this is a great item. Also, if you have a flat tire, you're able to put that down, especially if it's raining, and you can put that down, and you can get under it, work on your car. You can harvest water with this. It's large enough to where you can put it in the morning, do a collect, and come down, and you can put it in some kind of container. You can carry water in it. You can carry items in this. You can put it into strips and make small little markers. There's just a ton of different uses for these things, and we keep them in every go-bag. In fact, even in the wintertime, you can wrap up with it. It makes a great windshield, or you can set it up to block wind, and again, there's just 101 uses for these, and this is one thing, again, that we keep in every go-bag, and we use these on a regular basis around the house, so we get the big rolls, and we go through them quickly. So, first thing on my list is definitely heavy mill contractor's bags, and to me, I would definitely go ahead and go to Home Depot or Lowe's or something like that, one of your home and garden stores, to pick these up, and they're typically the best. Okay, now next, this is something that a lot of us, you know, we just have, especially if you like to shoot, and get the old ammo tins. This is a .50 caliber ammo tin. It's a U.S. military grade. I mean, this thing is built like a tank, and then there's the smaller .30 millimeter can or the .30 caliber cans. There are larger cans. There are different shapes. There are different sizes. We did a video about the different ammo cans and a lot of its uses, and this is more of the smaller size. The one thing about these cans is, number one, they're super strong. I mean, you can stand on them. You can stack them. You know, it has a seal inside, and you want to protect that seal. You want to keep it treated with a little bit of silicone, but it has just a rubber seal that goes around it. It's lockable, and two, it has a very secure hinge system. In fact, this lid even comes off, and so it's really a, ammo tins to me, especially, there we go, the military tins. They're just fantastic. I mean, they really hold up well, but here's the thing. You can store ammo in there, and obviously, that's what this is made for. One thing that we've done over the years is we'll make a blackout kit. Now, I've sometimes used the plastic MTM case guard. Those are great, but they are not as sturdy as an ammo tin. I put survival kits in here. I've used car kits. In fact, I did a video years ago about a car kit, and I keep one of these in my car. It's just tough. It's strong. If I need to step on something, I can. If I need to sit, I can sit on this. Not over a long period of time. It would be a little uncomfortable, but there's just so many things that you can do. In fact, you can actually use this as a Faraday cage. Now, if you do that, you've got to make sure that nothing is touching the outside of the tin, but if you take mylar, wrap up whatever electronic or what you're trying to protect. If you can wrap it up in the mylar and seal it up, put it in your ammo tin, it gives it added protection. One thing I do want to mention about EMPs, guys, is there is no one know-it-all expert. There's a lot of them in the comments, and you'll see it, but there's a lot of theory about what can happen with an EMP, and it goes from nothing really to extreme destroying the country. So, to me, having a few items put away in mylar, and honestly, that's probably one of the best reasons to buy an ammo tin. Again, get those mylar bags. You can get them where they store food in them. You can vacuum seal it if you want, but the big thing is you want to make sure it's sealed up and it's in something that will be magnetic, which these are magnetic, and so that, to me, is one of the biggest things aside from stocking up ammo. One thing about ammo is it's heavy, and so you need something that's sturdy to be able to carry it. I like to have the plastic ammo tins like we've talked about. They're very convenient. They're a little bit lighter and easier to use, but under the stress of a lot of weight, there's nothing that beats these ammo tins. They do make some that are commercial grade, and they seem to be fine. They're still metal. They're still heavy duty. They're built very similar to this. A lot of times Harbor Freight has them, but when I go to gun shows, I don't anymore because we've got tons of these things, but ammo cans, great resource, multiple uses, and something that really will just last no matter what the environment is. Now, Vaseline. Here we have some. We have some in a tube. You can get tons of different types of Vaseline. One of my number one ways to start fires is with Vaseline and cotton balls. Vaseline is flammable. It's a petroleum product, and if you take a cotton balls, and you put them in a bag, and you drop a big glob of Vaseline in there, and just let it mix it up, you can heat the Vaseline and dip them that way, but I like to just put them in the bag. It saturates into the cotton ball, and it makes a fantastic fire starter, and it's super cheap. There are a lot of really good fire starters out there. I use different types. One's a tender tab. It's great, but there's only a limited supply of tender tabs. After they run out, I grab my Vaseline. It's cheap, and cotton balls or cotton swabs. You can use cotton swabs or Q-tips, and put it on the end, and let it burn that way, but also, this is great for chapped lips. It's great for wind burn. It's great for sunburn. It also moisturizes your skin. It's hypoallergenic, so you can use this, and one of the reasons that Vaseline became even a thing is because when they were drilling for oil, and there was a lot of this sludge coming up that was petroleum, and it was like the jelly, and the miners or the workers would take that, and they would rub it on their hands, and it made their hands super soft, so if nothing else, this is going to keep your hands soft, and definitely in a grid down situation, guys, hygiene is extremely important. Germ spread, things happen, and so having Vaseline on hand is huge, and so again, but fire starting to me is the number one, unless I have chapped lips, then that would be number one. Okay, WD-40. Okay, guys, everybody knows about WD-40. This one actually has a little spout, but you can also spray it directly. This is great for lubricants. It's great to break up things. This one has silicone in it, so it helps a little bit, but typically, WD-40 is not really good for guns. You shouldn't