Episode 130: Cheap Preps

spk_0:   0:01
Hello, everybody.

spk_1:   0:02
Hello, everybody. And working with Show The big show, the most important and critically came show that is recorded in our lounge chairs in the lounge chairs. We're not driving at the moment. We're sitting there. It's late at night, at least for spies. It's not late at night from a but it's late night for so haven't only knows what's gonna come out of her out tonight.

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We have a morning person and a night owl window house, and

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you can guess which one's which. But actually, we were recording this podcast to go along with the article that somebody who is a morning person morning person has been working has been working on. So we're, well, she's not quite got the article finished yet. But we're gonna go ahead and do the podcast right now because I'm gonna be honest with you. We have you got against foreign particle account about two hours to get this posted. So we're gonna do the podcast now instead of waiting. So I really don't know what she said in this article. I just know that she was writing an article, so I'm gonna turn it over to her and she hasn't. You

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know, some things about this

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she has the winner could be so shaken.

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Uh, some days you want to make some prepping progress, but you just don't have the cash to spend. So this one's about valuable preps for under five bucks already? Absolutely. My favorite prep costs Nothing if you've already got the Internet connection because learning, knowing how to do things and what? The Internet of your fingers. Come on, man. You got, uh, an enormous amount of resources so you can learn to do a ton of different things. And I think being able to do things is the most durable and valuable prep here I am about ready to take off on a flight later this weekend. And that's something TSA can't declare. I can't take with

spk_1:   2:07
me like most everything else.

spk_0:   2:10
Yeah, um, they might let me take a piece of paper if I promise it won't give anybody a paper cut under any circumstances. But if it got in my head, I could bring it along. So that's that's my favorite. Your favorite cheap breath pizza. No, dear. That was your favorite cheap dinner.

spk_1:   2:38
Well, she pretty good. Okay. Okay. Uh my cheap. Um, 22 long rifle.

spk_0:   2:47
Hey, I know what one of yours is because you make sure we we have a ton of them around all the time. Paper maps?

spk_1:   2:54
Uh, yeah. Hey, there's no excuse for not having paper maps if you travel at all, you don't now going on the interstate. If you grab on the interstate, especially, you go across the straight line, you know you gotta stop in powder your nose. He knows a shiny anyway, right? You stop. You stopped there at the state line. Ah, rest stops. Don't get the have free maps. Welcome

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center. To give you a free man. Take a

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free map.

spk_0:   3:19
Yeah, because Elektronik not only are our electronics possible to fail, but there's also the deal that if you want to do, ah, a rear a significant reroute. It is much easier to do that with a paper map, but it is with most GPS is

spk_1:   3:38
now we're gonna We're gonna violate our own little thing here and say that Although we do have paper maps, we also have I've picked up, at least for every state that we normally travel to, and some that we sometimes travel to. We've picked up the quick fold maps because related. Okay, I'm where I am in Dover. Okay. I want to get to, uh, smear Berg. It's over here. What? How can I just do this? Okay. This is OK. That road right there. Boom. Ah. Good example of this. A real good example. We were in Kearney, Nebraska, last year for the eclipse, and I'm a photographer, and I was Stone called Gold. Gonna have an eclipse picture. Absolutely. Stone cold. Gonna have myself a good eclipse picture. So I literally booked a hotel room from Colorado all the way across the eclipse past to southern Kentucky.

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Not just one hotel room either. Goes all the way

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across there because I was gonna find a place that the sky was clear, if at all possible. And as the day got closer and the day got close, we're about a week out. And a lot of the weather was looking sketchy for a long part of that path. You could see it was getting sketchy, so we decided, Okay, we're gonna head west because our best chance looks like it's going to be west. So we did. We got in our car And we We had the week off before Carney are before the eclipse and we went out there and we started driving around North Dakota, South Dakota, seeing what was there. And as we were doing it, we were in the middle of nowhere this whole time. But we would be like, Okay, yes, I can take the interstate to Pierre. That's how they say Pierre in South Dakota. In case you're wondering, Pier, um, you could take the interstate, but let's find a blue road so we'd get out our map and we'd find a blue road to get there because you just can't see America from the interstates.

