Hi and a big welcome back to the channel today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today’s video is going to be a little bit different than the content that I normally produce. Normally I focus on finance and macroeconomics, often a lot of geopolitical or current affairs. But today, I wanted to just add a video to the preparation playlist around a number of items I think is really important that you actually own as we go into this difficult period. Or should I say as we continue to go through this difficult period because one of the things that a lot of people have been putting in the comments is that some of the things that I talked about a year ago or even two years ago have already come to pass. And a lot of people said they wish they had these things that I talked about previously. And also, I know many of you will know this, many of you won’t know this, but I actually did serve in the army for over a decade. I’m trained in everything you can imagine in terms of survival and preparation, disaster management, uh, from Arctic, the coldest of climates, right through to arid, the hottest of deserts, from home defense or or compound defense, right through to being on the move and having to survive for long periods of time on your own on the move. So, what I thought I’d do today is just share some of this knowledge. And no, I’m not a a prepping channel, but I did just want to share some of this knowledge that I have with you. And now, many of you who are big-time preppers will already have a lot of these items, but for those of you who are not, I really think it would be valuable if you just have these 30 very, very basic items at your home so that no matter what happens, you will be prepared for the worst. And remember, it’s always best to prepare for the worst and hope for the best because if nothing happens, you’ve lost absolutely nothing, especially with a lot of these lowcost items. So, with that said, let’s get into item number one then. Now, item number one is water filtration. When I went through over a dozen survival courses in different countries around the world, the first thing I was always told to think about was water. That is the number and that’s the same thing I taught my soldiers as well. Number one thing to always bear in mind first is water. And I often hear people say, Neil, I’m fine. I’ve got gallons of water stored at home. I’m I’m good. Well, actually, that’s usually not the case because even if you have a lot of water stored, if you think about the amount of water that a human consumes each day, most people would run out of water. Even the most hardcore with the largest storage capacities, most people would run out of water in an emerter prolonged emergency situation. So that’s why one thing I always say is to get yourself a water filtration system. Yes, having water stored is fine, but you will run out eventually. So a water filtration system is very useful. Now, this ranges from things like your on the counter systems like a Berky, which requires no electricity. It’s gravity-fed, right through to smaller water bottles that you can use on the move. And if you go camping a lot with your family, you’ll probably already have something like these small uh water filtration water bottles. I know that I do. If I’m ever out for 2 or 3 days, I know that I would always take yeah 2 to 4 L of water with me. But the the main thing I would use is a water filtration system of some sort so that I can just fill up water from rivers and streams or lakes or wherever I am. And that brings me on to my next point then which is number two and that’s some sort of water storage or flask. Uh this is a an army issued water bottle by the British Army. Comes with a cup as well and just slots in like this. Uh fits in your rrook sack or however you’re going to carry it. I also have various flasks like this. This is my favorite one. It’s super well insulated and keeps uh liquids hot for usually around 4 to 5 hours in this uh this as well. Another type of flask. And the good thing about this one is that it’s single skinned. So, if you did need to heat this, I mean, it’s not ideal. I’m not recommending it, but if you did ever need to heat this in emergency, you could cuz it’s single skinned, whereas some of the others you can’t. And then I just have my normal uh water bottle which is what I use on a day-to-day basis. Number three then is food. I don’t mean perishable food here. I’m talking about long life stored food. Now you can go anywhere from rice. This is a 4 kilo bag and it will last for quite a long time in this bag on its own. But if you want to actually store uh grains and some long life grains for a lot longer, you’re going to have to start thinking about myar bags and oxygen absorbers or even as far as freeze dryers. Now, this food if you purchase it will cost a lot more. Freeze-dried food is a lot more expensive. We have a good store of it. We don’t have, you know, 30 years worth. We’re not looking uh out that far, but we do have a good store of a couple of years worth alongside our grains and other items that we use on a day-to-day basis. Number four then, I’ve mentioned this a lot of times before, is your clothing. You’ve really got to think now about clothing. Not designer, fashionable, throwaway clothing, but long life warm clothing. Especially if you’re in Europe this winter, uh you you