really be working on your guns and using WD-40 because it evaporates too fast, but in a pinch, WD-40 will work, and if you don't have anything else, WD-40 is an option, but also one thing that I really love about WD-40 is I can take this, take a lighter, and it'll just put out a flame. It's like a flamethrower, so if you need to take care of a nest, like a hornet's nest or something like that, you can do that, and then just general maintenance that WD-40 does. It's one of those all-around type products that you can do a lot with, and so that is a huge, and we do a video, obviously, that we talked about WD-40 in the multiple uses, and you can check that out. It's just great for the car. It's great for home. It's great for everything, and here's the thing. In a survival situation with products limited, that's where WD-40 comes in. Some people say, well, you know, you're using that anyway that way. Well, you know, in a survival situation, we're just trying to live life, and it doesn't mean that the needs that we have today are not necessary needs that we're going to have in a grid-down situation, so this is a big one. Baking soda, and it's, where is my baking soda? I think it's, it is somewhere. Oh, here it is over here, hiding over here on the side. Okay, baking soda, definitely for baking. You know, you need it for baking. One thing it can do is substitute toothpaste, and so you can brush your teeth with baking soda, and so it'll keep your teeth clean. Guys, you need to keep up with your dental, especially in a grid-down situation, because dental problems can cause a lot of health issues, but not only just the pain, but also it can actually affect your heart, and so keeping your teeth clean. This is also great, though, for cleaning of skillets, and using baking soda just to dry clean skillets. You can clean different items. You know, it helps with smells, and again, sanitation is very important. You don't want to attract insects. You don't want to attract rodents, and so having baking soda helps keep that at a minimum, but you can also, if you have stains in your carpet, I mean, you know, baking soda is one of those things that just does a ton of different uses, and again, we use, we have a video on this as well, but this is just a no-name brand where we got it locally, but I mean, baking soda just for baking, and guys, you know, when you're trying to cook, and you're trying to do things, having a stock of baking soda is important, even if you have to pull it out of your refrigerator because you're keeping the odors down. All right, baking soda. Okay, let's go to another one, and then we're going to go to some questions, so if you guys want to go ahead and make sure you have some questions, we can jump in and do that. All right, zip ties. Now, obviously, zip ties, just in themselves, have a bazillion uses. You know, you can anchor things down. You can, one thing that I use, I use these for my targets, and I take chicken wire, and I run these zip ties in there. They're impervious to the elements, and that's one of the things that's kind of an advantage of zip ties over other type cordage, but it's usually shorter, but you can get multiple sizes, multiple colors. They have really long ones, really big ones, really small ones, really tiny ones. A lot of times when I'm trying to shore up my optics, my lights, my light cords, and my pressure pad cords, you know, I can use zip ties, and again, they withstand the elements, and so they're going to do whatever as long as I do it, but one thing, too, is these can be used to repair things, so if you're packed tears and you have two molly attachments, you can take and pull it together and at least seal up some of those areas. Also, if you have extra gear and you don't really have a place to put it, you can zip tie it directly to your pack, and one thing I've used these for just to demonstrate is for molly. If you have a molly attachment, you don't, or one of your molly, you know, little plastic, whatever those things are called, you know, you can take these and surrogate, you know, and use this for, you know, attaching molly gear, and you can attach a water bottle to your belt. You can do a lot of different things. You could actually use this to shore up your shoes. If your shoelaces break, you can take this, you can wrap it around, and you can tie it off. You can also use these, not necessarily this size, maybe a little bit larger, for restraining somebody if you had to, and I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not telling you to do that, but I'm just saying that is a possibility with zip ties. Okay, so what have we got, Sarah Mack, and we'll start answering a few questions. Brady M asks, if the power and cell phones and everything goes out, how do you know if it's just an EMP or if it's because of a nuclear weapon? Well, it could be either one, and one of the things, one of the things about an EMP, as far as, now there's the solar flare, which can also cause an EMP, but if it's a nuclear device that sets off an EMP, typically it's high above the atmosphere, and really it doesn't do anything as far as harmful to people, and I guess unless it rains, you know, that could be an issue. But, you know, one of the things about a nuclear detonation is typically it's a real blinding light that happens at ground level, and so that could be, you know, a possibility, but that's a whole other animal, but yet, you know, it's something that we could face. One thing I would recommend, regardless of EMP, nuclear detonation high above the atmosphere, or even a low-level nuclear detonation, is to make sure you have potassium iodide. Those little pills, you take them, and it fills up your thyroid, and so what it doesn't allow for the radiation to fill up your thyroid, and that's a big thing, and they're cheap, and you can get them on Amazon. It's not a big deal, but, you know, one of the big things, too, is just to stay inside. Now, if you're at ground zero, you know, you're done for, but if you're outside of that area, staying indoors, especially in a concrete building, is or something that has some really stability to it. That's really the best thing, getting down low, as low as you can in the building, away from windows, away from glass, away from anything, and just try to get yourself contained. If you live in a conventional house, you know, you can get in the center of your house, and, you know, one of the things about radiation, too, is it dissipates. The radiation dissipates as it falls, down to 80 percent