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It all looks the same from the interstate of the best

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vacations we've ever had. That was mostly traveling vacation because we were in two places. You just never imagine if you hadn't got there. So we did this the whole trip. We were wearing these things out. We're using them so much. But then we get to Kerney. Spend the night. Mercifully, we had clear skies. There was one little puff of cloud that I thought might give us some trouble. But we had great. Okay, this. Our eclipse gave very clips, and so we had a beautiful eclipse. And just as the eclipse is go starting to leave, we pack up and go. We hop in our car and we hit the interstate. My plan was to get as far as I could get because they're literally millions of people. And in Nebraska for this eclipse, extra people, extra people on Nebraska is not built for handling millions of people.

spk_0:   7:04
They don't have to do it often.

spk_1:   7:06
No. So my plan waas to get as far as I could get on the interstate, making good time, and then when it starts getting really congested on towards Omaha on, unfortunately, didn't get that part. Works to hit the blue roads, and that's what we did. We took the blue roads back and we took the blue rose. But you can't program the stuff into a GPS. Okay, you can. But you're gonna be messing with forever. Trying to be okay. Take this town because it wants to put you back on the interstate. No, Get out your map. You pop it up and you say, OK, we come down this road's 30 miles south and it will take us over to here. And they were driving. Okay, Well, um okay, we're here. We're here. We're here. And then then all of sudden, you turn that you hit the road. Says us 1 36 I know where this goes. Kiss this'll is a road that goes within not very far, very far of where I live in North Missouri because it goes right across the north part of the state. It is the main road across the north part.

spk_0:   8:13
And you know what? This situation sounds a lot like to me to bug out when a whole lot of other people were trying to get out of the same place. That's

spk_1:   8:20
exactly what was going on. We were talking about this during the trip. This is exactly what happened. This is how you get off the main line of egress from a situation We were big, stacked up 100 miles from Omaha, was bumper to bumper going towards Omaha. There's no good way around that. Okay? Because people had come from Chicago out here, and that road's gonna take him right back to Chicago. I mean, it was just, like, insane amount of traffic, but we got, we went ahead and we hit the hit the Road south. And what did we find?

spk_0:   8:57
We were ahead of the crowd and no trying to traffic.

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And all this area here had the full eclipse. But people had gone back to the interstate, so it was a really good lesson. And it didn't cost us a dad gum time. Well, okay did. Because we were using with fancier math put, the regular state paper map would have done just fine.

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One. That one big category for cheap fixes. An important one is, ah, stuff you can use to fix things. Ah, there's a whole lot of really good, really cheap fixes. Dental floss,

spk_1:   9:39
dental floss. It's the greatest thing ever.

spk_0:   9:41
Yeah, it's 12 thread

spk_1:   9:43
separate up to duct tape, of course.

spk_0:   9:45
Well, duct tape is on the list, too. Nails and screws of various sizes as I've started to learn. I have not been a carpenter historically, but I've been learning as part of my own prepping education, and I'm always surprised at how useful a variety of sizes of nails and screws are when you need to manufacture something which we used to call jury rigging I guess that's a preacher. Uh,

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Joe Billy Engineering,

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Because it's good for both water purification and surface decontamination. That one. You don't can't stock a whole bunch of it, but having a gallon around all the time is a swell bleach. Um, but

spk_1:   10:34
you can't stock the chemical that makes up into bleach. The hydra. Yeah, hypochlorite. You construct that? That lasts a lot longer.

spk_0:   10:45
Yeah, they call it cool shock, but you got to make sure that's the only thing in there. This this ah list is basically just to toss out ideas to people. I'm taking away the but I can't afford it. Excuse guys, you may not be able to afford yourself a new gun or something, but you can absolutely afford to make sure you've got a plan to reconnect with your, uh, with your people and then a backup plan for that and maybe a backup plan for that that everybody knows so that if the phone's quit working, you won't be wondering how to reconnect.

spk_1:   11:22
And also not just a back up plan or a plan for everybody reconnecting if you're all scatter of a place but a backup plan for if you've got a bug out of your house. It's on fire. Where are you going? To meet up across the street. Or where are you going to meet up So that, you know, everybody got out. Same thing at work. If you work in a building, you should have talked to your building safety. Um, coordinator. And if you're like a lot of businesses, when you start talking about this, you're going to become your building. But seriously, you need to talk about your building safety coordinator. You need to map out where all the fire extinguishers are, where all the fire alarms are. You need to factor in, um, egress routes. If you can't even see the world famous Seagram