know what’s happening. There’s a lot of crises at the moment. Maybe you’re in a cold climate and there may be some sort of load shedding or you know there may be a lack of energy this year is having nice uh wool jumpers, sweaters, we call them jumpers, you may call them sweaters. Having wool that keeps you warm uh body warmers items like this, this is a body warmer will keep you uh very warm. And then we have uh your usual stuff. So wool uh thick socks, a wool thick hat. This is uh my favorite item actually when it’s freezing cold. And then things like gloves. Now these are a tactical gloves. So I use these when I’m on the range every week. So they’re not super warm, but they are convenient for me because they give me full mobility of my hands and if I’m having to do anything else like anything maneuvers and climbing over stuff, these are really useful cuz it stops me shredding up my hands. Number five then is all about keeping warm at home. So, we have a thick wool blanket. This was from the army surplus store. It cost £20. A normal wool blanket will cost you quite a lot of money. Then, we have uh thinner different fabric uh blankets. We have all sorts of uh these right through to thick winter sleeping bags. So, if I ever needed to use this in an emergency, I’ve got this. Or often I might use sleeping bags anyway when I’m out in winter. If I’m camping in winter, then I will use these sort of items. Number six then is your home heating. This is what you want to think about. Now, whether you use heating oil, electricity, natural gas, or wood, you really want to think about your supply and your storage. Now, obviously, natural gas is not something you probably store at home, but some people again use propane for their heating if you’re quite rural. There’s all sorts of different supplies. Start thinking about your heating situation now. Do you have a a wood burner? This is one of the things I recommended a couple of years ago to get a wood burner before all of these energy crisis. If you have that, have you had your your chimney or your flu swept? If you use oil heating, have you got your boiler serviced? Have you got your oil tank filled up? These are all the things that you want to think about as we go into what is being called this dark winter. Number seven then is all about cooking. If you’re relying on somebody else to provide you with your energy that you’re going to use for cooking, that is something you may want to consider and think about. Honestly, the more independent you can get of all of these sort of things that we’re talking about, the better. Remember, plan for the worst, but simply hope for the best. You’ve lost absolutely nothing by doing any of these things. So, you can go from anything to something like this. This is my cast iron skillet. I swear by this. It weighs a ton. So, you don’t want to be carrying it around. And actually, I can cook on this just using tealight candle. I’ve got a a cast iron stove top. Again, that’s quite heavy, so it’s more for if you’re, you know, needing this at home. Uh, it’s got about eight tealight candles that sits underneath it. And this would be very easy to just put on top of that and and cook very very easily. And if you have a propane burner or something like that, you might want to get something very simple. Again, this is just for an emergency. I know it sounds doom and gloom here, but this is just a worst case scenario. Again, these are British Army mess tins. They are absolutely brilliant. You can easily cook in these, do all sorts of things with these actually. So, it’s better to have this kind of stuff, which costs very little. Uh these were less than £10. So, we’re not talking huge amounts of money here for something that could save your life in an emergency. Number eight then is obviously the fuel that you use. So, do you use wood? Do you have wood burners? will make sure that you’ve got enough wood stored up now ready for the winter time. And that comes into number nine, which is your fuel for other things. Maybe it’s for your vehicle. You might need some gasoline. And you can get these 5 L. I don’t know what that is in America, but these 5 L fuel cans. Uh, obviously don’t store these things in the house. Not just because it’s a fire hazard, but also it absolutely stinks the house out, even if you’ve got a good seal on these things. So, these are the sort of things that you want to think about. Now, I definitely keep at least 10 to 15 L of petrol. I also have around 1,000 L heating oil tank. Obviously, I have wood. I I have pretty much everything that I would need in an emergency situation. And I’ll tell you another beauty of doing these sort of things. For those of you who think this is too much work, this is doom and gloom, whatever, the beauty of this is that it it just takes such a weight off your mind. If you are sat there right now or stood there watching this and you’re thinking about, you know, you’re worrying about some of these things, honestly, once you’ve got them in place, it takes that weight off your mind, that stress, and it just you can relax a lot more. Number 10 then is this stuff. This is washing powder. Now, you can have it as a powder form in you can seal it in bags or tubs or you can get the small tablets, but not the sort of liquid tablets. This stuff is the best. Uh you can buy this in bulk very very cheaply and it lasts