by the time it hits the ground. So, if you have fallout, you know, that's one of the things. Nuclear detonation on the ground, one that really emits a lot of radiation and kills people, really, if you know a few things, you know, you can survive it. In fact, there was one man, this was a story in World War II, where there was a man, and I don't remember if it was Nagasaki or Hiroshima that was the first, I think it was Hiroshima, but he was in one of the cities when the nuclear bomb went off, and he was burned pretty bad. Well, he left there, and they took him to Nagasaki, or vice versa, and so when he went to the other one, it went off there. He lived to be 96. So, obviously, nuclear bombs are a lot more sophisticated than they were back in World War II, but there is a high chance of survivability if you take those potassium iodide pills and you find shelter and get out of the fallout. Justin Hopkins asks, have you ever considered the importance of prepping nuts, bolts, and fasteners when times get tough? Oh, man, yeah. We store up a ton. In fact, any time I have any extra screws, even if I'm putting up pictures and there's little screws or whatever, I have a place that I put all my nuts and bolts, definitely something that could be useful, because here's the thing, guys. Most of us, we have a project, we have all these nuts and bolts, we have no idea where anything is. If you're like me, I've got stuff packed away, and so I just run to the store and get what I need specifically, but I do have a ton of nuts and bolts, screws. I buy the big packs of screws, and so pack those up. So, that's a very important part of being prepared. They were talking about finding those kinds of things at garage sales, and Mr. Lampill says, if they have tools and guy stuff, a lot of garage sales will advertise as a guy sale. Keep an eye out for that. Flea markets, yard sales, excellent resource, gun shows for that matter. I've been to gun shows where some guys will bring out a bunch of stuff, and sometimes it's odd stuff, and you can find some really cool things. I buy a lot of precious metals at gun shows, believe it or not. There are guys there that are dealing in junk silver, and so you can usually get a good price on it. Just kind of have an idea of what the price is, and it's according to what it is in the market. John G. asks, how much propane should you put back for a grid down in summer versus winter? Well, what we do is, of course, if you have a grill, a propane grill, you usually have one propane tank, and you run go fill it. We buy multiples. We have about five of the 20 pounders, but the big thing we do is buy the small ones, and the reason we do that is because we can use that, and we can store those easier. We have the Mr. Heater Buddy, and that does give us heat if we need it, but also if you have a propane generator, having some smaller units, it doesn't last as long, but you can pick those up on a regular basis, and so it's one of the things that I like to do, but let me just give you a little tip. If you go to Lowe's or Home Depot or Walmart or wherever, and you buy their cans, they're usually filled less. They don't have the full 20 pounds in it, so one thing that we like to do is when we refill those cans, instead of exchanging them, we go to a place that actually will fill the tank, and they'll fill it up to capacity, and so you want to make sure because that was one of the things they did a few years ago is they dropped the amount of gas going in, and it was some kind of, you know, you could buy it for less for that money, or you'd pay the same, but you were getting a little bit less, and so, you know, just make sure that when you go and refill those tanks is to go to a certified propane dealer that fills tanks like that. I know our local hardware store does that, and so, you know, that way you can keep those full, but as far as a minimum, I mean, it's up to you, it's up to what appliances or what you have, and for me, I mean, typically we can go most of the summer with one propane tank, so, you know, if you're going to just cook with it, it's one thing, but if you're going to use it for heat or whatever, I mean, it's just a great way to just store up propane. The big thing about propane too is that it's very stable, so you can store that up. You start trying to store up gasoline, that's really volatile, and while we keep gasoline around for our lawnmowers and our generators and things like that, you know, we really depend more toward propane as far as a long-term solution. Michael Lilly, you were talking about using the ammo can as a Faraday can. Would you line or can you line the inside with cardboard all the way around and it still work as a Faraday cage? Probably, you know, one of the things about it is you want the insulation, and, you know, it could help insulate it. It's according to the magnitude of the EMP as far as the, you know, when it hits, how close you are to it, things like that. Again, here's the one thing about Faraday, or not Faraday, you can put a Faraday bag in an ammo tin, and those things you can find them on Amazon for about 20 bucks. They're great. You can even get them for your whole generator, but the big thing is when the electromagnetic pulse, in theory, when it strikes, it sends out electrical currents that are attracted to objects that conduct electricity. Most things it won't affect. A lot of people say that, like, you could leave batteries out. You could leave your phone sitting out. Some people say that you could leave your phone out, and I've even seen where some people say, well, your solar panels aren't going to be affected. Well, that's not necessarily true. Studies have shown that they will be. One thing to be concerned about is pacemakers, different things like that. Those can be affected by an EMP. It is a devastating weapon. In fact, if anything, I would rather have than an EMP. Well, I'll give it this. Unless the cryptocurrency starts, and everybody's under the thumb, then bring on the EMP, or the AI takes over. We'll accept the EMP on that. There's still, there's just a lot of theory. One thing that I did recently was I talked about incandescent bulbs, and some guys were like, you know, we don't know to the extent of what an EMP can do. Sharp Canines asks, Stooge, what survival books do you recommend? The first one I recommend is the Modern Survival Guide for the Coming Economic Collapse by Farfall, and it's actual events that happened in Argentina. Argentina was a first world country when they