Special Note –  My favorite brand is going to sell out today (Monoprice) but this option is actually a buck less per 100 and absolutely just as good.  So given the inventory is falling fast on Monoprice and these are in stock in various quantities I am updating the links in this post.

Every day I bring you an item on Amazon that I personally use or has been purchased by many members of the audience and I have researched enough to recommend.

Today’s TSP Amazon Item of the day is something I feel no one should be without.  They just do too much, for too little cost to not have some.  They are Releasable Cable Ties and at only six bucks and some change for 100 pieces they are a steal.

Get a few bags and do the following.  Make up bundles of about 20-30 a bundle.  Just use one tie to hold the rest together.  Put a bundle in your BOBs, put one in every glove box of your vehicles, put some in your garage where you can see them and just grab them, etc.  Heck I keep half a dozen as part of my EDC, you don’t even notice them in a cargo pocket until you need them.

The key is the releasable part!  We even use these for keeping gates closed on our low fences for our ducks.  I keep a few tied on top of various fences all over the property, so if you need one there is always one close by.   They are very strong and stay flexible a long time.  They tend to last about 1.5-2 years if in direct sun before becoming brittle.  Otherwise they seem to last forever.

I use them for many other things as well.  I use them to tie up new seedling trees for say a month until they stiffen up.  Since you can remove and reuse them it is cheaper than plant tape.  I use them to tie 4 large hog panels into a square and make an on the fly animal pen.  There is no limit to how useful these things are.  They are my go to for tying up my peppers to bamboo stakes.  Fast and reusable, while I use mule tape for more vining crops for peppers or egg plants that need a bit of support these are just super fast and effective.

And a listener just gave me another use recently.  They use this to hold up plant lights for starts, as the plants grow they just keep taking in the slack, this lets you pull the lights 100% up to the top shelf giving your far more vertical growth area then the adjustable clips I have been recommending up until now.

So just how versatile are cable ties in general, okay I am going to tell you a story, I am NOT SUGGESTING THAT you do it, it is just what happened.  Many years ago when I was in the Army I had two friends, Brad and Dean.  Dean was the one that owned a truck and he was a “character” to say the least.

Dean would just toss Brad or I the keys anytime we needed his truck.  One day we wanted to run to the PX, so Dean tosses Brad the keys.  In we jump and to the PX and back we go, beer run of course.  Brad is a typical guy from Southern Louisiana so he bends speed limits till they break and loves tight turns.  We get back an Dean says, “oh yea, I should of told y’all to take it easy until the new tie rod gets here”.

Brad and I get down and look and see that fricken Dean had used 4 tie wraps to hold a broken tie rod together.  As in it had broken in two and he tie wrapped it back together.   For those that don’t know, the tie rod holds the front searing brackets to the frame so you can turn.   Kind of an important function!  So Brad almost kills Dean but later we laughed about it, because when you are 20 you are stupid!  And we were SOOOO 20 at the time and SOOOOOOOOO stupid.

That has always stuck with me and while I would not replicate it as a “temporary repair”, I would replicate it with great care and driving very slowly to get a vehicle to safety in a similar situation.   Trust me and if you don’t keep cable ties in your preps, start doing so and the best ones for flexibility and usefulness are Releasable Cable Ties.

Remember you can always find all of our reviews at TspAz.com

P.S. – I have brought this item back a many times, the reason is simple, if I made a list of the top 5 most useful things on my homestead, I am sure it would change over time, but these would never fail to make the list.