Cheap and Cheerful EDC

J

Joe92

Joined
Sep 6, 2023
Messages
65
I have been a minimalist EDCer for a while. My latest is a tortoise shell Rough Ryder peanut with a P38 can opener with safety pin, four way screwdriver and a mini Bic lighter. This fits in a pill bottle. I carry a mini Bic 4 color pen and this completes my EDC. Total price is less than $20 and I can accomplish just about anything with this collection. Any others out there who are EDC minimalists on the cheap side?
 
Joe92 said:
I have been a minimalist EDCer for a while. My latest is a tortoise shell Rough Ryder peanut with a P38 can opener with safety pin, four way screwdriver and a mini Bic lighter. This fits in a pill bottle. I carry a mini Bic 4 color pen and this completes my EDC. Total price is less than $20 and I can accomplish just about anything with this collection. Any others out there who are EDC minimalists on the cheap side?
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YES!!!!

When I was a young guy, I went more than a bit overboard on the whole prepper and EDC thing. Int was only when I was older, that I felt like what was an awakening from a drugged or feverish nightmare and how insane it all was. The EDC thing has largely replaced the 80's and 90's prepper nonsense, but it gets just as silly. In my 30's and 40's I had forgot what I learned from watching my dad and Uncles deal with life, with very little.

I'm past my projected shelf life now, so I don't know how many more mornings I'm going to wake up, but looking back on it all, I deeply regret the time and money I spent on nonsense of 'collecting' all that crap. A simple pocket knife and a few odds and ends is all you need for the real world. You can drive yourself nuts trying to prepare for any emergency, but you can't. Stuff happens, and you just deal with it. My fathers and Uncles all slugged through a great depression and then went off and fought a vicious WW2, and then came home and lived normal lives. They didn't walk around with a ton of 'stuff' in their pockets, just a few things like that simple pocket knife, a P-38, a Sear's 4-way keychain screw driver, and if they smoked, a battered Zippo lighter that they had carried in the war.

Yes, the whole EDC thing, has got crazy. Since I sold off/gave away my stuff, all I bother to carry now is a small SAK and the same few items my dad and uncles carried. So far I've made it a lot years without having to save the world.
 
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Once again Jackknife you are the voice of reason. I did add a photon style flashlight to this EDC, but everything still fits in a pill bottle, except for the mini Bic 4 color pen.
jackknife said:
YES!!!!

When I was a young guy, I went more than a bit overboard on the whole pepper and EDC thing. Int was only when I was older, that I felt like what was an awakening from a drugged or feverish nightmare and how insane it all was. The EDC thing has largely replaced the 80's and 90's prepper nonsense, but it gets just as silly. In my 30's and 40's I had forgot what I learned from watching my dad and Uncles deal with life, with very little.

I'm past my projected shelf life now, so I don't know how many more mornings I'm going to wake up, but looking back on it all, I deeply regret the time and money I spent on nonsense of 'collecting' all that crap. A simple pocket knife and a few odds and ends is all you need for the real world. You can drive yourself nuts trying to prepare for any emergency, but you can't. Stuff happens, and you just deal with it. My fathers and Uncles all slugged through a great depression and then went off and fought a vicious WW2, and then came home and lived normal lives. They didn't walk around with a ton of 'stuff' in their pockets, just a few things like that simple pocket knife, a P-38, a Sear's 4-way keychain screw driver, and if they smoked, a battered Zippo lighter that they had carried in the war.

Yes, the whole EDC thing, has got crazy. Since I sold off/gave away my stuff, all I bother to carry now is a small SAK and the same few items my dad and uncles carried. So far I've made it a lot years without having to save the world.
Click to expand...
 
jackknife said:
YES!!!!

When I was a young guy, I went more than a bit overboard on the whole pepper and EDC thing. Int was only when I was older, that I felt like what was an awakening from a drugged or feverish nightmare and how insane it all was. The EDC thing has largely replaced the 80's and 90's prepper nonsense, but it gets just as silly. In my 30's and 40's I had forgot what I learned from watching my dad and Uncles deal with life, with very little.

I'm past my projected shelf life now, so I don't know how many more mornings I'm going to wake up, but looking back on it all, I deeply regret the time and money I spent on nonsense of 'collecting' all that crap. A simple pocket knife and a few odds and ends is all you need for the real world. You can drive yourself nuts trying to prepare for any emergency, but you can't. Stuff happens, and you just deal with it. My fathers and Uncles all slugged through a great depression and then went off and fought a vicious WW2, and then came home and lived normal lives. They didn't walk around with a ton of 'stuff' in their pockets, just a few things like that simple pocket knife, a P-38, a Sear's 4-way keychain screw driver, and if they smoked, a battered Zippo lighter that they had carried in the war.

Yes, the whole EDC thing, has got crazy. Since I sold off/gave away my stuff, all I bother to carry now is a small SAK and the same few items my dad and uncles carried. So far I've made it a lot years without having to save the world.
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I know this is going to seem crazy, but this entire hobby* is predicated on folks enjoying collecting, owning, and talking about knives and other EDC items, so it being silly or insane to you is a rather odd idea to have.
 