forever. So definitely get this just in case as we’ve heard in the UK the sort of energy blackouts that are being talked about if you can’t wash your clothes and you need to do a wash then this is what I used to when I would travel around. I would just fill the sink with some water, use some washing powder, wash the clothes and then hang them up to dry with some pegs on a on a line or something like that. So this is another thing that you should definitely have. Number 11 is pet food. Then make sure that you have enough food for your pets. We know what happened during the lockdowns. A lot of this pet food supplies just ran out very quickly and it did cause a lot of upset and a lot of stress for a number of people because they were worried about feeding their pets. Number 12 then is cleaning products and hygiene related items. One of the things that people forget are the black bags, what you might call trash bags in the USA. People forget this very quickly. Now, these have numerous uses, especially the strong ones. You can use these for all sorts of things, for uh waste, which is the main thing. Sometimes they even will hold some water if you need to collect some water, as crazy as that sounds. You can use them for storing other items, which is very useful as well. They just have so many uses. And then, of course, your hygiene products. This is absolutely crucial. When I was in the field, I would never take say hand gel and all these sort of shower gels. I would just take a very small bar of soap and that was absolutely perfect for me. Number 13 then is linked to number 12, but this is about your health. Do you take prescription items? Do you take medications? What about normal things like your vitamins, vitamins? Uh just having very basic things like a manual toothbrush and toothpaste and these items. Remember what I talked about last year? I actually went out and stocked up on all of these long life um non-p perishable items from toothpaste to to razors to shaving cream to soap and all these things because they never expire. So why would I wait 2 years when the price might double, you know, 2 or 3 years later when I can just buy it all and store it now, especially as these items are so cheap. Number 14 then is one of these things. This is a first aid kit. This is absolutely crucial that you have one of these in your household. This one here is from my vehicle. And I have actually used this before twice when I’ve been out and there has been some sort of a I wouldn’t say an emergency, but there’s been incidents and I’ve had to go back to my car run and get this to actually assist. Now, does that mean that you need some sort of medical training? Not necessarily. As part of my role, I was trained for about six to eight weeks in what you call a medic, a field medic. But it doesn’t mean that you need to know these things. But just having a basic first aid kit and knowing some simple skills would be very useful. And again, what did we see very recently, especially in the UK, in some of the places where there was up to a 3hour wait for an ambulance, an emergency ambulance in some cases because of all sorts of problems. And just recently, there was a lady that almost died in the UK because the road had been blocked off by these sort of protest people. And I’m I’m talking about these climate protest people. The ambulance couldn’t get to her. They had to go different ways. In the end, it had to be a helicopter that came in. See, under these circumstances, you need to have a little bit of basic medical training or at least a first aid kit. Number 15 then is this stuff. You might not think this is very valuable, but aluminum or the Americans call it aluminum foil is extremely valuable and it would be extremely valuable again during any kind of crisis. Now, when I go away, so I’m out um for three, sometimes four day treks at times, I definitely have some of this with me because if I need to cook anything, this is the easiest way to do it over an open fire. Again, I don’t want to carry my very heavy cast iron skillet with me. Sure, I have my mess tins that I showed you before, but this stuff is so simple. You can just wrap whatever you’re cooking into it. If it’s some meat, for example, or fish, wrap it in this, throw it on top of the fire, and it will cook it beautifully without needing to worry about any sort of cleanup or or any sort of equipment. Number 16 then is one that most people forget about, and that is one of these. This is a can opener. Now, you can get fancy ones that do it all for you. The battery, you know, it’s battery operated, or it plugs into the electricity supply. I don’t have any stuff like that. In fact, I don’t even use this one. This is my wife’s one. Mine is about this big. It’s got a little metal hook on it, and I just use it manually to open any can because yeah, most cans look like this these day and they have the ring pull. But I’m pretty sure, I can almost guarantee you if you look in your pantry, you’re going to find some that look like this where they don’t actually have a ring pull on it. So, you’re going to have to, and these are cans of tuna, by the way, that I’m holding up here, which will last I think these are 2027 on these. So, 5 years from now. So, just think about these things. Often, it’s it’s small items that you haven’t thought about that you need the most. Number 17 then is