Background: Chump change.
After Post #1620, and Post #1625, I’ve followed through on stashing a few emergency-use items in my wife’s Prius Prime. This follows the realization that if there is any sort of mass evacuation in my area, the inevitable result is that we’ll end up living in the car for a day or two, as we negotiate the resulting traffic jam.
This is, in effect, my quick-and-dirty emergency #vanlife kit. I need to be able to drink, eat, excrete, and stay warm, in the car, for a day or two.
The trick here — as in so much of life — is not to be an idiot. Don’t spend a ton of money. Don’t interfere with day-to-day use of the car. Make it easy to maintain.
But don’t skimp, either. Keep this in perspective. This is just another bit of of insurance, in a world where you already buy insurance.
Insurance? For private insurance, I currently pay roughly:
- $14,000 a year for high-deductible (“never-pay”) health insurance.
- $1,500/year car insurance, two vehicles.
- $1,200/year homeowner’s insurance.
- $300/year for general liability (“umbrella”) insurance.
And I would guess that 35% of my federal taxes support Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and other government-mandated forms of social insurance. Most of which boils down to a subsidy of the less fortunate. But some of which may benefit me.
It’s no exaggeration to say I routinely pay $20K per year for insurance. That I hope I never get to use. Hence the title of this. (Which I stole, by the way, from a friend who was, at the time, the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health, who used that line when people started talking about health insurance providing poor value.)
In that context, a one-off expense of $150 worth of stuff, for the car? That’s not exactly rounding error, in terms of my overall insurance expenditures. But it’s close.
Without further ado.
Water.
Below: Vacuum-packed four-packs of half-liter bottles, hanging at the back of the cargo area.
Sure, water is more-or-less required for long-term survival. But bottled water sells out rapidly in any U.S. evacuation.
You can buy bags of emergency water supplies, but they seem a) ridiculously expensive, and b) too small.
And yet, off-the-shelf bottled water comes in rather fragile packaging. Even off-the-shelf gallons will eventually leak, in my experience. How can you take that cheap grocery-store bottled water and carry it safely in the car?
My solution is to seal four half-liter bottles inside a gallon poly bag, then hang those bags behind the back seat of my wife’s Prius Prime, hung off the rear headrests, over the all-weather floor mats. If they leak, they’ll leak into the bag. And if the bag leaks, it’ll leak onto the weatherproof floor mat.
This gives me 6 liters (1.5 gallons) of single-serving water bottles, with minimal risk of damaging the car interior via leaks.
Too much water? Too little water? Beats me. Looks like a lot to me, but seemingly reliable sources say that you need to consume about three liters of water a day, in all forms (Reference: Mayo clinic). More for men, less for women. Given that everything else in the car is dry food, by that standard, this is a one-night supply of water for two adults. I guess that’s about right.
Cost, if you have a vacuum-sealer already, is maybe $3. If not, use zip-locks. So, no problem if I have to toss these every couple of years. Also uses space that doesn’t interfere with the everyday use of the car. I might add a piece of black plastic over them to slow any UV damage to all that fragile plastic.
Sanitation.
Well, there’s a reason they’re called SHTF bags. God willing, I will never see this again in my lifetime.
Source: Amazon. References for other supplies are in prior post.
After looking at my off-the-shelf options, I decided that a stainless steel bedpan was my best choice for sanitation. It’s a tried-and-true design. And I’m fat enough that plastic likely wouldn’t do. I bought one with a lid, and stuffed it with the items listed below. Note that this takes up no useful space in the car. It sits under the front passenger seat. And, God willing, it will never come out from that hidey-hole.
- Lidded stainless steel bedpan, containing:
- Short bungee to anchor back of bed pan to seat belt.
- One roll TP, compressed
- 4 potty liners (blue, absorbent fill)
- 3 urinals (pink, absorbent fill)
- 8 small trash bags
- Sanitary wipes
- Disposable gloves
- Water purification device
- Water purification tablets
This is probably $85 worth of stuff, all told. All of which should be a once-in-a-lifetime purchase. And should never have to be touched, short of an actual emergency.
Seems like a lot, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.
Food 1: Emergency rations.
This is a brick of emergency food, plus some individually-wrapped emergency food bars, from Amazon. Stuffed in a bag, to sit under the driver’s seat. The main point is that you’d only eat these out of a total sense of desperation. Ideally, these need to be replaced no more frequently than every five or ten years. If then.
