Following Along @$40 Week ? +Heavy Mail Day

Because of the Canadian postal strike I have many packages floating out there in limbo, just waiting for me to open them. Today, two of those packages came, one of which was a MSR 1.1L AlpineTM Stowaway Pot which was TEOTWAWKIblogs prepping for $40 a week item about a month ago. Along with that I purchased a 32oz Nalgene wide mouth bottle, and separately I purchased the ever so emergency preppertastic impulse buy, the WaterBOB.

Firstly let's cover the Following Along @$40 a Week post portion, which was the MSR 1.1L AlpineTM Stowaway Pot. First off I would like to say that this is the type of item that I'm glad Alexander over at TEOTWAWKIblog has picked items to help people like me get completely prepped because I, at this time, wouldn't buy something like this on my own. At this point in time my brain is all about buying the cool tools, like crank radios, water filters and knives, not pots. The pot itself wasn't the only thing included on this purchasing mission, included were all the things you would need to use the pot ie; fire making materials and tools. Included were a couple of lighters, fire-steel and some tinder type material. So because I own lighters and fire-steel along with tinder (dryer lint stored in sealed straws, may post about that later if you are one of the few that don't know what that is), so I didn't have to purchase those items. Upon opening the package I was instantly pleased with the purchase. The pot is seemingly very sturdy, and has a simple yet well thought out design. The handle of the pot folds over the lid and locks the lid in place for storage. When you load the pot full of all your fire starting materials and tools the locking mechanism securely stores all your items inside, so that when you're rooting through your bug out bag for something you don't accidentally pop the lid off and dump your whole kit. It's very nice.

So when I was on Amazon and looking for that pot, I determined that I wanted to add on something, but what to add on...the 32oz Nalgene wide mouth bottle, that's what. I had had the bottle on my Amazon wish list for a while with the Intent to buy one or two for each bug out bag I make to carry water in, as they are the perfect size to fit most side pockets of most outdoors backpacks. The bottle itself is nicer looking than I thought lol, not that a bottle can be overly nice, but it's a decent looking bottle. For us metric Canucks, 32oz is essentially a liter of water. The plastic it's made from is a material designed not to leech chemicals into your water like a lot of plastic containers can do after prolonged use, these bottles are guaranteed for life not to leech. For what it cost me, it's a decent purchase, but again something I would have had a hard time purchasing if I wasn't already buying a cooking pot and wanting to spend about ten dollars more.

So the third item to be unpackaged today was the WaterBOB emergency drinking water storage system for your bathtub. A complete and utter impulse purchase. I'd seen this item first on pinterest.com on many EOTWAWKI boards or zombie apocalypse survival boards, and thought that for a simple time, it seemed like a good idea. The idea is, if the power goes down, and the city stops pumping water to you, you deploy the bag in your bathtub and fill from the tap before the water pressure is gone, saving you up to 100 gallons of drinking water to use after the water no longer pumps from the tap. So you may be saying, why would I need a bag to hold my water when the tub itself will do just the same? Yes would be the short answer, and many people on a state of emergency will have to do just that, but if you were like me and now have a waterBOB, the waterBOB will keep your wAter clean and safer from potentially dangerous particles in the air from keeping your family and you better off. Also, the waterBOB has its own pumping system built in so that you have the ease and control of a tap to fill bottles and whatnot. One thing the waterBOB definitely did though was be the most definitively crazy like item I've purchased to date lol. All the other stuff can be explained away as things I can use for camping or work or something, but having a big bladder for your bathtub? You can't explain that away lol. Buuuuuut, at least now I have one and now that I have it I may as well have it right? Lol. So that's my awesome mail day, hopefully I get more boxes of wonder in the mail soon, I love mail days.

Following Along @$40 a Week: Week 4 the Survival Knife

I gotta start this post off by saying, I really really want to buy the stuff Mr. Wolf posts every week, but so far I have had most or not been able to justify the purchase. This week is kinda with that and against it at the same time lol.

So two weeks ago, Mr. Wolf posted the Mora Bushcraft Triflex for $29.50 leaving $10.50 left over to bank for a future week. The post went on to list all the wonderful attributes that this specific knife and how well it's made and all that jazz. While I wanted to buy the well made, very useful wee little knife, I just couldn't. I already have my Gerber folder so at this time I couldn't justify buying something I already had a reasonable counterpart. Buuuuuuutttt, I could justify something I didn't have in the same category and price range, and that's why I was happy to buy a large Bowie knife from Winchester Knives. I figured I could stay on par with the $40 a week program and buy a similar item to the one of the week, and stay with in the price s range of Mr. Wolf's pick, it was actually only about $2 less. That knife came today, the box was huge, I thought maybe the was a shipping error, the box was 16" by 8" by 8 so I was like wtf is going on here lol, so I opened it. Inside there was about 6" of packing material, and in the bottom 2" of the box...a BIG @$&?ing KNIFE. (pictured below) the fantastically large blade is damn near the length of my iPad...good god my wife says, that knife makes me nervous lol. I assured her if I was going to kill her it wouldn't be with my BIG $@&?ing KNIFE, if anything I would push her down the stairs or something lol...I kid I kid. I gotta say though, I'm liking the unnecessarily large knife that for all intensive purposes I don't need lol...but hey, it's a hobby lol.

