Tiny Survivor: Build Your Own Mini Survival Kit

Tiny Survivor: Build Your Own Mini Survival Kit

Bigger isn’t always better. Sure, a large survival kit packs a punch when you need it and has a great place in your emergency supplies collection, but it is just that – large.

Multi-persona survival kits are great for stationary situations, like an earthquake, tornado, or some disaster scenario that prevents you or your family from leaving and replenishing supplies elsewhere. There’s usually food, water, sanitation, emergency medical equipment, and general gear for staying put. But what if you have to leave in hurry?

What if you find yourself in such a dire situation that you must leave immediately, no questions asked and with nothing but the clothes on your back and the stuff in your pockets? What then? What do you grab on the way out?

Your bug-out bag is in the back of the upstairs closet where you keep it out of the way, or maybe there’s no space on whatever’s transporting you out of the area. You have your wallet, your wedding ring, and a mini survival kit you keep near the door for just such occurrences.

It has what you would need or want inside. It is tiny enough to fit in any pocket (or to easily hide), and you know exactly what’s in it, because you made it yourself. And here’s how.

There are a host of containers available around which to base your mini survival kit. There’s a larger traveler’s wallet (it’s even RFID protected), little plastic storage boxes, a travel soap container and even a small zippered pouch used to carry plastic bags for your dog. The best container, however, is the ubiquitous Altoids tin. They’re cheap, sturdy and perfectly sized to not only fit in your pocket but fit stuff in them. Once you’ve emptied out the “curiously strong mints” and washed out the container, you can either give it a coat of paint for personalization or leave it looking like a tin of mints to give it a more clandestine appearance (if you’re ever in a situation where someone is frisking you down, they might pass on a simple-looking mint container).

There are dozens of things you could put inside… literally dozens of things that could help you in a wide variety of situations. The prepper in you will want to include them all because you won’t know what trouble you will fall into, but the practical person in you knows that a mint tin is only so big and it can only hold so much. So, sacrifices have to be made: No toilet paper, no tiny bar of soap, no moist wipes, no insect repellent wipes, no whistle, one cotton ball instead of two, four matches instead of a pack, a small knife instead of a multi-tool, two dollars instead of four.

This mini kit isn’t supposed to be inclusive — it can’t be — and it isn’t supposed to include creature comforts — it won’t — but what it is supposed to do is give you a big advantage in a small package.

However, have you got a tiny bit of extra room in the corner? Throw in a mint. It won’t help you survive, but it will help you feel a little more human.

 

The little mint container is just the perfect size to hold a surprisingly large variety of things, all while keeping a low profile, providing easy access and extreme portability

 

Laid out, the contents of our kit look impressive, and we were surprised everything fit. However, that fitment literally came down to the difference between five pieces of paper or six.
Laid out, the contents of our kit look impressive, and we were surprised everything fit. However, that fitment literally came down to the difference between five pieces of paper or six.