Home Emergency Supply-Kit

There are several moments in life where Ken and I will turn to each other, laugh, and say, "I guess this means we are adults." Picking out paint was one of the most recent moments, and then again when we decided to put together an Emergency Supply-kit for our home. We actually had fun trying to find the best bargains on items and checking them off one-by-one. We were ecstatic when we found cool water jugs that held more then just 1-gallon (maybe more nerdy then "just being responsible adults," or maybe it just means we are easily amused). We also read that less then 22% of Americans are prepared for a disaster, yikes! But look at us :) jk.

I did some research to try and find the most comprehensive list of items we would need. One emergency-kit checklist that I liked was on Real Simple's website. Another helpful website I found was through Ready.gov and they had many different resources; there big thing was have a kit, make a plan, and be informed. One resource I really liked was that if you had to text your family with emergency contact information, etc... you could fill out a quick form and hit send as a text through their website - click this link to check-it out. Another resource I liked that they mentioned was talking about having a family meeting and making a plan. They included a form for you to fill out and guide you - I always love filling in the blanks on those types of things :). A couple of other random resources I came across: Resources for helping your child through a disaster, what to do when you are in your car and an emergency happens, purifying your water, 7 steps to earthquake safety, and finally what to do when you are deciding to stay or evacuate.

One thing that I did not think of at first when I was making our kit, was all the financial fall out you could experience in an emergency. I found the Emergency Financial First Aid Kit, EFFAK and it was very helpful. The "kit" has a check-list of all the paperwork copies you should have in a waterproof container along with your emergency kit, or in a safety deposit box (Okay, safety deposit box is a little to "adult" for us at this stage, but you get the idea). It walks you through items you should have copies of such as your birth certificate, passport, last year's tax information, health insurance, etc... I also found that it is important to have quarters on-hand for a pay-phone in case cell phones don't work, and also enough cash on-hand to last about a week (preferably small bills).

We are taking baby-steps to complete our kit, but so far it has been fun! Check out our own check-list (our list from several different sources) to see prices, places to buy, and how we are doing so far! In our tight financial situation

we we are trying to build a budget-friendly emergency-kit. Needless to say, we still have a long ways to go. But we did find several of the items at places like the Dollar Tree, Walmart, and the Thrift store :) Hope this helps you get started with yours!