When it comes to prepping, I try to keep things practical and realistic. That means making sure that many of my “preps” are things that are already useful to me or my family instead of stacking my shelves deep with items that I will never use. That kind of attitude probably wouldn’t make for a very compelling prepper blog.
One thing that becomes apparent very quickly when you are consuming “prepper” content is that there are a number of items out there marketed specifically toward prepping or emergency preparedness. The weird thing about that is that many of these items have more mundane counterparts that you might actually use even when there isn’t a zombie hoard beating down your door.
Lighting is a great example. You can buy lights that have all manner of emergency oriented features just for when the power is out. Maybe you will actually use a big, heavy, and often poorly made rechargeable lantern with USB ports and an SOS function in your day-to-day life. I won’t…
But, I will use cordless power tools.
When it comes to modern cordless power tools, you aren’t just buying a tool. You are basically buying into an entire ecosystem of tools that share the same battery. You might only have a drill but if you go down to your local big box, you are likely to find all kinds of tools that share the batteries you already have to include flashlights, lanterns, work lights, and even USB chargers that clip onto the battery to charge other electronic devices.
These lights have a few benefits over a lot of the garbage marketed as emergency preparedness items. First, they are reasonably rugged given their intended use on job sites. Second, you are probably already using their batteries regularly so you are likely to keep them topped off and they will stay in working condition longer since you are cycling them. Third, they might be able to grow with you as battery tech continues to improve since many tools are backwards compatible. Finally, some of the lights available have pretty decent run times thanks to the solid capacity of cordless tool batteries.
Why not check out what kind of lighting options are available for the cordless tool batteries you already have instead of filling your shelves with items you’ll never use and might not even be in working condition when you do need them?