lighting. And you saw my video last week where I was holding these things up. And these are tealight candles. And this is a pack of 100 here. So, I must have uh two or three thousand of these things. But you also noticed last week and it was somewhat tongue and cheek where uh that I was lighting the candle and it kept going out. But that is sometimes what happens with these matches. So, make sure you’ve got alternatives. You got matches, you’ve got waterproof matches, you’ve got, you know, one of these things that I use uh from time to time. See, look at that. Uh it took three clicks there. I also have a flint in my bugout bag. or if I’m away trekking or something, I’ll use a flint to light my fire. Candles are really important for lighting. And again, these have so many different uses because I talked about my cast iron burner there. I can put, you know, just a few of these underneath the burner and that will heat a meal if I needed to. So, they are very, very useful. Number 18 then are torches or what Americans you will call flashlights. Uh these things very very useful, very important. Uh this is my main torch. This is my secondary one. Uh this is absolutely phenomenal. I’ve never had a torch or flashlight like this in my life. Uh this used to go on top of my rifle. That’s why it’s got the mounting brackets here. This is unbelievable. It will light up anywhere at all. And it only uses small batteries as well. It’s phenomenal. Yeah. Can’t recommend this enough. Okay, your next one then is one of these. This is just a very simple axe. Uh, multifunctional. I use this for all sorts of things. I’ve had this one for probably 15 years. And you can see how heavily it’s been used. And you can use it for all sorts. I’ve even used this as a hammer before. It’s so good. Now, what was I holding in the thumbnail? I was holding one of these. You probably wondered what it is. Well, this is your sharpening block. And it always makes me laugh when I speak to people and they say, “Oh, I’m I’m buying a new axe or new chisels or whatever.” And I say, “Why?” They say, “Oh, mine’s blunt.” Well, hello. This is what you use. Very simply, you just That’s it. It’s as simple as that to sharpen your axe. Uh, you know, you got to buy one of these. I bought this at a car boot sale, what you might call a flea market or something. It was less than a pound. I think it was 50p. I bought two of these sharpening blocks and I’ve had them forever. But this is good for your little bits of wood if you’ve got a wood burner. It’s good for taking down uh trees or anything in your grounds or your property. Again, you can really use it as a hammer if you need to for some small uh work. It also works as protection, shall we say. There’s only certain things I can say on this video platform,
but this is multifunctional. Uh, yes, I’ve got loads of different types. I’ve got hatchets through to wood splitters. I’ve got I’ve got probably a dozen in my tool shed, different axes and things. They all serve a different purpose, but really you just need one good one of these and you are good to go. Number 20 then is a small portable crank radio. Super super useful if you need to hear any emergency broadcasts when the power is out. Number 21 is a whistle. This will cost you, you know, a pound, a dollar, a euro. They’re super super cheap, but they may save your life if you are ever out and you need that. Or even if you’re at the home and you know something has happened, there’s some sort of an incident. You can always open the window and blow the whistle to attract emergency attention or to attract neighbors attention. That is if you don’t live in the middle of nowhere on your homestead where the nearest house is 10 miles away. Number 22 then are maps. I bet you’ve never thought of this. Well, most people won’t have done, but uh I have ordinance survey maps. I use these if I’m out trekking uh with a compass, but this I know this is pretty old school now, but this is the sort of stuff that I have and I use. And I think this will be very useful if we ever had a major um cyber attack or grid down situation or you just had to travel somewhere and your GPS or something like that doesn’t work. That’s for the younger people watching who don’t know any of the roads. They just use the Google maps or something like that these days. Brie then is cash. And I’ve got some different types of cash here from euros right through to British pounds and US dollars. Now, let me tell you, this will be pretty useless if you ever need cash in an emergency where we already know that they’re going to at some point transfer over to a central bank digital currency. Uh, so this stuff won’t be too useful. You need to have smaller denominations like this here, you know, £5 or or £10, something like that. Make sure you have uh small denominations, maybe even some coins. Number 24 then comes back to your tool shed, and that might be rather than having all those tools, something like a multi-tool with some pliers and a screwdriver and, you know, these sort of things attached. Number 25 is your gardening equipment and supplies. So, your seeds, uh, spade, all the things that you might need for growing your own food. And if you’re sensible, you will have already started doing some basic growing of vegetables, whether that’s on the window sill uh in your house with in a pot, whether you start a little