What is a Tweet?

A “Tweet” is a special message you get by using the service called Twitter. We send out tweets to our followers to share food storage tips, emergency and food storage related blog posts, interesting websites, updates to our own site, etc. The tweets come in 160 character messages and you can choose how often to check your tweets. It’s a very easy way to communicate and get some great information.

More About Twitter

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Each time you update your status it is called a tweet. You can also sign up to receive tweets from people and businesses you are interested in. To sign up for an account just go to twitter.com. Once you are all set up you can start sending out your tweets by logging in and filling in the box that asks “What are you doing?”.

How To Use Twitter

It’s no fun to tweet out to nobody, so do an email search and see if any if your contacts are on twitter. Then make sure to go to Food Storage Tips and click the “follow” button to start receiving all of our tweets. Whenever you log in to Twitter you will be able to see all the tweets you’ve received. However, if you want an easy way to see them in real-time you must check out the program TWHIRL. This is what we use and it is great. Here is an awesome Twhirl tutorial video I found to help you learn how to use Twhirl and Twitter more effectively.

Here are some tips and cool sites we were talking about on twitter this week

Whole Wheat Homemade Playdough http://is.gd/941E AWESOME IDEA!!! 10:35 PM Nov 25th from twhirl

Retweeting @JayceHall: Reviewed the costco.com emergency kit deal: http://tinyurl.com/576gdc (GREAT thorough review! Thx for sharing.) 3:24 PM Nov 25th from twhirl

RT @erinannie: getting closer to actually leaving my couch to get ginger ale, soup, and crackers. note to self- add those to food storage. 3:20 PM Nov 25th from twhirl

OMG if you really want the 55 gallon water barrels and live in Arizona … this is your lucky day. Only $20! http://is.gd/8QNP 3:04 PM Nov 24th from twhirl

Check out this little page on how you can have fun with your food storage. http://hubpages.com/hub/fun-with-food-storage Discusses 4 great blogs to help you on your way 2:41 PM Nov 24th from twhirl

Some good tips on learning survival skills from the “Perpetual Preparedness” blog. http://is.gd/8JDX 7:04 PM Nov 23rd from twhirl

Made these “bean brownies” this weekend for a friend with tons of allergies (had to sub splenda for sugar) http://is.gd/8IUS Not too bad! 5:10 PM Nov 23rd from twhirl

Want to receive our tweets as they happen?

Technorati Tags: tweet, tweets, twitter, what's a tweet

Filed under: General, Networking | 2 Comments »

This time of year is an EXCELLENT time to stock up on your items in Step 7: Baking Ingredients. Mary Hunt, best-selling finance author, sends out daily finance tips in her Everyday Cheapskate newsletter which we LOVE. We encourage you to sign up for her newsletter and also to stock up on these items for your holiday baking AND your food storage. Here are Mary’s thoughts on the topic of holiday baking from her newsletter:

For more from Mary Hunt, sign up for her Everyday Cheapskate newsletter or read her blog Money Rules Debt Stinks. She also has some fabulous books you can check out at amazon.com

Technorati Tags: Baking Ingredients, food storage, holiday baking

Filed under: Baking Ingredients, Long Term Food Storage | 1 Comment »

I just wanted to share a quick update and some valuable tools with you. I’ve been using the Grocery Smarts website to find great deals on food storage/3 month supply items (this is a Utah specific link and is only available in a few other states - SORRY!). For now I do my normal shop at Walmart and then go find super deals at Albertsons and Smiths each week and do some “extra” shops there with my “food storage budget” money. Last week I got the following items:

5 lbs C&H sugar
3 Stouffers frozen dinners
1 tube colgate toothpaste
2 lbs Land O Lakes butter
1 bottle Krogers syrup
2 cans evaporative milk

The regular prices of these items would have been $27.94 … BUT … using the fresh values sales prices I saved $9.44 and I printed some coupons and clipped old coupons I’ve been saving and saved another $8.85. Including tax, the total I paid was only $10.26! That is WAY cheaper than it would have been even at Walmart with all generic brands.

I am only beginning to skim the surface on how great this system is. Within a few months I hope to have a lot of food stockpiled, do most of my monthly “shopping” from my pantry, and only hit Walmart for things I’ve run out of before I have a chance to restock. View the video below for tips on how to use this great resource.

Technorati Tags: coupons, grocery shopping, saving money

Filed under: Jodi's Progress, Three Month Supply, Videos | No Comments »

For those of you who know my 18 month year old son, you will find this humorous, for the rest of you I beg for your sympathy!

