Welcome!
Welcome to week #10 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 that you were able to add some items to keep you warm to you kit last week.
Week #11: Sanitation
If a member of your family is injured or hurt, you will need to be able to care for them on your own. Obviously, first aid supplies are essential in an emergency. But before you can use bandages and such, you need to be sure the cuts and / or wounds you are covering are well cleaned. This will reduce the risk of infection and scarring as well as promote faster healing.
In addition, you can prevent many problems / illnesses by staying clean. This week, add sanitation supplies to your kit.
Ideas / Suggestions:
First, I like this article (from WebMD) about how to clean a wound. I would suggest printing it out and keeping it with your sanitation / first aid supplies: Cleaning and Bandaging a Wound. Then, consider the following list when deciding what supplies to add to your kit:
- Clorox Wipes
- Hand Sanitizer
- Antiseptic Towelettes
- Water (in boxes or pouches).
- Soap.
- Alcohol pads
- Latex Gloves
- Saline Solution
- Neosporin
What we have done in our family:
I have antiseptic towelettes and alcohol pads, hand sanitizer and soap. I also have a box of distilled water and latex gloves. We have saline solution with our personal care supplies.
Many have asked why I have additional water here in my kit. My answer is that I simply like to have it separated out in my mind: some water is for drinking; other is for cleaning wounds if needed. I like packaging it with my first aid supplies so that it would be easily accessible were I to need it quickly. Most of our drinking water is at the very bottom of our packs while this water sits with our first aid supplies right near the top.
How About You?
Leave me a comment and tell me what sanitation items you will be adding to your kit. Why? Do you know how to use them?
Skip to:
| Week #9: Staying Warm | Week #11: First Aid | Week #1: Packaging Your Kit | Series Into: Survival 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.
Great Blog! Thanks for all of your hard work in putting this together!
In addition to the above, I am also adding a very small, high quality pair of tweezers (such as Sliver Gripper tweezers $5), as well as scissors. I may simply replace with a Victorinox Classic with scissors, knife blade, and tweezers. I have found that having a precise set of tweezers is necessary for removing splinters and small slivers of metal or glass, and scissors help with cutting gauze and trimming or customizing bandages (which I have done often when not having exactly what I was looking for in a kit.) Keeping these items with the kit keeps them sharp and as clean as possible until needed, rather than relying on a more heavily used pocketknife or multitool.
Oh yes, tweezers! I need to add some to MY kit! Thanks Jason!
I am so excited to get started with the preparations. I found this sight awhile ago and went camping this weekend and was talking about getting prepared. I will be sharing this site with friends and family!
Thanks Robin!
I need to get some disinfecting wipes and antiseptic wipes. I have hand sanitizer and wet wipes (instead of soap), alcohol pads and non-latex surgical gloves. I am sensitive to latex and others may be too, so I try to steer away from latex if at all possible. If I am in a situation that I need to use this kit, I don’t want me or someone who may have a much stronger reaction to latex to have additional problems
Our local walmart’s had basic medical supplies on sale for a while, and while I like how cheap hydrogen peroxide is, I worry about it’s short shelf life. So I paid a little more for a bottle of 99% alcohol, because it’ll last me longer.
I will be adding Clorox wipes (really great idea, thank you) and water boxes for first aid purposes. I didn’t even think about water for first aid.
We have hand sanitizer and wet wipes in each kit. In addition we have the following in our kits to share: Granular pool shock, clorox wipes, alcohol wipes, latex gloves, saline solution, mini soap bars and camp soap. Our water is easily accessible so I didn’t feel we needed to pack a separate water bottle for cleaning wounds. I also don’t feel the need to rotate out the wipes. If they dry out, I would just add water to reactivate.
I just bought some individually packaged Wet Ones (antiseptic towelettes) and added some to our kits (and some to my purse and the diaper bag!). We already have hand sanitizer in our kits. I would like to add some more alcohol wipes as our first aid kit that we have is tiny and only has a few.
Does anyone have a suggestion on which type of hand sanitizer lasts the longest? I believe there are several types out there with different active ingredients. I hate stocking up and then realizing when I finally get to use the one stashed in the diaper bag that it’s expired, or that the one in the car was alcohol based and has evaporated!
I just recently bought some hand sanitizer. I really want to get some alcohol pads. I have a large bottle of peroxide, but I need a smaller bottle to go with my emergency kit. I also want to get some water that can stay with the kit so that it will be on hand.
I ordered some books on what to do when help is not coming which describes in detail how to handle almost any medical emergency. I am also adding a suture kit, disinfecting wipes, rubbing alcohol, large bandages and some long rags to tie off wounds (if necessary).
I’ve got alcohol swabs from the diabetic supply section, and lots of hotel hand soap. Plenty of room to improve!
I need to add extra alcohol pads. We used some during our last camping trip. I am also considering adding some super small bottles of peroxide and 91% rubbing alcohol to our main packs. I found a great deal on some plastic bottles with lids at a yard sale that were going to be used for shampoos and lotions from a gal who made them for her bed and breakfast. They are the perfect size and portable. I also just purchased two boxes of gloves from Costco, so we should have plenty for our packs and home use.
I didn’t even think of saline solution! Guess I’ll be adding that this week!
I’m adding a few more latex gloves, a bar of soap, and a ziploc of johnson’s and johnson’s disposable all-in-one baby washcloths that we have left over from a camping trip.
We have purchased quite a bit on sanitation and now we’ve been checking into all that essentials can do and need to get more to put in our kits.
What do you store your first aid supplies in? I have a lot of the supplies, but I am having trouble finding a good way pack them. Thanks!
Quick clot
My boyfriend and I have been informally prepping for a couple months, and decided this week that we should make “official” packs. I’d remembered seeing your binder on Pinterest so I headed here to read your plan. We’ve a lot to do but have to start somewhere, so this week we are adding our $1s and purchasing backpacks. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom!
Sounds like a great start Natalie!
I already have Clorox wipes and hand sanitize (in bulk size) because these are daily things that we use/have around the house. I would like to add the toilette. But since we have a 9 month old, we have a lot of baby wipes which we could substitute. I do know how to clean out a general wound. Rinse with water/clean area, add antiseptic if need be, cover with gauze and tape or band aid.