My wife and I just got back from a trip where we stayed in a hotel several nights and I noticed all the freebies that come along with your hotel stay. While, I know that you ultimately pay for those things, people do tend to leave these items behind instead of thinking of how they could be utilized for future purposes. While most of these items don’t come in huge quantities, every little bit helps especially if you travel a lot. So technically these aren’t freebies since you most likely pay for them anyway, but most folks don’t think of all the possibilities they leave behind when they close their hotel door for the last time.

Bunkers aren’t just for doomsday freaks. In addition to being essential in the case of an epidemic, nuclear disaster or a war on our home turf, they also come in handy as storm shelters or safe rooms. While an underground bunker is a large investment that is not realistic financially for many people, it never hurts to dream. If you can afford it, building a bunker under your home or yard is an investment in your families future safety.

Part of prepping for a disaster may sometimes involve learning skills that may not be applicable until you face a survival or disaster scenario. Some of these skills can still be helpful in every day life especially if they are medical-related skill sets. There are a wide variety of medical skills you can learn, sometimes free or at a low cost to you. If you take advantage of those medical training courses and resources available to you, the medical issues that may arise in a disaster may be easier to handle.

There are a few medical kit items that we will cover that may seem like common sense to you, but it never hurts to touch on them to make sure everyone understands their importance or to jog some memories. While some of these items may seem unimportant to you, each one has a use that could save your life, so keep an open mind! Most of these can be found at Walmart, Target or your local pharmacy.

I wanted to compile a list of 10 important items that every prepper should possess in their bug out bags. Now I know that these items are my opinion and certainly up for debate, but they where chosen based on my prepping knowledge to date, affordability, practical use and overall cool factor. These items make great additions to your wish list and won’t bankrupt your family when looking for gifting ideas.

Thanks to the hard work of Lasersaber at LaserHacker.com, he’s developed an open source idea for making your own solar power unit. What makes this build so unique is that everything is enclosed inside the frame of a 20 watt solar panel allowing you to plugin a power strip and power your devices easily.

Using a few soda cans, some spare wood, some leftover plexiglass and a couple of old CPU fans – I made a miniature solar heater that is designed to sit in a window sill. This is a smaller version that I wanted to test out before building a larger 4×8 unit to do some real heating.

A brightly colored cotton bandana – who would have thought it could save your life? It’s true. If it’s not part of your survival kit or bug out bag, it should be. Bandanas are light weight, portable and make a cheap addition to your goodie bag. Most of all they have several uses, some of which could determine whether you walk out of your situation alive.

The best way to catch small game like rabbits or squirrels is a small box trap. Snares and other traps are great in a survival situation without any other means and trapping, but having the game trapped in a box keeps it away from other predators seeking an easy meal.

We’ve all turned the ignition on our cars only to hear nothing when we expect it to crank. Usually we hitch a ride to the auto parts store and grab a new battery and turn in the old one to eliminate the dreaded core charge which is mandated by our lovely government. Before you turn the battery in, let me offer you an alternative use for those old car batteries.