Welcome!
Welcome to week #6 in the “72 Hour Kit Ideas: A week by week approach” series.
This series is all about making it simple and do-able to get a 72 hour kit put together for you and your family.
Creating such a kit can be overwhelming and financially difficult to do all at once. But through this series, I’ve broken it down for you into 26 small steps! You can see all the steps here. Just take one small baby step each week and in 6 months you will have a well stocked, personalized kit!
You can even go through the series a few times over a year or two adding just the most basic supplies the first six months and then a few more “extra” supplies each time you cycle through it again.
Want even more help?
This series is also available as an e-book. Purchasing the e-book gives you a few additional benefits over just reading the free series:
- Additional details and tips
- The ability to print the entire book!
- Pictures of my own kit showing just how I pack each week.
Download “Your Own 72 Hour Kit Plan” E-Book Now!
Last Week:
I hope all of you were able to add utensils and such to your kits last week. Being able to eat is essential!
Week #6: Eating
So, you planned, bought and organized food in weeks #4 and #5. And last week, you put what you needed to prepare that food into your kit. Now, you will need to have a way to eat it! Many mess kits come with a cup or two and you can eat out of the pots. Some even come with utensils. However, if you have a large family, you may need more plates, bowls, cups and utensils than 1 mess kit provides. But, you don’t need to carry multiple mess kits (you only need 1-2 pots, right?) A few paper goods should do the trick!
Here are a few suggestions of things you might want to consider. Many of these items you should be able to find already in your home or for very little at the grocery store (paper goods). But one item I really love is the spork (spoon, fork and knife in one). I think it is worth the money!
Suggestions / Ideas:
- Cup
- Bowl
- Plate
- Sippy cup for very young kids
- Bottle for baby
- Utensils (knife, fork, spoon)
- Wipes or napkins
What we have done in our family:
How About You?
Leave me a comment and tell me how you will eat the food in your kit and what you will include to make that possible. What are you adding? Why? What will you be doing this week?
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| Week #5: Food Prep | Week #7: Clothes | Week #1: Water to Carry | Series Into: 72 Hour Kit Series, A Week by week approach |
Becky is a wildlife enthusiast and pet and livestock care expert with a diploma in canine nutrition. With over a decade of experience in animal welfare, Becky lends her expertise to Simple Family Preparedness through insightful info about pets, livestock, bee keeping, and the practicalities of homesteading.
We each have those plastic utensils that come wrapped in plastic(from take out places) as well as a spork. For drinks we each have asceptic juice/milk containers, a water filter bottle, and if worse comes to worse, we’ll just chug on our water jugs.
That works Diane!
I have been trying to keep up with the weeks, but I am not doing very good, but I have been building up my survival kit for my family of 4. So I have been trying to use the sugestions each week to double check/ modify our kit to make sure we are remebering everything! And this week I realized that we have 1 mess kit in our survival kit, and one extra cup!! I guess we would have been doing a lot of sharing!! So, since I didnt need anymore pans, I just added some paper plates and a small bagie of plastic silverware, and a few more cups so that my wee ones dont have to fight over mom and dads cups!!! Thanks, I hope your future post help me keep things in line!
You can always go through it a 2nd and 3rd time Katie! I don’t think anyone completely “keeps up!”
I love this series. I look forward to getting your emails every week. We just went through everyones packs and boxes (my husband built a shelving unit that has five different compartment with three shelves in each one. top for shoes/snow boots, middle for backpacks and snow wear, and bottom has a milk crate for one day sleeping bags). I made note that four of our six children still need some form of eating utensils, cup, and possible mess kits. I am going to get some sporks soon. We also need to purchase new tents (both of the ones we had fell apart this summer) and sleeping bags. We are getting there slowly but surely. We also had our first practice run today so the children could see what it would be like if we needed to get out of the house quickly. It was fun and will hopefully take some of the fear out of it if/when there is a real emergency. Thank you again!!!