So today I woke up way too early with a sick child, and a husband who is out of town. I only got about 4 hours of sleep (the night before was around 2 hours). Anyways, I had to go to hockey practice and right when I got there my baby puked ALL over his seat. Luckily Grandma was there to tend and helped me clean it. Anyways, after hockey practice I got home and needed desperately to:

-shower
-bathe my child
-wash the car seat in the laundry machine
-run the dishwasher
-cook dinner

Well I turned my water on and within 10 seconds it trickled down to a dripping flow. I thought it was weird, and proceeded to call all my neighbors to see if they had the same problems. Well my house was the only one with the problem. Then I called the city to see if they could tell me anything. Nope it was MY problem. Then I called my mother-in-law, whose father told her it might be something with some pressure something. First question - is that something my baby could have done? We figured it wasn’t.

So I waited a few hours, still needing to shower, still needing to boil water for dinner, still needing to wash a puked up baby and car seat. During that time it dawned on me WHAT WOULD I DO WITHOUT WATER FOR REAL? I became very relieved as I realized I at least have my 14 day supply. I mean you need water for everything! I’m not saying my water supply would run my washer, but at least my basic needs would be covered. Anyways, I thought it was a good chance for a friendly reminder… How are you doing with your water storage? Do you have it? GET IT!

So now for the ending of the story. My husband finally was able to call me on the phone and I said OUR WATER IS BROKEN! He said, oh that’s an easy fix. I guess our baby has been playing with the main on and off levers for our house since he saw my husband turn off the outside water valve in the basement for the sprinklers. My husband had seen him do it the other day. Anyways, I went down to the basement and sure enough, when I had been in the basement putting away some cans earlier, he had pushed the knob to almost all the way off, because it’s fun to climb!

I’m working on developing BabyStep 9 right now- comfort foods- let me tell you I could have used lots of those today!

Technorati Tags: water, water storage, water supply

Filed under: About Us, Emergency Preparedness, Julie's Progress, Water | 7 Comments »

Even though I’m not finished steps 5-7 yet it was canning season so I had to jump ahead a little and add a little to my step 8 items. Last year I canned tomatoes, salsa, dill pickles, and tons of peaches. This year my garden was a bit of a failure, plus I knew I would probably be moving soon, so I didn’t want to stockpile too much food. However, my wonderful cousin Kaila got about 500 pounds of apples off the tree at her new house and was kind enough to give some to me. Since the apples were free and readily available I decided to attempt to make some applesauce. It was messy but a really fun family affair!

Homemade Applesauce Recipe and Canning Instructions

Step 1:  Get your pot ready

I used my biggest pot and put a little water in the bottom to keep the apples from sticking.  As I peeled the apples I just started throwing them in to start cooking.

Step 2:  Peel a TON of apples

I used my handy dandy apple peeler which the kids thought was WAY fun to help with.  If you don’t have one of these peelers, you can always try the method which Kaila’s husband came up with.  Check out this video, it’s hilarious.  Just as a reference, I used about 14 pounds of apples (before coring/peeling) and it netted 5 quarts of applesauce.

Step 3:  Cook up those apples

By the time we were done peeling all the apples the first ones were really well cooked.  I just let the whole thing cook for about 10 more minutes to make sure they were all soft.

Step 4:  Prepare your canner and jars

While the apples were cooking I put my bottles in the oven to sterilize them.  I also filled up my canner and started to boil the water.  Lastly, I started some small pots of water boiling to sterilize my lids and rings.  If you are new to canning, I would HIGHLY recommend getting a Home-Canning Kit to get all the tools you need to do proper canning.  If you don’t have a canner or jars yet you can buy an all-in-one kit which will include EVERYTHING you need to get started!

Step 5:  Make the applesauce!

Once the apples were all soft, I used my hand-me-down 1970’s-style baymix to puree them.  I’m not sure why I call it a baymix but that is what my mom always called it when I was growing up.  I couldn’t find the exact one online to show you, but I absolutely LOVE mine.  Some of these hand blenders look similar but I can’t vouch for them.  You could also use a food processor or even a blender to do the pureeing.  But the baymix was SO easy because I could do it straight in the pan.  At this point you can add any seasonings you want.  I added 2 cups of sugar but could have gotten away with just one.  Ours turned out really sweet and delicious.  Some people like to add cinnamon or other things but I prefer to just add those when we eat it.

Step 6:  Pour the applesauce into jars and seal ‘em up

Use a funnel as this can get really messy.  I ladled the applesauce in leaving about 1/2 an inch of space at the top of the jars.  Then I used my tongs to pull out a lid and ring for each jar.  Try not to touch these things with bare hands as you don’t want them to get unsterilized.  Screw the ring on tight once the lid is on.

