Smart Survival Stocking Stuffers And Real-World Readiness

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Well, hi everybody.
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It's only 10 days until Christmas, and I would be remiss if I did not share some of my usual annual holiday tips and gift giving ideas.
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Come on in, let's get started.
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Well, Merry Christmas, everybody.
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I'm Bill Bateman, part of the team here at Refuse to Be a Victim Personal Protection Training, and we are located at 6800 Kershaw Boulevard in the Medford, White City area of Southern Oregon.
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And we hope we'll have an opportunity to visit with you either over the holiday season or at any time during the new year.
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I looked back about six or seven years ago.
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I've been doing these for a time, and I like to do holiday updates every year to give people gift-giving ideas.
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And I compared what I did a number of years ago, and I was absolutely kind of surprised to see many of the items on the top gift lists for 2025 were the same as they were for 2019.
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Yep, uh the prices have changed.
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Some of the embellishments and product features have changed a little bit, but by golly, some of the things they're recommending you give or you have are the same thing.
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So let's get started.
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To start it off, I am going to include the link to this site at the front, there where you log in.
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And this is from True Prepper.
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This is a site I like quite a lot.
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I uh I curate a lot of the information I get.
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I both do my own research and I take the recommendations of others with credit.
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And uh True Prepper has always really impressed me with the work they do and the quality of their recommendations.
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So let's take a look at some of the things for stocking stuffers this year.
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And one is the P38 and the P51 can opener.
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Now, uh if you don't know what that is, uh you should.
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That's what I used to call the old John Wayne can opener.
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It looks like a little piece of metal with a hook on it, and you can punch your way into a uh into a can.
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And if you're out in the woods, and I cannot tell you the number of times I've used one of these, and I have been out in the woods and I was actually on a camping trip with some friends, and they brought some food, and uh they didn't bring a can opener.
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Now you can open a can with a knife, a pocket knife.
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It's not pretty, and usually medication and crying is involved.
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So the P38 and the P51 are your go-to item of choice.
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You can't go wrong with the P38 or a P51, and the numbers come from the number of punches it's going to take to pop a 16-ounce can or a number 10 can, uh, the bigger can, taking, of course, more punches.
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And they're lightweight.
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I tape them to the top of my cans.
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I use uh masking tape so they don't come off.
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Some people use uh regular tape, your choice.
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And the idea is uh if you're gonna put this in somebody's stocking just as a standalone gift, also tape the hinge so nobody gets poked when they reach around uh getting into their stocking.
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Every year I recommend these uh don't die in the woods emergency blankets.
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Now you can get an emergency blanket, it's mylar and they're like seven, eight dollars at Amazon.
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This is my own recommendation.
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I did not see this on the website, and I love these things.
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I'm a big guy, and uh it's just like having enough blanket to cover up with.
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Well, that's the issue in a mylar emergency blanket.
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I guess they're all made for elves.
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Uh also I find that they're kind of like being wrapped in cardboard.
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Uh they don't have a lot of flex and a lot of give.
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The Don't Die in the Woods blankets, well, they're exactly the opposite.
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They're five feet by seven feet, which means even I can wrap up like a burrito, and they are quite flexible, and they are quite good for filling in those little cracks that the cold air used to uh get into in the other size.
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So I like those.
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Looking at the uh list, they have socks and they have a new type of flashlights, and that's something I am absolutely thrilled with.
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Uh being caught in the dark, having your flashlight go out is never good, and having an extra one, a backup, is good.
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These are small, these aren't little carabiners, the ones they're looking at.
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It's uh Olight i Mini 2.
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An interesting name, and they're not that expensive, and they're great in everyday carry.
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Flashlights keep getting smaller and they keep getting brighter.
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Uh, there are some you could probably land an aircraft with, and some of the bigger lights, and they actually act as a power source.
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So click around and see what you can find on top-rated flashlights.
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Because if you need a giant flashlight to illuminate an area, you can get one.
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And if you got something to fit in your pocket and you can get from point A to point B without falling down a hill, that's well worth the investment.
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And it's a nice gift for somebody.
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Get one for yourself or get one for somebody else.
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Also, I found on this list uh the Right and the Rain everyday carry pen and the right and the rain notebook.
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Uh leaving a note for somebody or making notes as you go is a really good way to keep your information accurate and easily available.
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Knives, pocket knives are always a good price and always a good value at Christmas.
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You get some of the top brands and some of the top features at the holiday season.
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Let's look at another valuable idea, and that's food and water storage gifts.
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Uh, they have pouches of food, the emergency dehydrated sort, and a reminder: you don't eat your emergency food first.
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I recall somebody, uh, first sign of trouble, they're ripping into the pouches.