I’m so glad you enjoy and are really using the series Vicki! It keeps me motivated! (-:
Just starting here, but we’ll begin with our stash of plastic ware packets and plastic trays we have. Although, I see sporks being really fun stocking stuffers! Thanks for thinking of all the details!
Glad to have you here Michele!
We have the 5 pc. mess kits in our kits & also the sporks! I like the suggestion of the zipper bags, I’ll be adding a few, as well as the PB packets. I remember my grandma always carried a collapsible cup in her purse…I think she’s the one who inspired me to always be prepared…her & my husband, the boy scout. LOL! Thanks for your help in making it manageable!
Loving all the suggestions for collapsible items! Smart!
I have a collapsible bowl, two small plastic plates, and two sets of utensils (one for me and one for my son). I hadn’t thought about wipes. Thanks! Right now I don’t have any cups but they would be nice to have. I only have two water bottles.
You could drink out of the bowls if needed and you gotta love the collapsible sort!
As we’ve gotten new pots, pans, or utensils I have put some of the old ones in a box for emergency preparedness. I have some paper products. I need to add bottles, bowls, and always more napkins and wipes.
Make sure what you’ve got will fit in your kit too!
I found individual tubs of peanut butter (Jif-to-Go) and individual packets of Graham Bites to add to my 72-hour kit for food that doesn’t require adding water or heating.
Graham Bites sound tasty!
We’re going with one of the 5 piece mess sets, and since it’s just 2 of us, that should do for cups and plates. For utensils, I have packed a few sets of plastic-ware.
Perfect Erica!
I don’t have mess kits for my kids bags, but I don’t have the space for a plate and bowl, etc. As an alternative, I’ve added a handful of freezer quart size ziploc bags. I can mix oatmeal packets and whatever else in them easily, and then you can just eat it out of the bag. Also, in the case of kids, if they don’t want it right then, most things I have packed would be ok saved in the bag to eat later, thus it wouldn’t go to waste. Plus, then I don’t have to worry about using extra water to clean a pot for storage or next use.
GREAT idea Tiffany! I will add it next time we get to this week! Thanks.
I am new to the site, but have already been working on our kits. We have bottled water, water bottles, camelback that go into the backpacks, food, sewing kits, first aid kit, etc We need a filter system and have not gotten a mesh kit or utensils. Does anyone have any suggestions of ones that have worked well for you and where you purchased them from?
Sorry for the late response Connie! It has been a crazy week at my house! (-:
You can get a filter and a mess kit through me if you’d like. Just click on the green links above (in the post) to go see the different mess kits offered. However, unless you really want the convenience of having it shipped to your home, you could probably get a similar mess kit for less at Target or Walmart. (-:
As for the filter system though, I sell two that I highly recommend:
The Katadyn Combi Microfilter can be put in your kit and taken with you if you need to evacuate, but it can also be attached to your faucet (you do need to purchase the adapter separately) if you can stay in your home, but the water is contaminated. I own it and love it. You can read more (and / or purchase it) here:
https://yourownhomestore.shelfreliance.com/katadyn-combi-microfilter.html
The other is the aquapail. It is fabulous! Most filters have a shelf life of about 6 months once you’ve used them. This means that even if you’ve only used it to filter 1 cup, you will need to toss the filter after 6 months. However, the aqua pail has no shelf life. It is also the only system on the market with 100% non-detection on every test. I own it as well and love it. You can read more about it here:
https://simplefamilypreparedness.com/product-highlight-aqua-pail/
If you have a smaller budget, I also really like the the Shelf Reliance water bottle. It has a Seychelle filter in it, but the bottle itself is made by Shelf Reliance.
https://yourownhomestore.shelfreliance.com/water-filtration-bottle.html
you can email me directly if you have questions about any of that! ([email protected])
I just found your site and am excited to get started. One thing I want to be sure to plan for is our pet. So I will need to include at least two collapsing containers (one for food and one for water) and a supply of food and water just for her. Thanks for all of your hard work putting this together!
