Trash Bags To Bandanas Practical Backup Gear

0:02 You are listening to the Common Sense Practical Prepper, sponsored by Duct Tape, the real Duct Tape. It fixes everything except bad decisions. Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. America, from border to border, coast to coast, and all ships at sea. Here is your host, Keith.

0:20 Hey, all, if you're looking for the Common Sense Practical Prepper Podcast for October the 3rd, 2026, you have found the right podcast. I am Keith, and we'll get a few things out of the way, a few housekeeping items. I've kept everybody up to date on Lone Man on the Ridge, becoming a book that is still going forward.

0:43 I will update as needed. Episode 18 is pretty much done. Episode 19 is in format form, I guess you could say. And I hope to get episode 18 recorded Sunday, Monday at the latest. And my goal is to have 18 and 19 recorded and uploaded by this time next weekend. And I think I'm going to end this book with episode 20.

1:16 And I need to work on that. So I'm going to take a break after 18 and 19 are uploaded and recorded. And I'm actually going to take a lot of time to figure out how I'm going to end it with episode 20. Thank you for all the emails, the words of encouragement. A lot of folks asking, is this going to be a series?

1:37 Please don't let it stop with this book. And I honestly don't know. Again, this was something I just pulled out of left field and decided to do between episodes. And the success of this is all due to you, my listeners, because if it wasn't for you guys providing feedback and letting me know that you liked it, then I probably just would have maybe stopped after seven episodes just to kind of do it just for kicks and giggles.

2:03 But we're moving forward with that. On the weather front, oh, like what I did there. On the weather front, here in Richmond, it appears that fall is finally here. It is cold and rainy, about 62 degrees, and in the extended forecast, it is not due to get above 75 for at least the next week to 10 days.

2:23 Fall is by far my favorite season of the year. I like spring, I like summer, don't get me wrong, and I don't mind winter, but fall is my favorite time of year. There's something about fall that takes me back to when I was in college. I was at university, at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

2:44 It just something just takes me back. Football, all the time I had with friends and all sorts of things. It just brings back a lot of good memories. Hoodies, I love hoodies. I've still got hoodies left over from college. They've seen better days, don't get me wrong, but I still enjoy putting on one of those old hoodies I wore back a long, long time ago.

3:07 And it just really brings back a lot of memories. And I really, I really do enjoy that. So I had in college overall, I had more positive memories than negative ones. And believe me, there were some negative ones. 18-year-old out on his own, hadn't drank alcohol before I got to college. And you can imagine the hilarity and shenanigans that ensued after that.

3:29 But again, I digress. So I've kind of disconnected a little bit from social media, set the phone down, and just kind of taking a break, if you will. One thing I was doing, I actually went down a rabbit hole the other day, and I was looking at bunkers. I've looked at bunkers years ago, just again, just for kicks.

3:50 Certainly well out of my price range, not very practical for my current situation. And I actually found several additional websites that I wanted just to poke around and just for the heck of it, just to waste a few hours and kill a few brain cells. Atlas survival shelters, they're probably the best or the most well-known out there.

4:10 I don't want to say they're the best because I haven't critiqued or really checked out their shelters personally. There's Rising S, they're in Texas, Hardened Structures, they're in Virginia Beach, about an hour away, all sorts of places. And if if you've got a few minutes to kill, just the daydream, oh, if I won the lottery, what would I do?

4:30 I find that kind of cathartic, I guess, just to kind of just lose yourself in daydream. And I also found this place, they have silver properties. It's the website's Vivos, V-I-V-O-S. They have silver properties around the United States where you can like buy a bunker in their community. I don't know that much about it, but the part of the website that I was fascinated with in South Dakota, they purchased 575 concrete reinforced bunkers from an old army post where they used to store munitions, all sorts of bombs and stuff that goes boom.

5:07 They would store them in these hardened concrete shelters. And they're all over the countryside. And they're spread out kind of here and there because if they were to be targeted, the bomb or the missile would hit one of the bunkers. And in the event it penetrated, it would destroy the munitions in that bunker.

5:27 But the other 574 bunkers would be spared. So they're all cleaned out, move in ready, I guess. What do they call that? Turnkey. They're all cleaned out, pretty good size. You obviously, if you're a handyman or handy gal, handy woman, if you're handy with tools, you can outfit them yourselves. Or I'm sure there's plenty of contractors in the area that are just salivating to have a job to make that your little home away from home, your little shelter, what have you.

5:57 But they're really, really neat. So check out Vivos, V-I-V-O-S, the property in South Dakota. They have a property in Indiana. I think they have a property over in the EU, but it's it's a very good website and not a lot of detailed information on the website about some of the other properties, and rightfully so for operational security reasons.

6:18 But if you got 30 minutes to kill, go check it out. It's really kind of cool. And then there's the gold standard, if you will, the folks that buy these Atlas missile silos, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, and they turn these things into multi-million dollar condominiums. If you have a chance, check out some of those YouTube videos.

