It's Tool Time!

Welcome to September! The kids are going back to school, the days are getting shorter and Christmas items are inexplicably creeping into stores. It’s also Tuesday, time for week 8 of your shopping tips. If you’ve been diligently reading each week and following my sage advice, you probably have yourself a pretty sweet emergency kit. So, what do we need for Week 8? It’s time for small tools to help you manage a disaster situation. Here goes:

*Scissors

*Safety Glasses

*Utility Knife/Leatherman multi-tool

*Battery operated/hand crank radio. (Don’t skimp on this. I’ve purchased a cheap one from a discount mail-order catalog that shall remain nameless and it’s a pile of junk. Don’t waste your money. You may think you’re a smart cookie for saving a few bucks now, but you’ll be more than peeved when you actually need it and it doesn’t work)
*Extra batteries
*Flashlights (Again, buy a decent flashlight. Don’t rely on the freebie that you got when you signed up for a checking account. I speak from experience.)
*Heavy work gloves
*Disposable dust mask (these are super cheap and will be handy if Mt. St. Helens spews some ash your way)
*Fire extinguisher (It’s best to have one on every floor of your house and a small one in your kit---also…know how to use it. It’s not really useful to have one if all you do is throw it at the fire and run away screaming)

So, this week is a little harder on the wallet. Seriously though, it will be a lot cheaper to have these all on hand now rather than trying to beat up people at Wal-Mart when the shelves are empty after some major catastrophe.