had their economic collapse, and they went through total heck. This gives you a real account of what you can expect. One of the things that Farfall says is that you're going along, there's no just one day of SHTF. It's like crime just starts to skyrocket, and the dollar or the peso just plummets. Then it takes time for this to happen, and we're seeing some of those effects here. But also the Going Home series is an excellent series, and it's just a number of different books. Chris Weatherman, who wrote that, is a buddy of mine, and he is just, he's put together a phenomenal series of books. Also, you know, there's a lot of different books like the SAS Survival Guide. That's huge. There's Thomas' Book of Reference, you know, those kind of books. I highly recommend building up a library. It lights out. The John Wesley Rawls series, The Liberator, The Survivors, all those foundations, those are fantastic books. And that's not even any kind of EMP or anything. So there's just a lot of really great books out there, and you need to build a library. Okay, let's go to the rest on our list, because we're going to fall behind. All right, liquor. Some of you guys are going to go, no. And some of you guys are going, oh yeah. You know, liquor has been used for medicinal purposes for a long time. And if you've ever watched any cowboy movie, you know, they'll take a big shot of whiskey before they do the surgery on the open plane. But liquor is number one, and you know, it is a medicinal, can be used for medicinal purposes. But really, number one is it relaxes you. It gives you a sense of calm in the storm, and it really helps. One thing, too, that liquor can do is that you can barter with it. You can trade with it. Another thing is, if you have other people that, you know, come around and y'all are all joined together, this is a great way to be able to just kind of tone things down, especially if you're around people that you really don't know that well, and you're trying to get to know, and you want to create a social environment, you know, having a little bit of liquor put back. But if nothing else, if, you know, if you're not a drinker, and you think liquor's, you know, sinful, which, you know, there's a lot of people that feel that way. And this is something that you can keep for medicinal purposes. This, in particular, is Evan Williams Honey. And this is actually my wife's favorite, because it's really sweet. It has that honey flavor to it. And so it's whiskey and honey together. So this is a great option right here. And of course, Jack Daniels makes it, Wild Turkey, American Honey. That's a great one. I like that. In fact, I bought a bunch of that right when COVID first hit. And some of the reports were coming out that actually drinking whiskey lowered your chances of getting really sick when you had COVID. So liquor has so many different uses to it. But really, goodwill is really a big one. Bartering, again, medicinal purposes, medicinal purposes. You know, there's just a bunch of different things about having liquor on hand. And it lasts. It doesn't go bad. You can pack it away. It doesn't have to be refrigerated. So, you know, it gives you just a lot of different options. And for me, you know, I bought a lot of these smaller bottles, so I could barter with them. Or you can carry them. And two, of course, we have the glass bottles. This is plastic, so it's easy to carry. So liquor, definitely something that could really be used in a grid down situation. And if you need certain items, being able to barter liquor. I mean, there are going to be people that are going to be craving liquor. So it's one of the things. You know, one thing that is also a plus is like cigarettes or cigars and things like that. The only thing is, is you've got to keep those, you know, they get dried out after a while. And so it's a little harder to stock up on. But anything that people are going to want, you know, and, you know, if you live in a state that legalized weed, you know, you could do that, I guess. OK, that's not my thing, though. All right. Duct tape. I mean, it's almost like you don't need to even say because there's so many different uses for duct tape. I mean, I use the Gorilla Tape. We use the regular duct tape as well. 100 mile an hour tapes with the military uses. Repairs. Repairs are the big thing with duct tape. You can use it to put up shelter if you need to. I mean, it's just really strong. And so it's really good to have duct tape. You know, you can you can attach items to your pack just like with the zip ties. You can take duct tape. You can use it as cordage. You can cut it into thin strips and do all kind of different things with it. You can use it for handles if you're hammers wearing your hand out, because one of the things about grid down situations is that typically you work really hard. I mean, there's a lot of work. We have a lot of conveniences, guys. And if those are taken away, you're going to have to do a lot of manual work, which takes more time. And you can wrap up the handle with some duct tape and give yourself some relief that way. You know, if you're you have a knife and the grips fall off, you can wrap it around with duct tape. Obviously, you can do it with paracord as well. But if you don't have paracord, duct tape is great. And, you know, it's fairly inexpensive. It is flammable. So you can actually use this as a fire starter. So again, thinking outside the box, thinking about different ways to use things, some things just naturally have, you know, multiple uses. And some things people just don't really think about. So duct tape is a big one. All right. And then going right on the heels of that is your paracord. Now, when it comes to paracord, now you can use any cordage, you know, if you want to use bank line. A lot of people like bank line because it's smaller, thinner. I personally prefer paracord used by the U.S. military. The seven strand is really what you need. You need honestly, if you're going to get paracord, get true 550 cord. And that means that this will hold 550 pounds, which is pretty impressive considering the small size of paracord. And of course, you can wrap it up. You can roll it up here. I've got a spool tool. This is something I've got years ago. And I love these things. It'll even cut the paracord. And you've got a little small lighter that you can light the end. And you want to light the end. If the end starts to get frayed, you know, it starts to come apart. One of the things about duct paracord is that it does