Cost, about $25. Should last anywhere from half-a-decade to a decade. Call it insurance at five bucks a year. Hope to see it again a decade from now.
First aid.
If you’re shopping for a first-aid supplies, it’s important to judge whether or not you have the moxie to deal with what I would term a trauma kit. Something for major injuries. As opposed to first-aid kit, which is basically for minor injuries and common maladies.
I think the upper limit of what I can plausibly handle is a butterfly closure. Maybe some gauze and tape. And, e.g., aspirin, Tums, and similar off-the-shelf remedies. So that’s what I pack. If I manage to sever a major artery, I’m out of luck. I think that’s the nature of insurance.
Tourniquets? Sutures? Splints? Do you know you to use them? If not, buy a first aid kid, no matter how appealing a trauma kit might be.
I have no clue what my first-aid kit cost, because I repackaged a bunch of first-aid supplies that I’ve had sitting around for years.Some elements (e.g., OTC medications) will have to be replaced every couple of years. This sits under the driver’s seat, alongside the emergency rations.
Emergency tools.
The Prius Prime has one narrow, deep compartment under the floor of the trunk. This is a place for storing (e.g.) tools for changing a tire. I am adding, in one small bag, all the tools that might be useful in an emergency, and will never need to be refreshed or updated. These include:
- Multi-tool
- Can opener
- Space blanket x 2
- Emergency poncho x 2
- Compass
- Work gloves, handful of misc car-related tools.
Note that this isn’t at all what is normally sold as a vehicle emergency kit. Those kits focus on having a breakdown in your vehicle. That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m more worried about a breakdown of civil society.
In any case, despite having worked on a lot of cars over my lifetime (e.g., replaced the engine on my first car), the idea that I could diagnose and fix a serious problem on a modern fuel-injected computer-controlled engine is just laughable. Maybe if I win the lottery, I’ll throw a high-end scan tool in that bag. That way, if I’m stuck, at least I’ll know why.
Food 2: Routine long-trip stuff, including snacks and the tools required to eat them.
Finally, in a small bag sitting in a little alcove in the trunk, I’m putting all the stuff that needs to be refreshed roughly annually. That boils down to food and batteries, and a few pieces of equipment that might come in handy on any long trip. Things that you might just routinely tap into, on a long trip. Or need to grab in a hurry.
- Flashlights x 2
- Spare batteries
- Water heating device, insulated mugs
- Tea bags x 10, other hot drinks
- Ramen x 6
- Plates, cups, utensils,
- Misc dry food snacks (e.g., peanut butter crackers)
- Cash.
The last item, because I’ve never been in a situation where having some money around made it worse.
The water heater, discussed in an earlier post, is about $30 and will take like-onto half an hour to boil a cup and a half of water. Such is the tyranny of physics. Otherwise, this is maybe another $10 worth of food.
Summary.
I’m not a nut. I think.
I’m just a fairly prudent guy. Who, as a self-employed person, got used to paying for all of my insurance, including health insurance. And once you’re in the habit of shipping off $1K+ per month for health insurance, while simultaneously fervently hoping that you are pissing your money away (because if not, that’s not good) …
Maybe out of all that, I ended up end up with a different attitude toward small insurance expenditures. Which is, at root, what this is about. This is about fitting out my wife’s car with a bit of insurance against (e.g.) what happened this past January, on I-95, in Virginia. Let alone some greater catastrophe.
So the goal is to set up some supplies that:
- don’t cost an arm and a leg (appropriately amortized over their expected lifetime).
- don’t interfere with the day-to-day use of the vehicle.
- cover the basics of existence (water, food, sanitation, light, warmth)
- in a way that is easily maintained.
I think I’ve hit the brief on this one.
I’ve made a one-time investment in sanitation supplies, packed so they’ll easily fit under the front passenger seat.
Thrown in some food and water, some first-aid supplies, and a few tools.
Separately, all the stuff that’s likely to need to be refreshed annually is in one bag, ready to go.
In the end, this is like having a will. You aren’t buying happiness. You are buying peace of mind. If the unthinkable happens, you’ve done what you can reasonably be expected to do. Having settled this, there’s no sense worrying about it further, Just get on with the rest of your life.