patch in your garden this year, or whether you’ve got an an entire aotment like some people do, or their whole backyard is now a garden. This is definitely a highly highly recommended thing that you do. and a great idea because we know how bad the food supply is getting. Now, I’m not talking about actually the supply of food coming in, which is obviously a concern with all the famine warnings that we’re receiving, but also just the amount of chemicals and pesticides and crap that they are pumping into the food these days. Why not grow your own and be a lot healthier? Remember who you are and your health is uh pretty much 80% from your diet. Number 26 then is my favorite as you know it is books and I have so many books. I have thousands of books in my library but just a small sample here. Everything from books that you’ll want to read if you know you have no power. This is a what am I reading at the moment? Plato the republic. Another one is the book of the farm. This is absolutely brilliant from the Victorian ages. Highly recommend this book. This is all about food growing uh a lotment monthtomonth. I have probably 15 of these different uh foodbased books. And then I have one on wood basics, you know, basic carpentry. But honestly, having lots of interesting books is really important. And also because remember, we’ve been warned about these cyber attacks over and over. Again, this is not just me saying it. It’s governments and other industry bodies saying that there could be cyber attacks as we go through the next year or two. And you just got to start thinking about if there was a cyber attack and you couldn’t access certain things, how would you know how to do things? This is one of the reason I have a library and I collect a lot of books because there’s things I just don’t know how to do and those skills could be lost for a long period of time if they’re on the internet or uh things get hacked and destroyed online. So, I want to make sure that I’ve got an offline source of information. And of course, this links in with point number 27, which is to have hard copies, so physical paper copies of very important documents. This ranges from your marriage or your birth certificate right through to bank accounts, medical information. Learn from what happened to me with my bank accounts being closed down. It was only because I had physical paper copy records at home. And again, this is where you might want to have a fire safe that I was able to actually win my case in court and get the money back from those accounts. Number 28 then, and this is where we’re going full-blown prepper style here, is berable items. So, very simple things right from uh silver 1 oz coins here right through to gold. Now, you would get a lot for an ounce of gold like this, but also medicine, other equipment, uh food. These are all items that you could barter if we went into a worstc case SHTF as we say situation. Number 29 then is for I probably some of the younger generation. These are your power banks. So if you honestly just can’t go without power. You need your your phone or your laptop or something. Then you can get these power banks and they come in all different shapes and sizes and they have come down massively in cost now. But just remember that just because you have a power bank to charge up your phone or laptop, if the power’s down, your internet probably isn’t going to work anyway. So, I come back to my previous point, make sure you’ve got some good, enjoyable books to read. And number 30 then is batteries and rechargeable batteries. Make sure that you keep these in a myar bag or oxygen absorber or just in a tub for long-term storage because this will help the batteries to last a lot longer. Now, if you’ve made it all the way to the end of the video, then massive well done to you and please drop some of your suggestions below in the comments. But I just wanted to finish up here with one last point and that is that in my life I’ve traveled to over 70 countries. I think it’s 72 countries now. And I’ve been in all sorts of disaster zones. And one thing that I can share with you from the pattern I noticed with all of these things is that even some of the the most honest good people will break after a while. Now, I’m not saying all people, but a lot of people will eventually let go of some of their morals if their children are starving or if there’s a major disaster and there just isn’t help there. So you you really want to start thinking about these things now. Making sure that you’re protected and also some of your neighbors if you like your neighbors or your community or family members. You you’ve got to think not just about yourself but your community as well because I have seen the worst of the worst that civilization and humanity can do to people. And I know that in the west we often think that these things will just never happen. But already we’re starting to see u societal breakdown and we have seen it for two or three years now as we’ve gone through this crisis period. So I just want to finish with this last point. Always prepare for the worst case scenario. Hope for the best and if it doesn’t happen, you’ve lost absolutely nothing by your preparation. So thank you for watching today’s video. Take care. God bless. I will see you tomorrow on the walk and talk which will be a little bit different. will be in a different location.