Save Your Life Kit

What things, hopefully inexpensive things, which can be kept in a kit, to protect you if things happen. Recently things have happened around the world from natural disasters, man-made events (terrorism). Bottom line "stuff" happens.

The basics below are designed to give you the absolute minimums and are designed to cover what is needed at low cost.

First, information is the most powerful tool you can have. To that end I recommend a good survival manual and a basic first aid kit.

P-38 Army Issue Can opener, it can also serve duty as a basic multi-tool as it can be used to cut, as a screw driver and many other uses. A multi-tool would be another more expensive option.

Water purification tablets. Keeps you safe no matter what kind of water you may have to drink.

Compass - to keep you from wandering around in circles. This combined with a good map of your area and some basic map reading skills could very well save your life.

Space blanket, yes, you know, those amazing fold up silver blankets. Serve to protect you from the elements, exposure, and if rescue is an option, can be very obvious from a distance.

Some kind of fire making tool. For anyone who has watched the Survivor TV series, even knowing how to make a fire, does not make it easy. Their are many types of tools for this, I would recommend getting one or two and experimenting.

Trash bags, heavy duty, can do many duties from rain poncho, lean to cover and more.

Duct tape. Can be used for just about anything. In a survival situation it is that x-factor tool, that can be used for just the right thing at the right time.

Heavy duty nylon cord, can be used to tie up a lean to, secure a trap, tourniquet. Again a vital part of a survival kit.

Signal whistle, if you want to be found, a high intensity piercing whistle can be a life saver.

Altoids tin, to hold a bunch of this in a small convenient. I recommend searching the internet for Altoids survival kits, there are a ton of survival kits based on Altoid tins. I highly recommend putting one together.