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right now, visualize where you spend most of your time and say where the nearest three ways out, our and the nearest fire alarm and the dearest o e. D. For example, if you don't know all that stuff off the top of your head, now is the time to figure that stuff out.

spk_1:   12:38
Right? And this is a habit you need to get into where you are in your house. You need to map out. Not like where is your fire extinguisher. But is your fire extinguisher going to be really hard to get, too If your stuff is on fire? Because if it is, you need to move. It

spk_0:   12:51
is is it between where you usually are and the usual, uh, high risk spots.

spk_1:   12:58
Right now, another thing to keep in mind on the same vein is when you go into a public building, this is something I've been starting to do. You walk into a public building, you don't just look around and see what who's there and you don't just look around and look at the painting of the wall. What you're looking for is, where is the fire alarm? Where is the fire extinguisher? Where are the fire tools? Where is the E D, which you should get training for? It's a low cost prep. You should get training. A lot of these Red Cross classes are free, not all of them. But you could find

spk_0:   13:38
probably why I'm CIA. And things often often offer free drinks,

spk_1:   13:42
you know, and take the E. D version of it because it's usually free. You don't have to own a e D, although that would be a kind of a cool prepped, but

spk_0:   13:51
it's not under $5. Let's put it that way. It's not under $5

spk_1:   13:55
but the training you can often get for under $5. The ability to look around and examine your surrounding find out where all the exits are. Look at the window. See if you could get out them if you had to. This isn't being paranoid. This is just being aware. Um, it doesn't. None of this costs you a dying to d'oh, Not the time. Not one red cent. Does it cost you to do?

spk_0:   14:24
Do make sure you have backup plans because we have, for example, salty would drop me off somewhere. And we would plan to reunite by bicycle somewhere along the trail. Right. And I start going down the trail and life is good. And then I come to a trail fail. Part of it fell off into the river and there's no going around it. This has happened. This has happened to us.

spk_1:   14:48
And there's no cell phone signal of this trail.

spk_0:   14:50
Yeah, so we can't do the cellphone thing. So we had ah, Plan B in a Plan C. So we were able to reconnect without a lot of drama. And it was much when I first saw the trail had fallen off into the river. And I'm like, Oh, great. Now what I'm like, Oh, well, I had an answer to that. And that allowed the ride to continue to be pleasant because I knew what was not to spend hours and hours trying to reconnect.

spk_1:   15:17
She's basically went back the other way. And then, um, road past for the parking thing was she knew I wouldn't be there because it wouldn't be time. There wouldn't be time for me to be back. I did go on to the next town, figure out the trail, was closed and then go back. It's a shame, you know, edgiest. Would bride a couple miles down the trail turn around right back until I got there. Not really very exciting, but But we have a protocol,

spk_0:   15:47
and we knew it would work because obviously, if we're there, then we know the road to that place is open. So yeah, that that kind of ah backup plan a basic food and water. Everybody can afford to get hold of some two liter bottles because people will give them to you if he asked. Ah, buying a little bit of extra food every time your food shop everybody could afford.

spk_1:   16:12
Just buy a can by a can

spk_0:   16:14
box of pasta last a long time by Keep it mouth safe.

spk_1:   16:19
You know, Go ahead and buy yourself on extra thing of oatmeal. A lot of good food. Not well by yourself. It's not a charism assault profusely from anything else is buying extra things like 49 cents for a pound of salt. Have a couple extra pounds of salt stuff as long as it doesn't go bad. Have a little bit of extra

spk_0:   16:45
vinegar, useful voters, a cleaning supply and for canning food,

spk_1:   16:49
There's all kinds of stuff that's really, really useful. That isn't expensive. Another. There's a couple other things that they're useful for many things. Hydrogen peroxide. It's cheap. It doesn't last forever.

spk_0:   17:00
Yeah, you don't get carried away on that one either.

spk_1:   17:02
I just want my butt Rubbing alcohol. Yep. Is great. Because you can use it for all kinds of stuff. Um, getaway, pressing, reload

spk_0:   17:17
information. Backups. Oh, in the in the story I'm putting links to a lot of previous stories have done on this stuff because it's useful stuff. And I just thought it was time to float some ideas out there to get people started. And then we attach the links to help. You will learn more about him if you need to. Information backups is an important thing that costs little or nothing.