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Quiet said:
I know this is going to seem crazy, but this entire hobby* is predicated on folks enjoying collecting, owning, and talking about knives and other EDC items, so it being silly or insane to you is a rather odd idea to have.
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Yeah, I know. It's weird, but until I reached a certain age, I was as much into it as most people here. But then it sort of evaporated and faded out for me. Why, I don't know. Maybe at a point when one is getting old, other things start to take over more importance in life. Like love of family, and the realization that ones time is getting limited and the people in our lives mean more than inanimate objects of worship.

I still like knives, and would not ever in this life dream of walking out the door without one or three of them on me. But my taste has definitely changed in both form and function. My love of the bigger fixed blades is totally gone, and even big folders are gone. Maybe because I know at my age I will never see real wilderness again, and my backpacking days are long gone. I was never into the knife for self protection thing, that's what guns and blunt force trauma tools are for. So all I really need in the urban and suburban environment I live and travel in is a small pocket knife. With senior citizen age, a weird new pragmatic thinking has came into what's left of the rest of my mind. The last time the wife and I saw Yosemite, it was from the tourist train. The last time we were at Yellowstone, we watched Old Faithful from the veranda of the Yellowstone lodge with cocktails in hand the waiter bringing around the platter of goodies. When we saw Big Bend, it was with a guided Jeep tour.

I got rid of my knives when I realized I really didn't need much knife anymore, but you never know. So I keep a nice sharp little pocket knife on me. In 1991, no way would I have been able to get the driver out of the upside down old Datsun B210 that had rolled and was on fire. I could cut the seat belt with the 1 3/4 inch sheepfoot blade of a well used little Buck 301 stockman. My old man once told me that once you go out your front door in the morning, you never can tell what will happen in the course of the day. So I keep a few things on hand. But I'm done with the ridiculous extreme that forums of many types pushes.

A small pocket knife, a small flashlight, and basic screw driving capability is good enough of rme these days. But I come back to the forums because I have made a few good friends here. I liken it to the reformed alcoholic going down to the neighborhood bar and sipping on a club soda or ginger ale because his friends are there.
 
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Joe92 said:
I have been a minimalist EDCer for a while. My latest is a tortoise shell Rough Ryder peanut with a P38 can opener with safety pin, four way screwdriver and a mini Bic lighter. This fits in a pill bottle. I carry a mini Bic 4 color pen and this completes my EDC. Total price is less than $20 and I can accomplish just about anything with this collection. Any others out there who are EDC minimalists on the cheap side?
Click to expand...
Don't even need a Altoids tin for that load out! Fits in a pill bottle too, can hide that in the ol' prison wallet through security checkpoints.
 
In the early 1970’s, my preschool teacher told my mom to make sure she checked my pockets before she dropped me off.

So I’ve been cheap and cheerfully edc’ing since before I could write my name. Lol.
 
I agree it’s gotten out of hand. In my daily life I don’t need to bring a ton of crap with me. It’s going to be different for everyone but I just don’t need it. I’m a mechanic in sunny SoCal. Im usually never more than a few yards from my tool chest at work. If I’m driving I’ve got a small tool box and some supplies under the backseat of my truck. If I can’t fix it with a Swiss Army knife and some tape I’m taking the 30 seconds to grab the right tool for the job.

What’s worked for me has been wallet, keys with a SAK and a p38, a zippo, a pack of reds, and a knife (either a small fixed blade or a folder). I’m all for being prepared but at some point it gets ridiculous. I think jackknife is on to something here. Hell i could probably replace the SAK classic, the p38, and the folder with just a SAK Spartan or pioneer and be just fine.
 
I've gone from carrying two to three knives on me, to barely even carrying one these days. I came to realize that I don't need a knife as much as I would like to think, and I certainly don't need something the size of a small folding machete, which had been my preference in my younger days.

Today the wife and I are going to see a show, grab some dinner, and maybe do some shopping, and this is everything that I'll have in my pockets:
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All that together is less than $100, maybe even less than $80. In all honesty, if I could find a decently made pair of folding scissors, I'd have even less need for a knife.
 
Is there anything that you have ever been told is absolutely necessary to carry (knife excepted)? I always carry a small ballpoint pen because I was told a lawyer should always carry one. I am retired from practice but always carry a pen out of habit
 
I always carry a pen too.

My Dad always had a watch a pen a knife and a handkerchief. He never told me to carry anything I just followed his lead.
 
I guess this would fall within the purview of this thread; I've recently gotten into titanium utility blade holders for nights out with friends. A lot of the venues we go to have security checks with metal detectors, and I often forget about this until we've already made the walk and waited in line. These are small enough that they don't easily get detected, and even if they do I can just toss the disposable blade. They're inexpensive and some have additional bottle opener / prybar / screwdriver / bit wrench features.

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About three months ago, driven by curiosity, I got my first modern knife - a BM Mini Barrage. I like it, play with it often (within a week or two I deassisted it), use it accasionally, but I've never carried it. For me 3.75" folded slipjoint is the limit, with 3.25" the optimum. It is my personal preference, but I do not like locking folders, and I do not anticipate many tasks, if any, I will perform with my EDC that require the blade to be locked.
 
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