have those strands and you can pull back the casing on here and use the individual strands. You can even use it as thread. And so you can, you can actually repair clothes and do things like that with paracord. So it really allows for a lot of uses, again, attaching items to packs. You can wrap handles with it. You can wrap knife handles with it. A lot of people do that even without an SHTF situation. And so it just gives you a lot of possibilities with paracord. And this is something that I keep a lot of. But again, guys, don't buy the cheap paracord you find in a lot of your big box stores, unless it has 550 cord and it has seven strands. Using, getting military grade is, to me, the optimum. The other, yes, you can use it. You can use it for different cordage. But if you want something that's really strong, if you want to hang something from a tree, if you want to put things up, like if you're out in the middle of nowhere and you need to pull some stuff up so the animals don't get to it, it's one way to do it. But you can, tents, you can set up tents with this. In fact, we've done that. You can take a tarp with eyelets, take paracord, make wooden stakes. You can build yourself a shelter. And so paracord is just very big, a very big item. And obviously a lot of people use this. They stock it up for survival situations. Now we have chapstick. Let me get my chapstick out here. Chapstick keeps your lips, especially if you're outdoors a lot, you know, in the grid down situation, the possibility of being outdoors is greater and we've become so accustomed, but chapstick's great for your chap lips. It's also great if you have windburn or sunburn, you can take that and put it on that. It's also flammable. So chapstick knuckles get all messed up. A lot of times people get, you know, their, their hands get rough. You can take chapstick and use it, but really just the lip balm in itself, putting it on your lips is huge and a reason to have it. But to me, there's a bunch of different uses. Fire starting is probably the biggest survival use. Okay. All right. Bandanas, bandanas. My gosh, you know, it was funny when I first started my YouTube channel, I always wore bandana, just wore it around my neck, just like this. This is one that I use quite a bit and there's all kinds of different colors. There's even maps. There's even like survival things on there where you can, you can reference it. What are some uses for bandanas? Number one, it keeps the sun off your face. You can use it to wipe off your face. If you have a lot of perspiration, you know, and you just, you're getting it down in your eyes and you can wipe off your face. Again, you can put it around the back of your neck to keep you from getting sunburned on your neck. And even with a hat on, you can take it, you can cover your head like a do-rag. You can also make a hobo bag out of this. You can take it, open it up, tie the ends to a stick. And, you know, you guys have seen it during the great depression, people walking around and they put their items in the bandana and they were able to use it. It can conceal your identity. And of course, in the, in the day of mask and everything we've dealt with over the past few years, the bandana, you can put it over your face, keeps the dust, keeps the smoke out. Tons and tons and tons of uses. This is one of those staples that we have. I keep these in my car. I keep them in my go bag, any kind of survival kit. Bandanas are extremely important. Okay. Let's go to some more questions if we've got them and then we'll finish up. Brandon kind of asked, what is a realistic life of gasoline stored in plastic gas tanks? Well, you know, the first off is if I'm going to store any gas, I want to get some fuel stabilizer. And there's a number of different ones out there. And there's one in particular that I have that, that I really like, and I never can remember the name of it, but Stabil, Stable is one, but there are others. And so, you know, you can, but usually about, you know, a year, year and a half. Now, this is one thing. If it has ethanol in it, ethanol actually separates because it uses ammonia, it will create water. And so if you're using, you know, lawnmowers, things like that, you're putting gas in there with ethanol in it, it can ruin your carburetor, dries out the seals. And so really storing up non-ethanol gas. Now there are gas stations that carry it. You need to locate those now where you can buy non-ethanol gas. We have a QT, Quick Trip, and they typically have non-ethanol gas. It's a little more expensive, but it's well worth it. And we use those in all of our small engines. For our regular gas, we probably should use non-ethanol, but you know, it's a corn derivative. So when you're using ethanol, you know, you're really, I mean, it's great and all that for the volume of gas that people are using and all that kind of stuff. But to be honest with you, non-ethanol gas is a superior gas. But keeping it in a can, non-ethanol gas, using fuel stabilizer, it'll last for two, three years. And so it'll give you a lot more extension on your, on your gas. We got to remember gas is flammable. I mean, it's combustible and it needs to, to work well. And if you dilute it down, it, you know, you're going to have some issues. Jamie Prepping Area asks, do you have to ground a Faraday cage? Um, no. From what, well, again, let's go back. It's theory. This is all theory. And I want to make sure that I preface that whenever I talk about EMPs. From what I understand, there's a lot of thoughts about having to ground something, but the fact is, from what I've read, you don't necessarily need to. Some people have used, said microwaves are great. And you know, microwaves do keep the radiation inside the microwave. It keeps those rays inside the microwave and it protects you. And the newer microwaves have gotten better and better. You know, it used to be, if you had a pacemaker, you couldn't get near a microwave when it was in use, at least to a certain, you know, certain distance. But the one thing that I question is that the EMP does this, has a certain wave and it's according to the wave. I mean, EMPs can have different type intensities. And so, but from what we've studied, we, I mean, they have studied is, do you have this wave coming in? The Faraday cage blocks that wave. It actually blocks it. And so, it keeps it from penetrating into the Faraday bag. I don't think you're going to need to ground it. I think the big thing is, is, is having it in, well, you know, having it in