What’s in My Car

Besides the standards that come in a car — such as the owner’s manual, spare tire, or first aid kit — I keep a bunch of other things in my car, too. Some things may surprise you. In my car, you will find:

The Bible

I have one of my Bibles in my car from when I would take it to church instead of just using the Bible app on my phone. I decided to leave it there to always have one Bible with me since I already have one inside my apartment.

An Emergency Backpack

While I do have a go bag in my apartment, I keep an extra one in my car. This is because I may not be home when disaster strikes, and in fact, I was not at home when that brush fire threatened my home last November. I was at the movie theater enjoying a showing of Harriet and saw an alert on my phone that firefighters were battling a blaze on my street. And then I saw an email from my property management that an evacuation had been ordered, which meant that I could not even go home to get anything to take with me.

As I recall, there was absolutely no wind that day, thank God, enabling the firefighters to do such a great job containing the fire that the evacuation order was lifted before I even got home. And even if it hadn’t, I had a go bag with me. In addition to all of the things that came in my go bag, I added a change of clothing, a pair of sturdy shoes, some protein bars, and a set of my own skin care products to go along with the generic ones that come in the included toiletry kit. I also include all of those nice Sephora samples! I figured that I may as well have some nice facial treatments to do during my stay with relatives or in a hotel during a disaster evacuation. Plus they are the perfect size to toss in my backpacks whenever I get them.

Along with my emergency backpack, I keep extra water. I usually have at least 2-3 gallons to go along with the pouches that came in my backpack in my trunk at all times.

Beach Day Essentials

I also keep almost everything I need for a day at the beach in my car. I have two beach chairs, a beach umbrella, and one of those coolers with wheels all in my trunk. This is as much out of necessity as it is out of convenience since I live in a small studio apartment without room for all of that. Plus it is nice when I am at the beach for a bike ride to afterward be able to decide to go get a chair out of my car to sit and relax on the beach awhile.

Shoes

I always keep a pair of flip flops in my car to switch into on days when I have been wearing uncomfortable shoes like heels. Unfortunately, I sometimes forgot to bring those heels into my apartment, so the next day, I would wear a different pair of shoes to work. You can probably guess what happened next: several pairs of work shoes accumulated in my car. But now that I work from home, I only have one other pair of shoes in my car besides my flip flops and that is my pair of chucks.

Accessories

Have you ever been blinded by the sun while driving, even with the visor down, and did not have your sunglasses with you? That has happened to me once. Now, I keep at least one pair of sunglasses in my car in case I forget the ones I normally wear at home or misplace them.

I also keep phone accessories in my car; that is, a car charger. Like sunglasses, I also do not want to be caught driving anywhere without my phone charger. I use the Waze app for my GPS, and as I once found out, GPS is draining on a phone’s battery.

See Related: My Favorite Apps

Work Files

Part of my trunk also doubles as a filing cabinet. I have almost all of my teaching files there, never bringing them in after cleaning out my classroom. I was going to, but then I decided that I would just leave them there for now and never got back to it.

Miscellaneous Items

I try to keep a pen in my car. I do so because of all of those times when I could not find a pen in my purse and thought how nice it would be if I had one in my car. In like manner, I keep a small hand lotion in my car because I cannot tolerate having dry hands. On the occasions that I have to switch bags and there is no room to carry lotion in it, there is one in my car.

I also try to keep napkins in my car. A former roommate taught me this tip: always save any extra napkins leftover from when you get takeout and keep them in your car so that you will always have something to wipe up any accidental spills.

Finally, the binder that I used for my reading specialist sessions and a pair of barre socks are still in my car. I left both there in hopes that the quarantine would be lifted and I would resume my work with my student and my workouts in the studio. So far, that hasn’t happened and I am still working and working out at home.

What are some things you keep in your car? Please share any tips of other helpful items that I should keep in my car in the comments below.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by! 👋🏽🙂