My EDC

So as a mat­ter of expla­na­tion, I am going to list what I use for my EDC.  Keep in mind my EDC is bang­ing around North­ern New Jer­sey most of the time, and in PA and NY states on week­ends some of the time…    I designed my EDC basi­cal­ly around what I think I would need to have in a pinch.  Most every­thing is pushed into an Altoids tin with the excep­tion of  of a Ger­ber paraframe fold­ing knife, a para­cord bracelet (unrav­eled pro­vides 10′ of para­cord in a pinch, and a zip­po lighter that I car­ry pret­ty much every­where I go.  I also have a sep­a­rate EDC Altoids kit I car­ry when I trav­el for busi­ness that is built to go on a plane with me and get through TSA Secu­ri­ty with­out any issues.  I am putting prices next to each one so that you can see how inex­pen­sive it is to cre­ate one for your­self.  This one I car­ry in my day pack:

Altoid kit EDC Kit

1 — But­ton Com­pass — $.99

10 — iodine tablets to dis­in­fect 1.25 gal­lons of water (two tablets dis­in­fects one quart)

1 Each — Salt and Pep­per Pack (Fast Food Restau­rant — Free)

1 — Chick­en Bouil­lon Cube (Out of a $2.50 jar of bouil­lon cubes, so the cost might be $.10, and I like a lit­tle fla­vor if I have to make a soup or sauce in the bush)

1 — Firesteel — From Firesteel.com for 1.99 (I bought 10 of them when I bought them)

1 — Rub­ber fish­ing lure (Free out of my fish­ing tack­le)

4 — Fish hooks (free out of my fish­ing tack­le)

2 — Birth­day can­dles — (Free out of a box of birth­day can­dles, to help start stub­born fires, for light for short peri­ods or to water­proof some­thing)

2 — Zyrtec tablets (Free out of a bot­tle of Zyrtec, and invalu­able 24 hour relief from my aller­gies)

1 — Immod­i­um tablet (Free from a bot­tle of Immod­i­um, and for obvi­ous rea­sons, I would think)

1 — Sudafed Cold & Flu Tablet (Free from my box of Sudafed)

4 — 200mg Advil Tablets wrapped in alu­minum foil (Free from my bot­tle of Advil)

1 — sealed antibac­te­r­i­al oint­ment pack­et — $.80 from a pack­age of them I bought at REI

1 — Sealed alco­hol swab

3 — Band aids

1 — One Quart plas­tic freez­er bag with dou­ble seal — For gath­er­ing water or fill­ing with veg­e­ta­tion and cre­at­ing a solar still out of so that I can extract water from plants in the bush

2 — fold­ed 1 square foot of heavy duty alu­minum foil for cre­at­ing ad-hoc cook­ing tools

1 — razor blade

5 — wax cov­ered strike any­where match­es wrapped in alu­minum

25′ — 6 lb test fish­ing line

25′ — waxed den­tal floss (this stuff is strong as hell if you need to lash some­thing quick­ly with­out tear­ing down some para­cord.

25′ — sewing thread

3 — sewing nee­dles

12′ duct tape — cut into 3″ strips and lay­ered one over the oth­er and then taped to the inside lid of the Altoids tin

2 — 24″ 45lb test steel fish­ing lead­ers to be used as snares.  — $2.50 at Sports Author­i­ty (I buy them in lots of 10 when I buy them, as they store in VERY lit­tle space.

2′ elec­tri­cal tape seal­ing the Altoid tin closed keep­ing out the mois­ture.

10′ 550 Para­cord — wrapped around the out­side of the altoid tin.

4 — cot­ton balls for tin­der and to keep things from shak­ing around

With­out tak­ing into con­sid­er­a­tion the cost of the bulk goods, if this kit cost me $7.00 to put togeth­er that is a lot of mon­ey.  Again, it is built around my needs and is less gener­ic than those you can buy in the store.  If you are build­ing an EDC kit, I urge you to build one based on the needs and require­ments you may have for your­self and not build some­thing too gener­ic.  I will get into my “car­ry on” EDC kit in anoth­er post…