something is going to give it extra protection. So, let's say we have it in this ammo can. The EMP is going to hit the ammo can first. And then, you know, anything touching that, that would cause a, you know, a magnetic attraction to it could be a problem. But as far as just the bag itself, it should defeat the rays. But again, they don't know what kind of rays exactly are going to be used because there are testing with a lot of different high intensity rays. And the reason why I'm saying this, I have a good friend of mine, in fact, he's watching right now, that, that works in the medical fields. And a lot of times for MRI machines, they build Faraday rooms around those, those MRI machines in case, you know, of an electromagnetic pulse or whatever. And it's extremely expensive. But even he said, we were talking about it the other night. And even he said that, you know, it's just according to the rays. So, the best thing to do is, as far as preparing for an EMP, is you do make some preparations, but no one really knows the full effect. I think that, you know, to me, I would rather take that Faraday bag, put it in here, wrap it in mylar. I mean, you know, the more that you put around it, the more protection you're going to have. You just want to make sure that item is not touching, the electronic item is not touching the side of the metal container. And let me say this, galvanized trash cans, unless they're magnetic, unless they're, they have conductivity, and you can put a magnet to it, it's no good. You need to have something that actually will be magnetized. With that, get fire extinguishers, because that can be a problem with fire starting because of the electricity and the jolt. So, just a tip. Red Hot Gaming Fire asks, what would you suggest for preparing food for a person's dog or cat? Vacuum seal the food or get plastic ziplock bags for the food? Yeah, if I was going to do long term, vacuum seal would definitely be it. You know, I mean, obviously, ziplock bags are going to help, but they're not going to give you the extended life that you're going to want if you're going to try to store up food. One thing is, is typically, in a situation like this, I know we like to use our really expensive dog food, which we do, we buy very expensive dog food. And, you know, there's only so much because it has a shelf life, and it only lasts so long. And so, for an extended grid down period, except for food that you put back like that, or cans, you know, canned meat, canned dog food, canned cat food, that stuff lasts for 100 years. You know, canned food, with the way they process it, the sanitary conditions, they put those in, the heat that goes into producing all that, your regular canned food will last 100 years. It starts to lose its nutritional value over time and its taste. But one of the big things that they do now is they line the cans with a plastic coating, so it helps to protect it even longer. So canned food will go forever. I would really recommend, definitely vacuum seal would probably be a good option, but your canned food is probably going to be the best option for really long term. But when it comes down to it, you know, table scraps, if you have any table scraps, are going to be really, probably one of the things that your pets are going to eat, unless they're goldfish. I don't think goldfish will eat that, but they might. JL asks, would a steel safe work the same to protect items? No. No, there's too many entry points. And, you know, because any minute opening, and when you think about a door and you close that, lock it down, it doesn't necessarily seal that completely. It does to a point, but you've got to have something, just like this ammo tent or ammo tent. You put it in there and, you know, you still got these points all around it. And that's why really putting it with mylar around it or putting, you know, put it in a Faraday bag. But no, I've got, I have safes and that is not one place that I consider to be EMP proof. Carlos H says, good morning. What do you recommend protecting my solar backup battery from an EMP? I would get either, well, low budget mylar. I would, in fact, if anything, I would buy either mylar bags or buy a roll of mylar or whatever and just seal up those items. But, you know, again, there are a ton of Faraday options, Faraday bag options. And again, I think just a regular size bag like this runs about $19. And, you know, the one thing that I really consider is, you know, if you take your phone and you put it in there, it's not gonna do any good. Plus you're using your phone, even if you have a backup phone. You know, one of the things, if your phone's affected, then definitely your cell towers are gonna be out of commission. So, you know, phones, but what I really consider is more like GMRS radios, ham radios, iPads. And listen, iPads, you might not be able to get online, but you can turn that thing on. And if you have a battery backup to keep it going, you know, you can access files that you put on there. And I would highly recommend putting different survival reference material on your iPad or, you know, even if you have an extra phone and you want to put that stuff in the notes and put a lot of information there that you can access without internet service. Those kind of things, you know, are gonna really be vital. But to me, having books, having a library is more important. Now, batteries, you know, we don't know. In fact, I think I talked about batteries with my 15 EMP proof items. Now, if you have batteries sitting on a metal box or something, yeah, that could cause a problem. If you have them sitting on a table, you know, it may not cause a problem. So again, guys, a lot of theory, a lot of theory. To me, we have solar panels. We have a solar generator. We would want to take that and have it in a Faraday bag and spend the extra money to do it. Generator, I want to do that because that's something that I really want to have. They're about $300 for a generator EMP Faraday bag. But, you know, what's it going to be worth if the grid goes down? L. Robert Van Dyke asks, any suggestions for long-term property security and parameters? Yeah, get a prepper group. I'll just, I'll be honest. In fact, I think John Lovell did one, a video a couple of years ago, where he went and analyzed somebody that had property. And they had a really nice place. I mean, they had thought about a lot of things. But the one thing they hadn't thought about was it was just he and his wife. And he said, you can't defend, which is two people. So