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You should try it in advance.
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You should actually cook it up, uh, which involves putting hot water in it, sealing the top, and stirring it occasionally.
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It's not complicated, but the idea is to try it.
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They also have uh food bars.
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Now, this goes from those pieces of hard tack that they use, and you can gnaw at it like a squirrel with your teeth, up to actual food bars uh closer to what we're used to.
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I got a letter, I'm just getting ready to teach my January session at Ollie, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.
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I'm doing my bug out bag class.
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It's an annual thing I do there.
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Took a few years off for medical, but uh I'm back now.
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And one of the interesting things, I got a letter from one of my students coming in, and I asked them why they're taking the class and what they're interested in, things like that, uh, what problems they found, and the big one I've seen from a couple people already is storing water.
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Storing water in your car so the bottles don't come apart, break, decompose, or the little pouches don't break.
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I used to have what I thought was the best idea in the world.
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I have had problems with the bottled water, the one-gallon bottles especially.
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Uh, if you don't get the most expensive, thickest, heaviest bottles, it's gonna break.
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You go around a corner too fast, or even just bouncing around in the trunk, you end up with a wet trunk and no water when you need it.
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So these are water filtration items.
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I have containers to filter clean water into.
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I do try and always have bottles of water with me, and then there are things such as uh water filters, which I'm going to talk about in just a minute.
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Having access to water as well as something to put it into as uh very, very important.
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And the one thing I found is the new trend is you have a water bottle with a filter in it.
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Some cases the bottle is an actual press where you filter the water by pressing the water through a uh an in an embedded, I guess you would say, a built-in filter, and others are small circular filters that sit at the base of the bottle and you pull the water through with your uh like it like a straw.
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Problem with that is it's a little hard if you're ever going to make coffee.
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And you have to know the group pretty well if you're gonna be sharing one bottle or two bottles between a group.
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So let's look at some of the other options uh as we get a little farther down.
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Things to look at uh for home security door armor max.
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Yeah, it's about a hundred bucks, but you can re fit and rebuild your door.
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Knives to have in the backpack are good.
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Mentioning the water filter, the Sawyer Mini Portable Water Filter.
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This is part of a water review roundup that they do every year, and I think it's really, really worthwhile to check it out.
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I bought one of these when I first began prepping, and I have updated my kit over the years.
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Things do wear out, the filter, the little hoses will crack and dry out.
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I haven't done it yet, but I'm always leery and I'm always careful to make sure my equipment is up to date.
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So a portable water filter.
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If you can't trust the water in your trunk to be there when you open it, if the bottles are going to break or they're gonna leak, uh, you might want to look at having a filtration method and something to put that water in after you cleaned it out.
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A good backpack always, and there are a number of other good ideas.
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Uh interesting to me, I looked at uh money to have with you, silver and gold as well as currency in case uh the currency loses, people lose interest in currency.
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That's down the road, but uh I could uh realistically now see it happening more than I could five years ago.
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I'm interested, I bought some silver eagles.
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These are American coins, they're a$1 US coin.
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And when I bought my first one, it was$39.
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That was the spot price for silver, and it was an actual coin.
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It's not a collector's edition, it's just an actual coin.
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And right now, that same$39 silk silver eagle that I purchased,$63.
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So as everything else, consider when you buy and what you're buying.
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Beware of market fluctuations.
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I think having cash is good.
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I've had an interesting chat with a woman at the bank.
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I said, I hey, I want to get some uh bug out cash, and I wanted a certain amount.
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And she said, Well, what you don't want to get is big bills.
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Interestingly enough, a lot of people don't have change for that 20, or they don't want to take your 50, or they don't want to take your hundred, or if you're walking around with a handful of hundreds, they'd like to take all of those.
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Thank you very much.
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So if you have bug out cash, small collections, small amounts, maybe fifty, seventy-five dollars in an envelope, and don't have large denominations.
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I find having change, some quarters, some half dollars uh dimes and pennies, i it's good both for getting close to an exact agreed-upon price.
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And I will tell you, it's just kind of an interesting thought, if you get a good heavy pair of wool socks and you happen to have some change in it, that can be quite the attention-getting device if somebody halfway through a transaction decides they want all of your products and not just what you're bartering.
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So it can be a good self-defense weapon.
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Keeping cash for emergencies, you have to be smart about this.
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You don't advertise it, you don't advertise in my car.
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I always have so much money.
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That's not smart.
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I know I don't do that.
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I initially did and thought, well, that's stupid.
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I'm on the radio.
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Everybody's gonna know I have it.
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So I have made other plans uh for my financial situation in the event of.