Then you will want to be sure to check out this page Roxie:
https://simplefamilypreparedness.com/survival-kit-ideas-week-22-prepare-for-your-pet/
Read all the comments! Lot of great tips from readers!
I am so grateful my husband has been in scouting, since forever! He has lots of methods for cooking, but my favorite would be the soda can stove. It is very small and lightweight, and you’d just need to carry a bottle of fuel to refill it when needed. He and his scouts have used them successfully before. Also, I’m a big fan of ThinkGeek.com and all their cool eating utensil/kitchen gadget things. Yeah, I know that its crazy and maybe a bit pricey, but nothing would cheer me up better in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, then eating with my light saber chopsticks and treating myself to astronaut icecream. 🙂
Love astronaut ice cream myself, Tamara!
Wow. I love your posts … This is my first time visiting and you have great ideas about updating emergency kits … A GREAT reminder to refresh regularly. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks Katie! I’m glad you’ve found it helpful. Welcome!
Our toddlers are able to drink out of our water bottles, so I think I’ll keep just the filtered water bottles and plan to share. I DO need to add small plastic plates & utensils for them.
Make sure they can drink out of the filtering bottles (as opposed to just regular water bottles), Julie. They can be harder to get water out of. That may be what you meant already, but I just wanted to be sure!
I just love site and especially the helpful hints!
Thank you!
kathy
You are welcome Kathy!
I plan on adding mess kits. I do have a good pocket knife. Side note- i added 2 more gallons of water last week and rotated old ones out 🙂
Way for more water Melinda! Can never have too much
Summer time is a great time to find the all in one picnic packs at a lot of stores.
I get sponges fairly cheap with coupons, and I cut them in four pieces and stash them with the mess kit. I find the smaller sponges dry more quickly making them easier to pack up and easier for the kids to help clean up with as well. I need to remember to put some kind of cleaning detergent in the mess kit though to go with the sponges.
Love the idea Meredith! I’ll add it in a few weeks with sanitation!
You could always use Dr. Bronner liquid soaps for dishes, showering and washing hair and general cleaning. Loving this “new” site. (to me at least) It’s daunting to find I need to read through so many weeks of preps but it’s too important to not do it. I’m really appreciating all the information. Thank you…
i have mess kit a a set of the sporks .. got a set that comes with different colors so everyone knows which is theirs. i didnt even think about a sippy cup for mini me. thanks for the tip
Of course Chonte! Glad it helped!
i plan on adding a mess kit, two sippy cups and sporks
I just found your site so I have a few weeks to catch up on but I can’t wait to get started. I will pack our mess kits from scouting to eat with.
Welcome Shannon!
I’ve already added a couple of knives from Goodwill and a couple of spoons. I have one son on meds so he needs a spoon to help with that. For the week about water I had already added empty water bottles for the kids. We seem to have lots of those floating around our house. I’d love to get a mess kit. The foil seems like a great idea too. I think the kids would love the sporks, too. May have to get some to make dinner at home more interesting. 🙂
Sporks are definitely interesting Natalie! (-:
Hi, I love this series, but since I just joined, I’m behind…it’s a little overwhelming to try & catch up! But, catch up I will! Love the idea of the sippy cups…we don’t have little ones, but I will include them anyway, and if I don’t have grand kids at that time, I’m sure I’ll find someone who can use them & share! We actually have the sporks! I always look for unusual, but practical things for our Christmas stockings & those made the cut a couple years ago! LOL! Thanks again for this series!
You are welcome Deb! And don’t try to catch up! Just do week #1 and then jump right in with this week. You can get weeks 2-6 when I cycle around to them again. Don’t overwhelm yourself! (-:
I need to get 2 mess kits and 8 sporks for my family for our kits. I need to put my older pots/pans/utensils as well as some paper goods in our bug-out box.
SOunds great Jamie!
Great idea for the mess kits! I used to have one a LONG time ago for camping, but have no idea where it might be now. I’ll have to do some checking around & buy new if needed. Thanks!
You are welcome Debbie! I hope you find it…always better that purchasing a new one!