spk_1:   17:40
Yeah, and you can do this multiple ways, and you should do this multiple ways important to keep a physical extra backup of your critical documents. Very important, because if your house burns down here, your wallet, your passport room side, Well, it's gonna be a pain.

spk_0:   17:58
I spent part of my day doing a backup, making sure I had the correct numbers for the credit cards that are still in my wallet. Uh, so that if my wallet should get lost, I will know exactly which cards I need to cancel and what numbers I need to call. And that information is not in the wallet with the cards said, like Pete lost. I've found someplace else to put it and also made a note of contact information.

spk_1:   18:26
Which reminds me, you should probably put your passport in your bag.

spk_0:   18:29
I already did that.

spk_1:   18:31
Just something because there's another way to get on a plane.

spk_0:   18:33
It's my passport card I brought with me

spk_1:   18:36
that that is enough to get you on a domestic flight. Yeah, so it's very brigand. Think another thing. Although that does remind me true story. Um, U s postal service. I went to rip a postal box. Our postal box, actually, the one we use for three B. Y. Um, it's not in the town that we live in, because I don't actually check it, because I just have to have it. Okay, we don't actually get mail, but I just have to have it. So I took two forms of identification. This is Justin aside, this is my aside. Took two forms of identification. Driver's license. Okay, They took my passport because you have to have two portions of identification to get a P o box. So I went in there and I handed it to to the lady, and she's smiling and happy. Yes, true. True. Try reply sitio. Okay, here's your second form of identification s. I gave her the passport. She says I can't use that. What? It's my bloody passport. It's legal identification. This is a guess but it has your picture on it. And you could hear the thing. Yeah, she says Why have to have a form of photo I d and a form of non photo I d these air to photo I d. S.

spk_0:   20:04
Did you try taking your passport and holding it with your thumb over your picture? It might have worked because it sounds like she was just being that stupid.

spk_1:   20:16
But she says, Here's the place where you put in the identification information for your non photo I D. And that's a photo I D. And I'm just sitting there blinking her like, Are you kidding me? Okay, well, I've got I reach in my wallet and I've got my I keep a driver's license and I have a non driver's license just for an additional idea. But sometimes you need to read it. And I handed her and she said, I'm sorry. That's another photo I d. I need a non photo I d. What? What? What I lost

spk_0:   21:01
don't have to make sense, because government,

spk_1:   21:04
she's like, Do you have your automobile insurance card? I haven't out in the car in my glove box, and that's where I keep it. She said I could accept that. So I hand her this randomly printed piece of paper with my name on It could be anybody because it's not a photo I d on. That was perfectly acceptable.

spk_0:   21:30
It could, for all she knows have been your ah, Star Trek identification card. If you'd had such a thing. You know

spk_1:   21:37
which bud way? I don't

spk_0:   21:41
Agent of uncle, Maybe.

spk_1:   21:43
Which, by the way, I don't know. I'm not this kind of geeky person.

spk_0:   21:47
No, I have friends that geeky. Don't get me wrong.

spk_1:   21:52
My friends are not that kinky. One of them who drinks out of a spy tea mug at work anyway. Yeah, I was just that your government at it. Action. And it was just, like, really so pressing right along.

spk_0:   22:12
You are out of financial excuses. There are lots of valuable. Perhaps you can do that. Cost almost nothing. And I would bet you haven't done all of them or don't have all of them handy where they ought to be.

spk_1:   22:25
Yeah. I mean, the water thing is a good example. You get two liter bottles all over the place. All you gotta do filling up, rotate them every six months, which is what I would do aboutthe water onto your garden or whatever. Gardening is a very low cost, very, very low cost prep. Learning how to garden is important. Buying garden season. Having them ready to go for next year is very good thing to be doing this time of year, because now they're cheap, all kinds of stuff that you just doesn't cost you money learning doesn't cost you money. Um,

spk_0:   23:06
that doesn't mean reading a lot of random people's opinions either, but actually gaining the ability to do new things and having reliable sources for information

spk_1:   23:22
already. I think this wrapped us to wrap us good by me. All right, we'll talk to you next time and have a great day.