you got to sleep. You know, having dogs is a big one. If you have livestock or some kind of, you know, if you're doing husbandry and you have rabbits and things like that, bring them in closer, secure that around. You need to limit your area of security, of what you can secure. Kind of like the old medieval town type situation where they built walls around the town, they brought everything in and they made it as close as possible. People lived out, but if something happened, they all moved into the fortress. Kind of same kind of concept. In fact, we can take a lot of cues from the ancients, the way they lived. And you'll notice, I mean, in biblical times, everyone, every city had a walled city, you know, they protected it and they were able to defend themselves from whatever. But, you know, the one thing about having a lot of property is it can be difficult. And if you don't have any kind of electronic surveillance, like cameras, or, you know, we have driveway alarms and cameras and all that stuff. If all that goes out, you know, we're pretty blind. So you've just got to be able to defend what you have. But honestly, a prepper group gives you some options. And if you have people that you know, maybe from your church, maybe you go to the gym, maybe you do whatever, you know, and they know that you have property, that you have maybe gardens, and you're raising some food and things like that. You can have those, those people will be looking for something. And so I think that's really your number one answer is people. People are your number one asset. A lot of times with lone wolf preppers, it's gotten to be where, well, I've did this, and this is my stuff, and I prepared, you didn't, and I'm going to keep, listen, you're going to have to have help. You're going to have to have security, and you can't do it alone. All right, let's go to, let's finish up our list. And then we'll go to, if we, I don't know if we have time, but if we do, we will. All right. Tin cans, tin cans. All right. This is something that, you know, we have, we have canned vegetables or canned meat or whatever, and taking these cans and cleaning them out. And you can use these for so many different things. In fact, one of the things that's really cool about this is I can make a small stove out of this. I can take and just make holes in the bottom and even put, you know, fire tender, fire starting wood, different things like that, make a fire. I can even take cotton balls and stuff down in here. You can take some toilet paper and saturate it with alcohol, put it down in here, and you can start a fire. And you, you know, you can put something on it. I'd have some holes at the top. We did actually a little larger can. And of course there's all sizes of cans. The larger, the more capable you're going to have. But you can use this for security. You can line these up in a certain area that's blind to where you are, and it can set off a, you know, an audible alarm by people hitting. And that's happened a long time. A string, and you can run it over to somebody else. You can talk to them. So, you know, there's, cans are great. There's a lot of things that you can do to manipulate this can into different items. You can even make weapons out of this. You could make arrows out of it. There's a lot of different things you can do. It's metal and, you know, you're not going to be mining metal to get more metal. And so having 10 cans like this is just a great option. And they're sturdy and they last. You can drink it, use it as a cup, use it for water, use it to eat out of, you can do whatever. You could use a small can on a larger can and set it down, let it heat up, and then you'll, you don't want to burn yourself, but you can take something and you can eat from it. So cans, just like a little small canteen. I think that's where the word derived from, canteen, can, and you can use it. Q-tips. Now I've got some, okay, now these Q-tips are a little bit different than your cotton swabs usually. And these are Q-tips that I use for gun cleaning. And that's become a big thing, is cleaning. Now one thing about a Q-tip is it's small. You can get into certain areas and so you can maintain things. Obviously you can use this to keep your ears clean or whatever, use normal use of Q-tips. A lot of women use them for makeup, but that may not be a big industry in the grid down. But Q-tips are great. You can also put these in Vaseline and use it as a fire starter. These have a wooden rod in them, so that burns. And so that's a great thing. I like these. These are only one-sided because these are specific for gun cleaning, but the two-sided Q-tips work great, keeping your ears clean, doing all the things that Q-tips do. Plus again, you can get clean things with clean guns. You can actually clean your ears, even though they highly do not recommend that. So you need to be careful when you're cleaning your ears. That's a disclaimer. Flex Seal. Did a whole video on this. This is something that is just a crazy product and there's a ton of different things you can do. One thing that I did was I took the bottom of a bag and I sealed the bottom. So if I put it down on something, because there's a lot of bags now that come with a rubberized coating on the bottom, you can seal areas. If you have a leak in your roof, you can actually build up the Flex Seal and put it around it. Also, one thing that works well too for that is the foam that you spray out and it'll fill in cavities and holes. Because one thing you want to do is keep rodents out. You could actually put this on a hat, which I've got one that I did, and you can completely cover the hat and it makes it rainproof. Completely anything. This makes it rainproof. You can take pipes and you can seal them up. You can take PVC, seal it up. I mean, there's just a lot of things that Flex Seal will do. I have a full video on that as well. And it's just one of those things that's kind of an all purpose, but there's a lot of uses. And so while I say multiple uses, this is definitely a multi-use item and it's marketed that way. And then last but not least, this is kind of a crazy one, are pallets. A little small pallet. Pallets. Guys, people throw these things away. You find them all over the place. We have a place up the road there, up the road from us, that just, when they finish with their pallets, they stick them outside for people to grab. And they'll get stacked up and I'll stop by there sometimes according to what the pallets look like. But I bought a bunch of little