Two of the most common SHTF scenarios can catch you off-guard: house fires and home invasions. When something happens in the middle of the night, you don’t want to be fumbling around for your larger kits. Enter the WUSH Bag (Wake Up, Stuff’s Happening Bag). This kit is designed to be highly portable and address your immediate needs for evacuation and more.
WUSH bags are still an extension or variant of everyday carry, even though they serve a specific objective. Below, we break down what exactly a WUSH bag is, how it is different than a bug out bag, and share a comprehensive WUSH bag checklist you can download, print, or save in multiple formats.
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What is a WUSH Bag?
WUSH Bag stands for “Wake Up, Stuff’s Happening Bag”, a specialized type of kit for surviving situations brought about by civil unrest. The bag contains equipment to help you avoid or prevail in unwanted confrontations.
Sometimes you’ll see ‘Stuff’ replaced with ‘Shit’, in the same way it is interchanged in the SHTF acronym.
Unlike the well-known bug-out bags, get home bags, or other loadouts, the WUSH concept is just a stopgap to get you out of the house with your most essential supplies. Survival gear is not a priority in your WUSH bag.
The most common personal SHTF situations for people are house fires and home invasions, which this bag can help with. Positioning your wallet, keys, and other commonly used items at your bedside is slightly less convenient, but it makes you much more prepared at a moment’s notice in the middle of the night.
Mike’s concept, however, stays relevant as he and his team have been training soldiers around the world as well as civilians in the US on risks, personal safety, and how to handle themselves in extreme situations.
The WUSH bag isn’t for everybody since it sacrifices convenience for preparedness. It’s up to you whether that sacrifice is worth it.
WUSH Bag vs. Everyday Carry
Everyday Carry is the concept of optimizing your daily-use gear to work best for you. For many people, the priority is convenience after performance.
The WUSH bag swaps convenience for preparedness.
Typical EDC diehards use drop zones near the entrances to their homes to leave their EDC gear at night, when they aren’t needed, or while they are asleep.
The WUSH concept moves a few key items (like wallets and keys) to your bedside so they are closer to you in a no-notice emergency.
If you are looking for our top-level guide with more information and supplies related to everyday carry, check out our everyday carry guide:
My WUSH Setup
I have a Bando bag with all of the stay-home gear inside it, and the entire bag lives in my top nightstand drawer. In the event of an emergency, I grab that bag, my phone, watch, wallet, and keys from the top of my nightstand, and the pistol out of my biometric gun safe in the drawer under my WUSH bag.
I also have a fire escape ladder under my side of the bed (I sleep closest to the window). I used to position the EDC-overlap gear at the garage exit of the house, in a drop zone I made in the laundry room. Having it on my nightstand instead at night is slightly less convenient, but also helps me be slightly more prepared.
WUSH Bag Gear List
A WUSH bag doesn’t require much gear- and you don’t need to get the exact items I use. It should be a collection of EDC gear you already use, stored in a specific spot near your bed, and a small pouch ready to go with supporting items.
Essential WUSH Gear
Essential gear for your bedstand includes your most-used EDC items and back-up supplies that supplement those in an easy-to-carry pouch. I use a fanny-pack style pouch that can easily fit all of the gear, my pistol, and more.
- Pouch: Eberlestock Bando Bag – A WUSH setup doesn’t need an entire backpack to hold the contents when a small pouch can work just fine.
- Cell Phone: Charge your phone overnight within reach of your WUSH bag and you.
- Cell Phone Charger: Most phones use USB-C now, so that cable and a wall plug should do the trick.
- Wallet: MagPul DAKA [Minimalist pick from our survival wallet review] – Keep your wallet at your bedside rather than at your home entry point.
- Keys: Keep your car keys and house keys at your bedside rather than at the home entry point. If you have carabiners and multitools on your keychain, even better!
- Cash: Keep a separate cash stash in your WUSH Bag, separate from your wallet.
- Documents: Print hard copies of your important documents, stash them in the bag (I also put them in a ziploc).
- USB Drive: Verbatim ToughMAX [Top pick from our survival USB drive review] – Load important files, stash in the bag.
- OTC Medication: Whether it’s painkillers or other medicines, keep a small pill holder with properly labeled OTC medicines in your bag.
Suggested WUSH Gear
This set of gear makes more sense for some, but not for others. With conditional applications, we merely suggest you consider adding these items to your kit:
- Power Bank: Anker 622 MagGo [EDC pick from our power bank review]
- Prescription Glasses: If you wear glasses, keep them nearby when you sleep and/or a spare in your WUSH bag.
- Prescription Medication: If you have critical medication, keep a stash in your WUSH bag.
- Handgun: Your preferred handgun, if you are trained to use it and have a small but fast safe. See why I trust Glock.
- Flashlight: Olight Seeker 4 Pro [Top pick from our survival flashlight review] – The magnetic charging holster works well on my nightstand with my other magnet charging devices. It is bright enough to disorient and is always ready to go with its holster charging.
Prepositioned Gear
While not part of the WUSH bag itself, this gear should be positioned in your home where you can find it quickly when you wake up. You may need to rush to any of these items to use them:
- Fire Escape Ladder: First Alert 2-Story Escape Ladder – If you have any rooms that are slept in above the first floor, you should have a fire escape ladder ready to go. You should also know how to use it- some models can be tricky.
- Shotgun: Your home defense shotgun, if you are trained to use it and have a lock/safe accessible nearby.
- Emergency Weather Radio: Midland WR-120 [Best home alert radio from our emergency weather radio review] – If you live in an area where you have very little notice of emergencies (tornadoes or earthquakes), an emergency radio alert system can make sense on your bedside.
WUSH Bag Checklist
A perfect WUSH bag doesn’t exist- what is right for you depends on your situation and how much you prioritize preparedness. That said, we have a perfect starting point for you: our comprehensive checklist.
Our checklist is available as both a PDF download and as a Google Sheets/Excel file where you can check off items yourself, and even add and subtract items from the checklist once you have it saved to your own account.
Printable PDF Checklist
If you are looking for the simplest way to print and use the checklist above, download our printable PDF version. It is one page long on 8.5″ x 11″ paper and makes creating a WUSH kit extremely easy. Once you open the WUSH kit PDF checklist in your browser, you can either print it directly or save it through your browser.
Excel / Google Sheets Checklist
If you are looking for a comprehensive way to track your WUSH bag contents, open our Excel / Google Sheets version. The sheet is shareable, and you just need to copy it to your own Google Sheets account or download it to Excel to edit it. We also keep the best-reviewed item for each category linked to simplify shopping for any equipment you may find yourself missing.
The Next Step
Whether or not you’ve chosen to build a WUSH bag, our next step in this guide series stops off at EDC, or Everyday Carry. This is a larger and more comprehensive take on what you have on you every day, beyond even a WUSH bag.
Check out our Everyday Carry Guide here:
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