6:41 They are insane. But enough of my rambling. The original reason for this podcast is looking at everyday items you have in your home that can be used in your preps. Now, here's the caveat. The things we're going to talk about are kind of like the backup to the backup, or they'll be used as like the emergency item as opposed to what we primarily use in particular situations.

7:11 So the first one, here's the first one: the trash bag. Okay, the contractor's bag, not the one you have in your kitchen garbage can, but the heavy, thick contractor bags. These things do a multitude of roles. Rain poncho, cut a hole in for your head, your arms. You have instant rain gear. Stay dry, stay warm in cold, wet weather.

7:34 Staying dry just isn't about being comfortable. It's about keeping hypothermia at bay and not freezing to death. It can be used as a shelter. Stick a couple of these together. It makes a decent roof for a shelter, a windbreak, a ground cover so you're not laying in the mud. Again, would we rather have a regular poncho or a raincoat?

7:57 Absolutely. Again, these are not to take the place of the raincoat that you have in your go bag or your get home bag. Dental floss. Okay, we can talk about dental floss and paracord. So we'll talk about dental floss first. Dental floss is a very strong, very thin cordage. Hundreds of feet of it can be wound up and put into a very small container, weighs nothing, fits in your pocket.

8:25 So most people will have dental floss in their medicine cabinet where they keep their toothpaste and their toothbrush in the bathroom. It can be used to rig a shelter, tie gear down, repair a torn pack, a ripped seam. It's tougher than a lot of thread. You can even use it to hang food up in a tree away from animals or rig a simple trip line.

8:48 Obviously, rope, twine, or paracord would be your primary choice, but dental floss is definitely a good alternative. Crayons. Crayons can be used as candles. A crayon and the paper around it, that would be the wick, they can burn up to 30 minutes. So go commandeer your kids' crayons and give it a try and see if it works.

9:14 Again, our flashlights and our emergency candles are the primary source of light in this situation, but a crayon will work in a pinch. A bandana. And once I did the research on the bandanas, I realized I don't have any bandanas in my get home bag or my go bag. I have some N95 masks, but the bandana does several different things.

9:42 Pre-filter dirty water, strain out the mud, the leaves, the rocks, soak it and tie it around your neck if it's really hot outside. Cover your mouth to keep from breathing in smoke or dust. Use it as a band-aid, use it as a sling for a hurt arm. Tie it to a stick, and now it's a signal flag. Wrap it around a hot pot handle to lift it off the fire.

10:04 Trail marker, tear it into strips so you can remember where you've been. So if you need to find your way back onto a trail, a million different things. So I could go on and on. Let's go to the kitchen. Aluminum foil. You can cook on it, a signal mirror if you need to flag down, folks. Shape it into a cup or a little pot.

10:24 Wrap food, reflect heat back from a fire towards you. Coffee filters, but not for coffee. They can be used to pre-filter dirty water as well, just like your bandana. Probably do a little bit better job than the bandana, but it still works. It can be used for tinder for a fire. And in a pinch, people have actually used it for drumroll, please, toilet paper, a metal can, like soup or your veggie can.

10:52 Don't toss it. It can be a cooking pot, a cup, punch some holes in it, and you have a little stove or a little lantern. Baking soda. Baking soda works great as a fire extinguisher for a grease fire. It can be used as toothpaste, it's an antacid, and it cleans just about everything. Very, very inexpensive.

11:14 Salt and vinegar can be used to preserve food, clean and disinfect the countertops or the table or whatever you want to disinfect. Again, it's 2026, and there's probably 50 different things available to us to clean or disinfect a surface before we have to break out the salt and vinegar. But it's an option.

11:35 Steel wool, and this one's kind of crazy. Take a piece of steel wool, fine steel wool, and touch it to both ends of a nine-volt battery. That's the small rectangular battery, the kind we have in our smoke detectors, and it sparks and catches fire almost instantly. So here are two things from your junk drawer, and you've got fire with no matches at all.

11:56 So steel wool and a battery. If you have those batteries in your junk drawer, please make sure the little plastic protector caps are covering both the positive and the negative terminal. Be careful if you have multiple batteries in like a little bag that those terminals aren't touching each other. Okay.

12:15 You don't want a needle or a spoon or a knife blade or something like that touching the positive and negative terminals on that 9-volt battery in your junk drawer or wherever it's stored and causing a fire. So just please be careful with that. Cooking oil. Any cooking oil, pour some in a shallow can, drop a wick in it.

12:37 The wick can be twisted cloth, and you have an oil lamp that will burn for hours. People lit their homes for hundreds of years using this method. Again, not the primary method, but something that works. All right, let's head to the bathroom. Chapstick. So chapstick is not just for your lips. Rub it on a cotton ball, and you've got a great water-resistant fire starter that lights very easy and burns for a pretty long time.

