Building your 72 hr Kits

72 hour kits can sound like a daunting task. They are an item rarely used that take frequent maintenance. However, in the chance of an emergency, they will be the life-line to all you have. We have put together 2 kits for 2 adults and 2 children. This an estimated cost on how much it would be to compile these 2 kits for my family.

When planning what should go in your 72 hr kits, first think about what situations in which you would need them. The concept of a 72 hr kit is to hold you over for 3 days until you can get to help or help can get to you. They should be designed to grab quickly and leave your home. Think about what are the most likely situations for where you live that you would need to grab them and go. For my family, these are the most likely situations we would have:

1. We have an earthquake and our home becomes unsafe.

2. We have a land slide and flood because we live close to the mountains.

3. We have a fire and have to evacuate the area.

4. We have an invasion.

Those are the situations we planned for in preparing our 72 hr kits. Also, think of the worst time it could happen. For us the winters in Utah are very cold so we would need to prepare for that. See Prepare for the Disaster for more details.

2 Scenarios of leaving our home:

After trial and error and much research, we have chosen 2 scenarios of uses for our 72 hour kits.

1. The car IS available, we will bring:
   1. 72 hour kit
   2. Enough water for everyone 1 gallon/day/person for a week:
      4people x 7days= 28 gallons – 12 gallons on trailer =16 gallons
   3. Warm coat and Hiking shoes
   4. Sleeping bags
   5. Documents from safe
   6. Hook up camping trailer

i. Already has generator and gas attached

ii. Already has two 6 gallon water tanks

1. The car IS NOT available, we will bring:
   1. Put one child in backpack carrier and the other child in front carrier and get the jogging stroller out to pack all needs.
   2. 72 hour kit
   3. Enough water for 1 gallon/day/person for 3 days:
      4 people x 3days= 12 gallons
   4. Warm coat and Hiking shoes
   5. Documents from safe
   6. Grab tent and sleeping bags

Choosing your pack

We have made many mistakes of what to use for the actual pack for the kits. We’ve used our backpacking backpacks- that resulted in every time we needed our backpacking backpacks, the 72-hour kit stuff would be scattered in random places. We tried smaller backpacks to keep them separate, but those were too small to fit everything. We tried duffle bags, but realized that would be difficult to carry. Our solution was a 2^nd set of smaller backpacking backpacks. We bought these at an outdoor garage sale. One was $15 and the other was $20. There is enough space to carry our children’s things too, as they are too small to carry a backpack. They have a waist strap to keep the weight off your shoulders and compartments to keep things more accessible and organized.

Packs Total- $35

Choosing your food

Our first round of food for these consisted of ramen, pasta sides, paper packaged tuna and granola bars. After inspecting these a year later the granola bars were crumbly and dry and we realized that if we were in a disaster, the last thing we’d want to eat was ramen with little or no nutritional value. However, if that is where you need to start financially and for ease, it is still a starting place.

We did some research on prepackaged meals and realized that a lot of packaged meals had things like MSG, trans fats, and ingredients that contradicted their said shelf life (example- oil has a 1 year shelf life, the food would have oil and claim to have a 25 year shelf life.) We met the owner of “Eden Valley Foods” and learned of his great product. His dried foods were healthy, filling, light to carry and really did have a 25-year shelf life. Though somewhat pricey, we felt that this was a cost we would only have to spend every 20 years. The peace of knowing that the food in our pack would take such little maintenance and would take care of us was worth the price. We cooked one up and divided it in the said “5 servings” and partook. Each serving weighed 7oz. They tasted great and were filling. My husband, who consistently eats double what I do, ate 2 servings and was completely filled. They cost $11.59/meal unless you buy it in bulk (100 servings box= $169) For more information on this food click here.

We have supplemented the food with more protein and snacks.

-Trail mix $5)

-9 Tuna packets ($4.5)

-15 Cliff bars (Costco $10)

-Gatorade mix ($5)

-Beef Jerky ($8)

-Pouch foods (for the babies) (Costco $16)

These we keep in a separate zip lock baggie so that we can eat and replace them every 6 months.

We also got enough meals for a week. Each meal feeds our entire family, so we have 3 meals/day x 3 days= 9 meals

Current food weight for family: About 10lbs

FEMA is now recommending to have a weeks supply of food and water but start with 3 days.

Food Total—Meals $104.31 + Supplemented $48.5 =$152.81

Tools

In order to keep these things dry, we bought a few dry sack for $5.97.

