Common Sense Caching is simply setting up off site stores of supplies, that can be accessed in a time of need. Caching is the act of acquiring, sorting, and packaging the things you are going to put into your cache. The Common Sense part is holding back on the urge to pack half a dozen AR’s and 6,000 rounds of 5.56mm into your Mom’s garage. While I do think having a secret stash of the cool stuff is a good idea, it is a little beyond the scope of what I’m envisioning. I came to the decision to have some stuff to fall back on stored outside of my home after we suffered an oil burner puff back 2 years ago. There is nothing quite like fleeing into the cold and snow with a sooted up newborn. Now the hard-cores will point out that a good BOB would have you covered, but it opened my eyes to the surprise total loss scenario. Everything we owned was covered in a thin oily soot. It would be 10 days till we were back in our house and having a few things at a relatives or close friends house would have made all the difference. In deference to my “crazed prepper” side, I do advocate setting up your cache a few miles away from your home, to avoid a neighborhood catastrophe from taking out your cache if it was at a neighbor’s home.
Common Sense Caching
Find A Good Spot!
A good start to setting up your cache is to find out what kind of space your host is willing to give you and to size your containers appropriately. I’m a big fan of using those cheap and ubiquitous plastic storage totes. Packed smartly they will hold a surprising amount of stuff, they stack nicely, and 2 or 3 of them won’t be a burden on your host. They are so common you can slap “winter clothes” on them with a Sharpie, and no one will ever give them a second glance.
What are you going to put in it?
Now that you’ve got a good place to store your cache and containers to hold it, just what the heck are you going to put into it? I like to start with the very basics and have some clothes and good wool blankets. Clothing wise I try to cover all of my bases and have a limited 4 season wardrobe. None of the clothing I put into a cache will be new, most of it will come from old clothes that I would normally donate. I’ll also turn to thrift stores and yard sales, this is last resort clothing and not high fashion. I put one wool blanket in for each family member in there as well. I really like the Olive Drab Wool Bed Blanket, Genuine U.S. Military Surplus
Documentation and Cash
Next up is documentation and some cash. A documentation package has been well covered on a lot of different prepper/survival sites. I think Jack Spirko at The Survival Podcast does a real good job of explaining it so I’ll just gloss over it here. A documentation package is copies of all your important papers: insurance policies, bank account #’s, SS #’s, Birth, Death, and Marriage Certificates. In this day and age this stuff can be kept on a thumb drive but I feel better with hard copies. To hold this important stuff I buck up and buy a fire proof box for peace of mind. I like to throw a few hundred dollars into the box as well. If you are going to cache for those personal or neighborhood disasters (puff back, house fire, water main break, or chemical spill to name a few) and have to shack up with a friend or relative for a few days being able to buy the pizza isn’t a bad thing.
Food and Water
If you have the space, being able to store a case or two of water with your stuff is icing on the cake. I’d also consider some Long Term Storage food in an instance like this (I like THRIVE and Wise), while I like to cook for myself having the ease of the just add water stuff makes sense to me in a cache like this.
Firearms Or Not?
I’ve read a lot about including firearms in caches and I’m not a huge fan of it for the fact that I wouldn’t want any of my weapons not under my control. If I did feel the need to have a gun available at one of my cache sites, I would just ask my host if I could keep it in their safe. I figure anybody willing to indulge me with keeping some preps on-site, should have a bit of room in their gun safe for me too!
Those are my thoughts on Common Sense Caching. What are in your caches?
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Nice article. thank you. Food for thought.
Glad you liked it!
I would be very unconfortable leaving my personal info in the box. If the friend/family could be trusted with a gun I would also trust them to lock up my personal papers. Better yet, just keep it on the thumb drive. The vast majority of idenity thieft comes from personal friends and family.
I didn’t know about the ID theft coming from friends and family! Thanks for sharing that.
Great article. I have just come back from my local Military supply store with 20 wool blankets and stopped to pick up several heavy duty totes. Thank you for the great idea.
It’s quite refreshing to see someone advocating responsible prepping. Chances are overwhelmingly likely that you won’t need the AR-15 as much as you will food, water, and some fresh clothes.
Having used exactly these totes for quite a bit of everyday storage, I wish to warn everyone that once loaded they’re going to be HEAVY. If you’re storing anything but clothes in there, you’ll want to have a companion for hauling it around, or you’re liable to pull something.
Also, it will probably be extremely helpful to tape a laminated inventory list to the lid of the tub, so you know exactly what can be found within. It’ll help tremendously with inventory and finding what is where when you need to actually use the cache.
the totes are a good idea IF they are indoors or a shelter of some kind IF you are leaving them with some one.. Not saying its not a good idea but when most people talk of Caching its usually in ground in the woods or some where out of town. In that case the best is to use 5gal buckets sealed with gasket seal. Makes them water tight. You would be amazed at what you can fit in a 5 gal bucket with a lid. I have seen contests to see who can fit the most/ best survival gear in one.