Cheap Gear Review: Document Bags

I don’t know about you, but when I find myself opening a bug-out or get-home bag, I have a small problem. In fact, I have a lot of small problems: all the pieces that float to the bottom of the bag and are impossible to find quickly. Do you take allergy pills? Good luck finding that tiny bottle in less than five minutes, and if you (like me) are already itchy and miserable when you are looking for them, five minutes is a miserable thing.

Modular and Fast
My solution to this dilemma is a document bag. These bag are designed to hold receipts, passports, boarding passes, etc and are small, inexpensive, fairly durable, and easily labeled.Their modular nature allows you to identify, locate and retrieve them quickly and easily; a snake bite is something that you'll need to treat in a hurry and is a very different emergency than a burn.

For quick identification, I use a small description tag with the contents written on the back, or a title written on it with a paint pen, depending on the bag.

Example: “Medical” on the front in a large easy to read font, with “Inhaler, Epipen, painkiller (Advil), painkiller (Tylenol), Allergy medication (Zyrtec), Allergy medication (Allegra), bandaids, tiger balm, finger pulse oximeter.

I also have bags with my oral hygiene supplies, my computer cables, extra batteries etc. This gives me a full packing list of everything that I am supposed to have in it, which makes it easy to tell if I am missing something.

I Recommend

https://amzn.to/2KkEORf

This is the exact model that I use, a Husky-brand 12-inch bag. I like this style because I can connect a carabiner to the tab and clip it to my backpack, MOLLE webbing, hooks, and occasionally even a random twig. I recommend a cheap model, like these.

I've been using these document bags as sorters for over a year now and have yet to have one of them fail or rip, and I've even run them through the washing machine. I do not recommend the dryer for them, though, since the model I use is actually a plastic-based canvas and I had worries about it melting. I haven't put one through the dishwasher yet, although I will try to correct this.

https://amzn.to/2yJ3em1

If you are budget minded, you can get three bags of varying sizes for half the price of the Husky.

My Rating: 5/5

I highly recommend these bags. It saves me a lot of time and hassle to use them, and I can transport them between bags. My BoB is wonderful, but sometimes I need only one component from it, and these bags give me the freedom to take what I need and leave the rest behind.

Keep your powder dry, and don’t forget to practice.