Book excerpt: You don’t need to spend hundreds of dollars on the latest and greatest emergency survival gear for your outdoor adventures when you can assemble a functional, well-stocked kit for little or no money! Best-selling preparedness author Jim Ballou shows you exactly how to do it with this guide to collecting no-nonsense, get-the-job-done-in-an-emergency gear and packaging it in self-contained, portable kits that are always ready to grab and go. Instead of expensive tents, sheath knives, sleeping bags, and other conventional outdoor gear, Jim focuses on compact, lightweight, and even disposable, use-once-and-discard emergency equipment, and all of it dirt cheap! Learn how to: - find standard survival kit components at the lowest prices - create a poor man's survival kit for free from common household items - collect or create your own edged tools, water containers, cookware, fire and shelter-making gear, and weapons for very little money - assemble a complete kit of new gear for under $10 Dozens of photos show examples of inexpensive but functional wilderness survival kits, as well as step-by-step instructions for creating your own poor man's gear. If you are a hiker, hunter, camper, preparedness type, homeless nomad, or other wilderness adventurer operating within a narrow budget, this book is for you!