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The Scenario
A neighbor two doors down gets broken into on a Tuesday afternoon. Fourteen minutes, in and out. The report gets filed, the case stays open, and for about a week everybody on the block walks past their own front door a little differently.
That's usually when people go shopping. It's also usually when they buy the wrong thing.
So I went looking for what actually happens in a break-in, and the first number is worth leading with, because it runs against the mood: this is rarer than it feels. The FBI counted 779,542 burglaries in 2024 — a rate of 229.2 per 100,000 people, the lowest since at least 2005 and down roughly 64% across that stretch. Residences were about 52% of them. Whatever you're feeling about your front door right now, the trend has been moving the other way for two decades.
The second number is the useful one. Of those 2024 burglaries, roughly 55% involved forcible entry — and about 38% involved no force at all. No broken glass, no kicked door. Someone walked in through something that wasn't locked.
That reorders the whole shopping list. More than a third of the problem is handled by a habit that costs nothing — the side door, the garage service door, the window over the porch roof, the slider you leave cracked for the dog.
The other 55% is where gear earns its place. And here's the part almost nobody knows: when a door gets forced, the lock usually isn't what fails. The deadbolt holds fine. What gives way is the frame around it — specifically the two short screws holding the strike plate, the metal piece the bolt slides into.
Those screws are typically a half inch to three-quarters long. They bite into a thin strip of jamb trim, not the framing behind it. That's the whole story — and it's why the monitored system is the wrong first purchase. It gets bolted to a frame that ten dollars would have held shut.
This week's kit starts at the screw and works outward.
The Loadout
Some links below are Amazon affiliate links — if you buy through one, Carry Ready earns a small commission at no extra cost to you. Picks get chosen for the scenario first. The commission has never decided what goes in here.
Reinforced Door Screw Kit (3-inch screws + driver bit)
The hero pick, and the cheapest thing in this issue. Three-inch screws reach past the jamb trim into the framing behind it, so a kick loads the wall instead of a strip of pine. Locksmiths broadly treat this as the most cost-effective door upgrade there is. Do the strike plate, the deadbolt plate, and two per hinge — the hinge side fails just as often and nobody thinks about it. One kit covers two doors. Screwdriver job, not a project.
→ Reinforced Door Screw Kit for Strike Plates, Deadbolt Plates, and Hinges — ~$10 (price last checked: 2026-08-04)
Door Armor MAX (door reinforcement kit)
The next layer up, and only worth it once the screws are in — it's about ten times the price for the same failure point handled more thoroughly. Instead of two reinforced spots, it wraps the jamb, door edge, and hinges in steel, spreading kick force across the whole frame instead of concentrating it at the bolt. About 30 minutes with a drill.
→ Door Armor MAX 5-Piece Door Reinforcement Kit — ~$96 (price last checked: 2026-08-04)
UltraPro Personal Security Window & Door Alarms (4-pack)
Not a monitored system — a noise problem. Magnetic contacts that stick to any door or window frame and scream at 120dB when the contact breaks. Put them on the openings you don't use daily: basement access, rear windows, the garage service door. Formerly sold under the GE name, same unit.
→ UltraPro Personal Security Window and Door Alarm, 4 Pack — ~$21 (price last checked: 2026-08-04)
LEONLITE Motion Sensor Security Light (dusk-to-dawn, 5000K)
Darkness is cover; a light on a sensor removes it. Aim these at the side gate and the rear entrance, not the front — the front is already lit and already visible from the street. The dusk-to-dawn mode matters: it holds a low light all night and jumps to full on motion, so you're not relying on the sensor catching someone at the right angle. About 20 minutes if you're replacing an existing exterior fixture.
→ LEONLITE LED Security Light, Outdoor Motion Sensor, Dusk to Dawn — ~$50 (price last checked: 2026-08-04)
Wyze Cam v4
Last, deliberately: a camera documents what happened, the screws change whether it happens. That said, it's cheap and records to a microSD card with no subscription — up to 256GB. IP65, so it handles weather but isn't for a fully exposed wall in a hard climate. The v3 a lot of people already own has been discontinued.
→ WYZE Cam v4 (Latest Model), 2.5K AI Security Camera — ~$36 (price last checked: 2026-08-04)
I'm 63 With $1.5M. Can I Spend $10K a Month?
You’ve saved $1.5 million. Now comes the real test.
Can it produce $10,000 a month, or will that pace drain your portfolio?
Most retirees do not get a clear answer until it is too late.
The issue is not just how much you have. It is whether your portfolio was built to pay you, not just grow.
That difference can determine whether your money lasts decades or starts breaking down early.
Sequence of returns, taxes on withdrawals, healthcare costs, and whether the 4% rule still applies all play a role.
Fiduciary advisors created a breakdown showing what drives sustainable income and why the same $1.5M can produce very different outcomes.
If you have $1M or more invested, do not guess.
Sponsored. All gear recommendations in The Loadout remain editorially independent.
One Skill: The Ten-Minute Walk-Around
Free, and the first two steps cover more ground than anything in the Loadout.
Take one screw out. Unscrew a single screw from your front door's strike plate and look at it. If it's shorter than your thumb, you now know what this issue is about.
Sweep the locks and name the one you forget. Touch every exterior opening. There's almost always one — the garage service door, a basement window, the slider. That's your 38%.
Shoulder-test the back door. Firm pressure, not a kick. If the frame creaks, that's the door to reinforce first. It's rarely the front.
Stand outside after dark. Where could someone work for two minutes unseen? That's where the light goes. While you're out there, put away anything climbable — ladders and trash bins against the house are a second-floor entrance, and second floors get left unlocked.
This issue of Carry Ready, as well as some of the more recent issues has been less about what is in our pockets and more about how to be safe in unusual situations. It's still all about being prepared, whether from our homes, or when we are about. Have what you need, when you need it, where you need it. Stay prepared.
The Find
FBI Crime Data Explorer (cde.ucr.cjis.gov) — Free, public, and it goes down to the city level. Instead of guessing whether your area is getting worse, look up the actual burglary numbers for your own town and the last several years of trend. Data from 19,000+ agencies. It's the cure for a bad week on the neighborhood app.
→ cde.ucr.cjis.gov
One Question For You
Go unscrew one strike plate screw and reply with its length. I want to know how many of us are under an inch.
Next week: "Your bank froze your account. Rent's due in 3 days."