Prepping on $40 a Week: Fire Gear & Container

It's been way too long since our last entry in the $40 a week series, but we're back. Last time around, we talked survival knives. This week, we're focusing on two bug-out bag essentials--a fire kit and a container for cooking and boiling.

Fire Starting Gear
There's a variety of ways you can go with either, and most of 'em are pretty good. For fire kit, I personally like a butane lighter or two, backed up with a ferro rod/fire steel, and with plenty of good tinder.

Raid your junk drawer or mosey on down to the local grocery store and pick up a pack of your lighters of choice--I generally go with Bic lighters of a lighter color. Bics are pretty sturdy and bomb-proof relative to cheaper brands, and the lighter color allows you to check fuel levels. Having two--one to ride in your pack, one that rides in your pocket while you're in bug out mode--is a pretty good idea. Bust the annoying child lock off too.

Biogas for Fuel

Check out this post over at John Robb's Resilient Communities, on the virtues of DIY Biogas Digesters. Think of Bartertown's pig waste power plant and you've got the idea--waste goes in and methane and a "fertilizer slurry" comes out. Basically septic a tank on steroids.

Build cost under a thousand in materials + labor, and supplies around 20 hours of cooking fuel or 5 hours of electricity, per day. The system will function indefinitely as long as there's waste coming in--totally sustainable. Effort is also minimal, freeing up labor to focus on other tasks.

Very cool. Sure, it's not as sleek and high tech as solar panels, and there's the collection and hauling around buckets of waste and associated unpleasantness, but it's cheap, sustainable and it works.

More details at Resilient Communities >

Lightweight Cook Kit

Here's my lightweight cooking kit, which consists of:

- 28 ounce Snowpeak Titanium pot and lid
- Sea to Summit Alpha Light long spoon
- Pop can alcohol stove
- Hardware cloth pot stand

Whole kit weighs less than 10 ounces and has some solid versatility. The alcohol stove will run off a variety of fuels and gets water boiling pretty quickly. The hardware cloth pot stand isn't a must have, but it's useful and enables me to cook over twigs, fuel tablets, and so on, in addition to the pop can stove.

The Snowpeak pot nests fairly well under a standard Nalgene-style bottle, with the lid riding nested under the pot. I'm not a titanium junkie, but it's a nice pot and lid, sturdy and lightweight. I would like measurement markings on the sides, though. Came in a set (the Mini Solo), which included a smaller pot and a fairly nice mesh bag. Pricey, but I got mine with an REI member discount.

Went with a spoon over a spork because I couldn't find a long handled spork--the long handle is useful for eating out of food packages, mixing, etc. Does its job.

I need to get together a windscreen, looking at some heavy duty foil for that role.

Tip of the Day: Tea Light Stove

This is a pretty nifty and simple little stove design that uses only the aluminum cup from a tea light candle. Add denatured alcohol and voila! You will need a pot stand (or patience) and your boil times may vary, but a neat little trick to have up your sleeve.