13:07 It'll waterproof a small cut, it'll stop a squeaky hinge, and it even protects metal from rust. Another really cool use for chapstick or Carmex or whatever you want to call it. You can put it around your cuticles, around your fingernails, and it keeps your cuticles, I guess, from drying out and cracking.

13:31 Inadvertently just gave you a health tip. And I think that's probably the first health and beauty tip that I've ever given on this podcast. So there you go. Hand sanitizer, the alcohol-based stuff. Great fire starter. Squirt some on the Tinder, on the cotton ball, whatever you're using. And it will even help damp wood catch.

13:52 Obviously, it's great for cleaning your hands. Two jobs and one little bottle. Petroleum jelly, very similar to the uses we talked about with the chapstick. Smear it on a cotton ball, and you have one of the least expensive, best fire starters out there. It burns for several minutes, even in some windy conditions.

14:12 Metal clothes hangers. The wire can be used for repairs, a tool for fishing something out of the drain. You straighten it out, a hundred different uses. Duct tape. If you don't have duct tape in your go bag or your get home bag, I want you to turn this podcast off immediately. Or if you're in the car, I need you to turn around and go to your nearest store and buy you some duct tape.

14:37 Absolutely need duct tape. Just go running into the store and say, Where's the duct tape? Keith said, I have to have duct tape. Please tell me where it is. I have to have it now. And I'm sure the kind gal or guy behind the counter will look at you like you're nuts, but they will also point you to the direction where you can get yourself some duct tape.

14:57 Super glue. Super glue fixes everything just like duct tape. You can use it to close wounds in the field. That's what it was invented for. I did not know that. I thought it was just glue. Pinch the wound shut, dab a couple drops of the super glue over it, blow on it, whatever you want to do, and it's going to keep that wound closed and it'll waterproof it.

15:23 So we've we've stolen our kids' crayons, we've gone to the store and bought all their duct tape, and now we know an extra use for super glue. Back to paracord. If you have paracord boot laces, which most of them should be made out of paracord or paracord type material, you've got about 20 feet of serious cordage.

15:42 The great thing about paracord, the guts, the inner strands are super, super strong. That's where paracord gets its strength from. It can be used as a fishing line, sewing thread, sutures, a million different things. Altoids or mints, a tin of mints, or an old prescription bottle that's empty, or a bottle with like your vitamins in it.

16:07 Like I have vitamins B, D, and E up in my cabinet in my kitchen. When those are empty, I hang on to those because you can put matches, cotton, fish hooks, a little bit of cash. There are a million different things you can do and a million different uses for those little prescription bottles, medicine bottles, vitamin bottles, or tins of altoids or whatever mints you happen to be chewing on at the time.

16:35 All right. Feminine hygiene products. I'll just say it, I'll just put it right out there. Because they actually are very useful. They're sterile, superabsorbent, and they're individually wrapped. They make great wound dressings on a bad cut, and the cotton inside is a fantastic fire tender. There's a reason why these end up in a lot of very serious first aid kits.

17:01 And don't be the guy that has a serious wound on his arm or his shoulder, and whoever is tending to you breaks out one of these feminine hygiene products and wants to slap, slap it on your wound. Don't be that guy that's like, what are you doing? It'll work. Let the guy, let the gal, let him tend to your wounds and don't be a weenie about it.

17:23 It's gonna work out just fine. So, as a takeaway from all this, as we did a lot of all this tongue in cheek with a little bit of humor, preparedness is not about having a credit card and a shopping list. It's about having the right mindset. It's learning to look at just ordinary stuff you have around your house and see if there's other uses for it.

17:43 That's a skill that nobody can take away. It's just being observant, it's just being able to adapt. So the person who sees 10 uses in a trash bag could be considered more prepared than a person with a garage full of expensive gear that doesn't even know how half of it works. Resourcefulness beats fancy equipment every single time.

18:05 And the beautiful part is you can start tonight. It doesn't cost you a thing. Just walk through your own house, apartment, condo, wherever you're at, and look at things with a fresh set of eyes, I guess you could say. You'd be surprised on how many things that you can find that we just spoke about. Not getting to see it now.

18:22 The guy or gal starts walking through their place with a little bag. Honey, where's the duct tape? Honey, and you come out of the bathroom with her personal hygiene products, and you'll probably get a couple odd stares. And maybe what the hell are you doing with that? But a lot of different things out there.

18:38 Have fun with it. Let me know if there's something that I missed, because I'm sure there's tons. Practicalprep podcast at gmail.com. Of course, I'm on the Twitters, prep underscore podcast. All right, folks, thank you so much for stopping by. Really do appreciate it as always. I'll keep everybody updated on chapters 18 and 19.

18:58 And yeah, that's going to do it for me this weekend. All right, folks. And as always, be careful out there. Take care of one another. And until next time.

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