small pallets or bought them. I didn't have to buy them. I picked them up and just have some number of pallets. Now, what in the world are you going to use a pallet for? Well, firewood. Firewood, first off. Having a way to be able to build a fire. You can cook with it. Fire is vital to survival. It is one of the first elements that man use for survival. You can boil your water. You don't have water. You can boil your water. You can have light. It gives a sense of tranquility and it just keeps you warm. There's a lot of things about wood that fill that fire need. And so pallets, wood, just standard wood. But also you can take pallets and you can make things out of it. You can make a table. You can repair furniture if you had to. You can make repairs with it. You can use it for different things. People have set up whole living spaces with pallets. I mean, there's a ton of things you can build shelves out of them. I've done a ton of things with pallets. And so pallets, they're free. They're cheap. When you go by, you know, if you have a question, you can go in and ask if you can take them. But the guys that we find our pallets, they just put them out there for people to get and they'll get gone. And so whenever I see some, I'll try to stop and pick a couple up and, you know, you got to have room for it. But it's another way to cover things or hide things. You can do that with pallets. So lots of uses. So we've got a couple of more questions we may be able to get to. We're getting down close. 19mm asks, how many potassium iodide pills do we take and how often? Well, the instructions are on there and it'll tell you exactly what to do. So and right off the bat, I don't want to say because I think it's, you know, one pill and you take it and then you take another one a little bit later on, you know, and you got to just know how many people they're going to be needing that in your family. So and I think it's just mainly up front. It's not a whole lot that you have to take over a long period of time. So and it's just according to the nuclear detonations. If there's one in one area and then you have another one, you know, you want to have extra pills. But again, they're fairly inexpensive and you can get them at Amazon, eBay, wherever, or you can order them from different companies. But highly recommend that. And you can actually buy really small Geiger counters. You know, they used to have the big ones, the yellow ones, the civil defense with the handles and all that, which I have one because I just wanted one. But you know, you can get the smaller electronic ones. But the problem is that may be something you want to keep in a Faraday bag. Just saying. Tin foil is huge. Tin foil has a bazillion. Oh, as far as EMPs, yes. You know, wrap it up in tin foil, mylar. Again, it can't touch the outside. So what I would probably do is, and I think someone actually suggested this, is I'd take cardboard, line it, take whatever I had my insulator and I'd it in the cardboard. That way it's not touching the metal. So yes, tin foil and tin foil is one of the items that I had debated on putting on this list because you can signal with it, you can cook food in it. I mean, you know, the old camp where you take the, you know, the potatoes and the onions and sausage or whatever, and you can wrap it up, throw it on a fire. You know, you obviously can seal food with it. There's a ton of different uses for signaling, reflecting the sun, use it even as a wind block. If you're trying to light a fire and you want to put a little tin foil out. So lots of uses. Tin foil is a great one. But for EMP, it's also good. Uh, they're not bad. They're not bad. They're not quite the military. Usually, I guess it may be just the paint they use on them, but they're pretty good and you need to look to that rubber seals in there. But that's really your big thing. They're sturdy. They'll last. I've had a couple of them. Uh, they, they work. They're just not, there's just a little bit difference with the military tins. Uh, so, but honestly, I think as far as effective use, there's not really. Okay. We're going to go ahead and finish up. Thanks for all the great questions. We like to get the questions answered because I know a lot of you guys have questions until it helps those that are also not going to ask the question, but have that question. But guys, the big thing is, is in this whole purpose of this video is to think outside the box. Again, improvise to survive. Think about things that you wouldn't necessarily think about and, you know, have a good supply of them. I mean, zip ties, you can buy an assortment, a big assortment and they're cheap. These heavy metal trash bags, cheap, cheap. I mean, most of this stuff is fairly reasonable. You know, you get into your liquors, it gets a little bit more expensive, but there's a lot of value to that. So having these different items put away that you can use anyway, if you need to. So let's say I'm here at the house. It's a late Saturday afternoon. I'm working on something and I'm like, dang, I don't have this. Well, I can improvise to fix it if I need to. And so it always works to have these kinds of items set aside. Now, again, we really appreciate Sarah Mack for taking care of all the questions and monitoring things over there. Also, we appreciate Tax Titans. And guys, again, it just connects taxpayers with tax professionals and they give you a lot of options to pick the right taxpayer for you. And it's nationwide. It's just an awesome service, guys, especially if you have some kind of The IRS is looking more and more into any source of income. And with electronic banking, it makes it even easier than to monitor those things. And so you want to make sure that you're right with your taxes. And plus, tax professionals know the tax code and they can help save you money. I'm telling you, they saved me a ton of money when I first started working with a regular accountant. But when I went with Tax Titans, who the guy that started the company is my accountant, it was a phenomenon. It gives you the legal deductions that you deserve. And guys, and you can use Suits20 in the referral and it's tax-titans.com. Great resource. Also, ExoTax, the best fire starters out there. I've been using them for years, way before they decided to start sending me fire starters so I could tell you guys about it. And you get 20% using Suits20. The link's down below in the description. With all that said, be strong, be of good courage. God bless America. Long live the Republic.