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The thing about these gifts, and this is something we talked about a couple years ago, and I got a good response, so I want to mention it again.
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For the non-prepper in your family, maybe you got a sister, a brother, a cousin, uh, maybe your wife or a husband, your your partner is not that much into prepping.
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I like to give a single gift that's useful, that's practical, and that's not too intimidating, like a water filter or a good pocket knife, and that plants the seed for talking about prepping.
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Every year I try and give, the goofy uncle always has oh there's Uncle Bill with his prepping gifts again.
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I notice nobody ever throws them out or sends them back.
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Because emergency food a compass.
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I gave a compass one year.
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Because you should all know how to use a compass and how to read a map, because I promise you the phone this when, not if, but when the cell phones go down, that handy GPS is not going to be so handy.
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I gave a compass, and by golly, I checked in a little while later, they were still using it, and I would get emails like, hey, what's this uh difference, the delineation on a compass?
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Where are we?
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Well, we're in Oregon and it's about 47 uh degrees off.
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Things like that.
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It builds a conversation, it builds interest, and it helps the family as a group take part.
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So think of uh stocking stuffers or gifts, even for non-preppers, that are somewhat useful and infinitely practical.
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And on that note, uh one of the goof, not goofy gifts, it's a very practical gift, but it's unusual, are and I'm reading from the from the website, portawipe toilet paper tablets.
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Uh, these are a lot more practical than you might think.
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These tiny tablets, uh, they turn into a wet wipe with just a tiny bit of water.
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It helps with hygiene sanitation and more.
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And they come in like a tube.
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It almost looks like uh my glucose tablets.
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I think some care needs to be taken when uh packing there so you don't get one mixed up with the other.
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Or if you're out in the woods, uh you don't want to make a difficult situation worse.
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So look into these products, that would be quite the conversation starter.
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By the way, these silly things are only$14 at Amazon.
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Uh, it could change or it could be on sale.
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But if you want to get the family involved, if you want to get cousin Bob maybe off the dime and thinking about survival and thinking about uh emergency planning and being ready just in case, these little uh gifts we've talked about, uh stocking stuffers.
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Uh giving a silver eagle is at$63 now, but uh you don't have to buy a silver eagle, there is less expensive silver.
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I don't know the spot price today.
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I think it was around 48 the last time I checked, but it continues to go up, and that's something you always can trade in.
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So let's look at gift subscriptions, books.
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Oh my gosh, every year.
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There are so many good books available, and I'm not talking about theory.
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I mean, you can listen to what I've got to say on a regular basis, but books about first aid.
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There is an excellent book out called First Aid and Third World Dentistry and Third World Medicine.
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This is if you are out in the hinterlands, if you're in an area where there's not an urgent care down the block, or if you're going to be out uh if we have a situation that requires us to uh kind of hunker down for a while.
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Dental care and medical care is a whole we've done hundreds of programs on that.
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So let's look at the type of things we can do at the holidays.
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Think of those gifts.
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And one final point, I know gift giving is expensive, and what is not more expensive this year?
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Woof.
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But don't get discount first aid, discount knives, discount survival gear.
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Uh you it's just not worth the effort.
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I've seen so many reviews of well, the one thing I found just particularly offensive was a uh tourniquet.
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There are tourniquets out there now.
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You can get five, six, seven dollars.
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I wouldn't have one in the house.
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I get mine uh from a reputable source, and we've talked about it here on the program before.
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It runs me about$44.
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If I'm in a situation where I need a tourniquet, I want a quality product, and I want to make sure I'm using it correctly.
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So if you're gonna give a gift this year, don't give a discount tourniquet or a cheap pair of emergency scissors that are gonna come apart when you try and cut something.
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That is just that's almost wrong.
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Well, it is wrong, and I'm thinking trying to think of other words I can use on the podcast, and I'm just gonna stop there because it is the holidays.
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So give something to get the family involved, give something to support your family.
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It's okay to give a gift card.
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It's also okay, and I'm gonna stop on this.
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Let's look at what's going on at the end of the year holiday sales.
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Those days after Christmas, between Christmas and New Year's, uh, Black Friday is one thing, but oh my gosh, the after-Christmas sale, when the merchant looks at what's on the shelves and goes, hmm, that's a great time.
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So a gift card or even cash, earmarked for a survival or bug out type product, this is an excellent time of year to do that.
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So with that said, hug the family, have a little extra piece of pie with some whip topping, what the heck your only young wants, and be safe out there.
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I will be looking forward to seeing you next year at the range.
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I'll be back probably between Christmas and New Year's with some holiday shopping values and some more ideas.
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Until then, be safe, God bless, and And talk to you soon.
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The preceding program was a presentation of Retired Guy Productions.