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Author of How to Prep When You’re Broke and Bloom Where You’re Planted online course
Being a prepper with mobility issues can be tough, and that’s even before the possible need to bug out on foot through the forest. What used to be easy and done without a second thought now requires planning, pain, and exhaustion. But before we ever get to anything extreme, there are things we need to do at home that can be difficult under some circumstances. I’ve found a few tools that help me as a prepper with mobility issues, and I’m going to share them here in the hopes they help you, too.
How I became a prepper with mobility issues
A little background: a year and a half ago, what felt like a mild ankle sprain was actually a torn tendon. Me being me, I pushed through and the situation did not improve. I’ve been seeing a doctor back in the US for the past 7 months, and it’s only gotten worse. There is almost a full rupture just below the inner ankle bone. Now, to prevent it from fully separating, I have to limit my steps. I can’t carry heavy things that might strain it, and it’s constantly painful.
The things that help me may not help you. I do have some mobility, though it’s limited. I can walk (well, limp) and manage things around the house pretty well. But soon, I’ll be having surgery to reconstruct that tendon, and many of the items here will no longer help me at all for at least six weeks when I am not able to bear weight on that foot.
I already had some of these things and bought the others. If you’re mobile at all, you may find these items helpful. Once I have surgery, I’ll write another article like this for when I have to use crutches and a knee scooter.
A grocery cart
I use this grocery cart multiple times every week. It folds up and lives against the wall of my apartment behind the door. If you had a front hall closet, the folded version would easily slide in.
How I use it:
- When groceries get delivered, I don’t like to let people in the house. I bring this cart outside and then pull it back in once they’ve loaded it from their car. Then I roll my food straight to the refrigerator and pantry to put it away.
- On laundry day, I can’t be lugging heavy hampers to my laundry room, which is fortunately on the same floor. I pop the hamper into the cart and wheel it there. It’ll fit 2-3 smallish hampers.
The grocery cart is probably the thing I use the most. It’s nice because it also provides the user a little bit of support.
A wagon
I have a folding wagon which I don’t use quite as often but still find helpful if I have a large, ungainly package of some sort. The nice thing about the wagon is that the sides are down lower, so I don’t have to try and awkwardly squat down and lift something really large and heavy all the way up, then back down into the grocery cart.
This comes in handy when I have a larger package delivered. They aren’t brought right to my door so I have a short walk to get them. If it’s a larger item, such as a piece of furniture that I’m going to assemble or a few cases of canned goods, I can’t carry these packages. I break out the wagon, move the items into it, and wheel it back to my apartment.
You can use it to bring things in from the car, too. It folds down well and fits in almost any trunk with plenty of room to spare.
It has big, chunky off-road-type wheels and rolls easily over grass, paving stones, or whatever I need to roll it over. So there’s more utility to it than the grocery cart, which is pretty finicky about liking flat surfaces. Because of this, it could easily be used for outdoor tasks as well. But because it’s fabric, you’ll want to line it with a trashbag before moving messy things. If you plan to use your wagon for gardening, you might want something specific to the outside. This one is a good price and easy to hose off, though I’d say it’s more like a small wheelbarrow than a wagon.
A dolly cart
Another thing I use regularly is a dolly cart. I, like most people, had one for moving heavy stacks of boxes. But I’ve found that I use it for other purposes too.
One thing I use it for is to wheel my generator around the apartment during a power outage. The battery section is heavy, and lifting it in and out of carts and wagons isn’t ideal. I simply slide it onto the dolly cart, and moving it where I need it is simple.
When choosing a dolly cart, I recommend the kind that doesn’t fold up – it’s just one less point for potential failure. Mine is all one piece, and I’ve had it for at least a decade. (And y’all know how often we move!)
I do have another utility cart, but it’s too big for use around the house.
A rolling office chair
When doing things that require a lot of bending or squatting, I make use of my rolling office chair. It’s quite simple to wheel it into the kitchen to put things away on the bottom shelves or to reach the plumbing under the sink, and it keeps the strain off my ankle. I also use it if I’m cleaning out the refrigerator or doing other tasks that would require prolonged time squatting. I have this one, which I’d gotten for my office, but you don’t need anything fancy for these tasks. A cheap $30-50 one will do just fine.
These are my go-to items as a prepper with mobility issues.
This short list may not offer anything groundbreaking, but perhaps it will give you some ideas you haven’t considered before. I find all the things extremely useful, and they’d be useful for folks who can get around well, too. I had several of the things before my injury but definitely rely on them more now. Every bit of independence that I can maintain is important. I don’t want to have to wait for help to reach low shelves or move my portable generator to where it needs to be.
I hope you find these ideas useful if you are a prepper with mobility issues or if you love someone with these concerns. In a few weeks, I’ll share what I’ve learned about getting things done when I can’t bear weight on that leg at all.
If you also struggle with mobility, do you have any other things that help you in the house or yard? Other ways you move things from point A to point B? Ways to reach awkward places? I’d love to hear your ideas.
Please help your fellow preppers out and share your ideas in the comments section.
About Daisy
Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, adventure-seeking, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites. 1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty; 2) The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived; and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. Her work is widely republished across alternative media and she has appeared in many interviews.
Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter.