So with all that we cover week 4 the survival knife, if you're a follower of this blog and noticed that there wasn't a week 3 post, you're very observant and probably the only follower of the blog lol. Week 3 was the Bug Out Bag...Bag. And since I've just recently purchased a very similar bag, I skipped week three all together. And week five, was skipped due to technical problems on Mr. Wolf's blog due to Internet outage. So week Six better be a good one, and something I can buy....cause I really really want to buy what he tells me too.

Following Along @$40 a Week: Week 2 The EDC Flashlight

So Alexander over at TEOTWAWKIblog's Prepping on $40 a Week is on week number two, and this weeks item, the EDC (every day carry) flashlight. His original week two post can be read HERE.



So, in this weeks post Alexander delves into what he looks for in an EDC flashlight. He states that his current EDC flashlight the Surefire E1B is one of his favorite things that he always has with him, however he states at $120 it's far outside the price range of this post. So, for the dollars, Alexanders pick for the budget savvy prepper is the Fenix E11. A nice little flashlight and at $27 on Amazon, it's well below the $40 so $13 would go into the savings amount. Now I gotta say, I came about as close to buying this item as humanly possible without actually buying it. I was at Amazon, I had put enough money on my prepaid card we use for Internet purchases to buy the flashlight, I had followed the link to the item, I had added it to my cart, I had put in all my credit card numbers and address bullshit and clicked through until the final page before you actually own the item... and then I changed my mind. I really wanted to follow along on this item, but I couldn't justify spending the money on a flashlight that I didn't think I really required. Right now as my EDC Flashlight I carry this (pictured below) small crank powered flashlight. Now it may not crank out 100 lumens like the flashlight of the week, but it serves it's purpose and I don't have to worry about batteries with mine. So this is the main reason that I opted out of this weeks purchase at the last moment, I just couldn't buy something I really didn't believe I needed when I could save the money and buy something of my amazon wish list, or hold it over to make sure I have the funds for next weeks item. Either way, this eks item, the EDC flashlight wasn't something I was willing to buy, but most.y due to already having a suitable replacement for the time being. Who knows, maybe down the line I'll feel I need an EDC flashlight capable of kicking out some higher lumens, but for the time being, I'll stick with my little crank flashlight.

Mr. Wolf says next week we are moving into building a budget indeed bug out bag, which i am excited to see, I'm only half way though building my first bug out bag, so anything bug out bag oriented and I get excited lol.

New Blog Series: Following Along @ $40/Week

Alexander Wolf over at TEOTWAWKIblog has started a weekly series called Getting Prepared for $40 a Week, and being that I think this is a great idea, I thought I would do a follow along post when I get/purchase the items in his posts. I would like for them to be as soon as possible after his original post, but a lot will probably be weeks later as a lot isn't locally available to me and thus lending to online shopping and shipping time. As I receive the products pertaining to each of Alexander's posts ill post a write up on the product I purchased or reason why I didn't purchase that weeks item, and a link to his original post, so you can read what I read.

So, with that explained ill get to the first week, which was like any good survivalist should start with...the survival knife. This post was originally posted on Tuesday June 26 and heres the LINK. Alexander went a little sideways on this, and instead of really focusing on a specific knife, he recommended a multi tool as the perfect first knife for under $40. Specifically he recommended the Leatherman sidekick or wingman which are very similar and capable tools. He listed the tools at $29.50 (at amazon) stating that we'll hold over the remaining $10.50 for future purchases. He writes that we'll never spend more than $40 a week, but when under, we'll save that money for future, larger than $40 purchases.

While I didn't buy a Leatherman sidekick or Wingman, I purchased a Sheffield Multitool(pictured below), that I was able to purchase locally, for aproxomitly the same price, I think mine was about $4 cheaper, so I guess I'm holding about $15 over from this week. I really like my Multitool and have already found myself using it more frequently than I had anticipated I would. It's amazing how frequently you find yourself needing something like this when you actually have one, where before you would just unconsciously admit defeat and move on lol. Always having a versatile tool on your hip makes life just a little more manageable. I can't imagine how useful this would be if I was doing a more labor intensive job.

With week number one behind us, I can't wait for the next weekly installment of this series on the TEOTWAWKIblog. I really think that a series like this that I can follow along as a beginner is really helpful at focusing my thoughts on what to buy next. I tip my hat to Alexander for a great simple idea to keep us newbs moving forward. Also, on a side not to those either familiar or new to this blog, it will soon become very clear that TEOTWAWKIblog, is one of my favorite blogs to follow. Mr. Wolf is not only seemly knowledgable about a lot of this stuff, but how he looks at it and his readership is nice. I really enjoy his blog, and I would imagine if you weren't already a reader, you would too...so check it out if you haven't already, and tell him Jason at Project Apocalypse sent ya lol. So until next time, here's hoping you and I purchase the next $40 item before the shit hits.