Nonfood items that you should stock up on before a survival situation arises can be as important in the short and long-term as any food item you stockpile.

Here is a short list of nonfood items you should pick up whenever you have the chance!

Hygiene Items

• Toilet Paper: You can wipe with magazine pages or even pine combs, but do you really want to? Plus, you can use toilet paper to make an emergency heater.
• Trash Bags and Buckets: For making an off-grid toilet.
• Hand Sanitizer: Using this instead of soap will help you save water.
•Female Hygiene Items: My wife uses a menstrual cup, which is reusable and lasts 5 years, so we don’t stockpile these.
• Diapers
• Baby wipes
• Soap and Shampoo
• Toothbrushes and toothpaste
• Shaving cream
• Razors

First Aid Items

• Personal Medications: If these require a prescription, you might need to talk to your doctor about letting you get a few extra bottles to have on hand. Remember to rotate them so they don’t expire!
• Pain killers
• Anti-diarrhea medicines
• Fever reducers
• Cough/cold medicines
• Bandages
• Anti-itch creams
• Anti-fungal creams
• Antibiotic ointment
• Antiseptic wipes
• Burn salve
• Antibiotics
• Medical scissors
• Tweezers
• Cotton balls and Q-tips
• Isopropyl alcohol
• Thermometer
• LOTS of plastic gloves

Other Supplies

• Duct tape and WD-40: Seriously, is there nothing that these two tools can’t fix?
• Rope and cord: Have a variety of types of rope, including paracord in your stockpile
• Tools: A box cutter, hammer, screwdriver, wrench, and other tools will come in handy if you need to make last-minute repairs or improvise a solution
• Nails and Screws: You’ll want these for making furniture or shelters, or doing repairs
• Candles, flashlights, and other off-grid lighting
• Batteries
• Plastic sheeting: Great for things like repairing a broken window or collecting water.
• Pens, pencils and paper
• Entertainment: A deck of cards is small and can provide lots of entertainment. I’ve also included some How-To books and manuals in my emergency supplies stockpile
• Socks and underwear: You can get by wearing the same clothes for a few days, but you definitely don’t want to wear dirty socks and underwear. That will cause some nasty chaffing and infections.
• Water filters
• Bleach: This is useful for hygiene reasons, and also for purifying water if you don’t have any filters left
• Lighters, matches, and fire–starters
• Fuel: Read this article about off-grid cooking methods

Admittedly, stockpiling WD-40 and cotton balls is not as sexy as figuring out what innovations you will come up with your food stockpile to keep your family interested in eating while nourishing them.

Nonfood items like those, however, can be just as important to maintaining some semblance of normalcy as you plod through a survival situation.

To see other items and some tips on how to get as much of them as you need, check out Primal Survival.