My Handy Dandy Emergency Car Kit

Over the weekend the battery on my car decided to die. Daughter #3 and I were out shopping for daughter #2’s birthday presents, so I was not excited to lose precious time. The warning signs were there earlier in the day: my car was hesitating when it would start up. I thought perhaps it would recharge with my around town driving. But alas. That was not the case. My husband was in a meeting, so we sat in the car in a store parking lot and waited for him to come.

I finally decided to ask someone for help. I told my daughter I would only ask a man that had kids with him for safety reasons. It was kind of hilarious as we sat there evaluating each driver that pulled into the parking lot. No . . . no . . . no . . . maybe.

Finally, a man pulled up next to us with a 12-year old son. I asked him for help and told him my husband was coming. He said he was sure he could jump my car. So he looked in the back of his car and those jumper cables that were supposed to be there had vanished. I said, “Well, I happen to have some in the back of my car.” So, I pulled them out of my handy dandy car kit. The car engine was soon humming. I thanked him for his good deed, and he said that he needed to do a good deed that day.

This wasn’t the first time I needed to use something out of my car kit. It’s such a reassurance to have it in my car. The bag I use for my kit is an insulated soda can bag from WalMart. Red to signify emergency. Sometimes when I’m grocery shopping on a hot day and can’t get home right away, I dump the emergency items out and put the frozen items in. A great help!


Items for my car kit:
Insulated bag
Water bottles
Food bars, etc.
Flare
Jumper cables
Blanket (regardless of the weather, it will help if someone is in shock)
Flashlight and batteries (Good thing I just checked because my batteries were dead)
Toilet paper roll
Work gloves
Umbrella
Matches
Plastic trash bags
Duct tape
Snow scraper

Other Useful Items I want to add:
Detailed Area Map
Whistle and small mirror
Pocket knife
Small toiletries
Good shoes (can you imagine walking 10 miles in heels?)
Hat
Paper towels
Extra batteries

If you have a story about how your emergency car kit helped you, please email it to me.

2 thoughts

  1. Replace the flashlight with a Shakelight 60 model. No batteries needed. But make sure it’s the Shakelight 60 and not just any of those cheap shake flashlights. modernoutpost.com carries the real thing. Just a happy customer of modernoutpost.

  2. You may want to consider putting a “Fix-A-Flat” bottle in your car. They come in aerosol cans that you can buy at Walmart. We had a flat tire one day out in the boonies of Kansas. When my husband pulled out our spare, it was flat…nice…so we pulled out our “Fix-A-Flat” and fixed the spare. It was a life saver!

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