These are the things inside each kit (bold denotes need per person):

-1 flint and steel ($3)

-1 emergency blanket ($3)

-1 poncho ( $1)

-1 head lamp ($3.50)

-2 extra batteries for head lamp ($2)

-1 pkg of water proof matches ($.50)

-1 Leatherman ($5)

-1 gallon sized zip lock bag

-1 set of work gloves ($1)

-1 water purifier ($70)

-1 water proof pack cover ($5)

-1 survival book (Amazon $5)

-1 stove ($15)

-1 mess kit ($20)

-1 eating utensil ($2.50)

-1 propane ($4)

-20 ft. rope ($2.50)

-Radio ($30)

-Glowstick ($1)

-Whistle ($1)

Tools Total- $189.50

First Aid

We bought an already made first aid kit at for $13. We supplemented some things we thought we would need.

-Thermometer ($3)

-Tums ($1.50)

-Anti-Diarrhea ($3)

-Tweezers ($2)

-Inhaler (specific medicine you would need)

-Pills ($2)

-Insect bite relief ($2)

First Aid Total- (2x)$13+ supplemented (2x)$13.50= $53

Toiletries (all should be per person):

These things are also in another dry sack.

-Travel shampoo (free from hotels)

-Travel lotion (free from hotels)

-1 bar of soap (free from hotels)

-1 Vaseline ($1)

-1 brush/mirror ($1)

-1 toothpaste (free from dentist)

-1 toothbrush (free from dentist)

-1 sunscreen ($1)

-1 insect repellent ($3)

-1 trash sack

-1 floss (free from dentist)

-Travel package of wet ones ($1)

-Toilet paper

-1 camping towel ($4)

-Q-tips

-Deodorant ($1)

-Latex gloves ($1)

-Masks ($1)

-Tide ($1)

-Hand Warmers ($1)

-Hydrogen peroxide (container-$1 and peroxide- $.79)

-Hand sanitizer ($1)

-Book of Mormon (Distribution center $4)

-Notepad and pen ($1)

-Deck of cards ($1)

-Fingernail clippers ($2)

Baby:

Desetin ($5)

Baby tylonel ($4)

2 Pacifier ($5)

Baby shampoo ($1)

Baby lotion ($1)

Toiletries Total: $27×2=$54+ Baby $16= $70

Clothes

It is best to pack for the worst of weather in your area. As mentioned earlier, the coat and shoes will be grabbed initially- so those are not mentioned in the kits. They are too big and bulky to fit, too often used, and too expensive to have double of. Being from Utah, that means cold weather. It would always be better here to be too warm than too hot. For this reason, we pack clothes that will be warm enough in the winter knowing we could always cut anything if it was the middle of the summer. In packing clothes we just use old clothes we don’t wear as much any more.

Typical adult:

1 Hat ($1)

1 Long sleeve shirt (old clothes)

1 Short sleeve shirt (old clothes)

Scarf ($1)

Gloves ($1)

Pants (old clothes)

3 Socks -1 wool, 3 regular (already had (Costco has great affordable wool socks))

Underwear (old clothes)

Thermals

Children:

We keep their clothes in a bag towards the top of the kit because we know it will need to be changed frequently with their growing size. Our children are 1 and an infant. For them I pack:

1 Hat ($1)

3 Onesies (old clothes)

Scarf ($1)

Pants (old clothes)

3 Socks (old clothes)

12 diapers (already had)

3 cloth diapers (I bought these specifically for the kits- I don’t use cloth diapers) ($5)

1 package of wipes ($3)

Childbearing Women:

Because I am often changing sizes from being regular size, pregnant, post-pregnant, and nursing, I brought clothes that would fit me in any size. My jeans are stretchy and fit when I’m not pregnant and am. I brought a maternity shirt and a regular shirt.

Clothes total: $13

Documents:

We keep a waterproof/fireproof safe. Within this, we keep the photocopies of the following documents:

Immunization records

Social security cards

Credit and bank numbers

Insurance Info- health, car, and life insurance

Drivers’ licenses

Birth certificates

Addresses and phone numbers of all immediate and extended family members

Marriage certificate

Will

Documents Total: Copy costs

Also, make sure you have an out of state contact that your family has agreed on. We have my sister that lives in Arizona. Everyone knows, including her, to call her if we need to relay any messages to each other.

Total Costs:

Costs sum up for family of 4 (2 adults and 2 babies):

Here is a chart you can print to check off the items you have:

These packs are always a work in progress so if you have any other good ideas on how to make them less expensive, less maintenance or missing items please leave comments below.

Authored by Steven Cooper Google