Step 7:  Put your jars into your canner and boil

As I filled each jar I would put it into the canner.  As you put more jars in the water level rises, so you don’t need to start with the canner all the way full.  Once I had all 5 jars in I filled up to the neck level of my jars with hot water.  You have to wait until the water is boiling before you start timing.  Let it boil for 20 minutes and then remove the jars.  Way easy huh?

Step 8:  ENJOY! (my kids sure did)

For more canning recipes and ideas we recommend the Ball Blue Book of Preserving.  It has great instructions for almost anything you could want to can. 

Technorati Tags: applesauce recipe, applesauce recipes, canning applesauce, home canning, homemade applesauce, how to make applesauce

Filed under: Fruit Recipes, Fruits and Vegetables, Jodi's Progress | 9 Comments »

We added another BabyStep! Check out Step 8: Fruits and Vegetables to learn about adding produce into your food storage and how to preserve it. This is one of our favorite steps as it incorporates some of the “lost arts” such as gardening and canning.

Sneak preview: Watch for a post later this week showing how Jodi has been working on step 8!

Technorati Tags: canning fruit, canning vegetables, dehydrated foods, dehydrated fruits, dehydrated vegetables, food storage, frozen fruits, frozen vegetables, Fruits and Vegetables, home canning, storing fruits, storing vegetables

Filed under: Fruits and Vegetables | 3 Comments »

So I have been making these delicious smoothies lately and couldn’t figure out if I could justify sharing the recipe on a food storage blog. The other day when I ran out of milk it dawned on me I could try some of my powdered milk in it instead. Well, I did it! It was delicious, so now I can officially share the recipe on a food storage blog (not to mention all the other ingredients are frozen, so they can count as food storage if you have a big freezer).

Fruit and Yogurt Smoothies

Serving Size: 2 large glasses
Prep Time: 5 minutes (if you make a bunch of baggies ahead of time)

Ingredients (if you skip the sugar, they’re actually REALLY healthy):

• 3/4 cup of frozen strawberries
• 1/2 cup of frozen blueberries
• 1/2 cup of frozen peaches or rasberries
• 1cup of powdered milk prepared
• 5 ice cubes of fat-free strawberry yogurt (or any other kind)
• 1/4 of sugar if you think it needs it (I use splenda here and there)

Directions:

1. Pour milk into blender
2. Add fruit, blend
3. Add yogurt cubes, blend
4. Add sugar, blend
5. Eat with a spoon, or drink with a straw

Directions to prepare a bunch of smoothies for the go ahead of time:

1. Buy a 8-10 ziploc baggies
2. Buy bags of your favorite frozen fruits (I did 2 strawberry, 1 peach, 1 blueberry)
3. Divide up your fruit into the baggies
4. Divide a large container of yogurt into ice cube containers and freeze
5. Once frozen place 5 yogurt cubes into each ziploc bag
6. Put bags into the freezer and use them up as you wish, all you’ll need to add is the milk and sugar.

SO - ASK YOURSELF DO I HAVE DRY MILK IN MY FOOD STORAGE?:

Click here to get your box today - because let’s be honest if you’re anything like me, you’ll forget next time you are at the store.

Thanks everydayfoodstorage author for sharing with us that powdered milk is the FIRST thing you should try when you are new at food storage.

Technorati Tags: dry milk, dry milk recipes, food storage, healthy smoothies, homemade smoothies, powdered milk recipes, smoothie recipe

Filed under: Baking Ingredients, Fruit Recipes, Powdered Milk Recipes, Recipes | 6 Comments »

A lot of people have asked us if we have a button that they can add to their blog. Well we’ve always had one, but it wasn’t very cute so we never really publicized it except to our family and friends. With our new “look” and several more requests, we thought now would be a good time to get a new and improved button and share it with ALL our readers. So if you like our blog, feel free to spread the word to YOUR family and friends by posting our button on your blog!

To add the button just add an html widget to your layout and paste this html code inside of it. Make sure you give the widget a title…

<a href=http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net target=_blank><img src=http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3234/2979643396_1a51b2aec7.jpg?v=0></a><br><br>

Filed under: General | No Comments »

As you may have noticed, we took a LONG time to get Baby Step 7 out to you but we have a good reason! I got completely distracted with emergency preparedness. Over the past few weeks I had the chance to relax and do a lot of thinking/pondering about my food storage and emergency plan. The relaxation soon ended as I became somewhat frantic with how “unprepared” for an evacuation-type disaster I was. I needed to be more on top of the advice we’ve been giving on our getting started page!

So last week I started on a mission … to get my emergency plan ironed out, including the disaster kit and 72 hour kit food items. Back in July when Jodi bought all the ingredients to update our 72 hour kits, I put mine in a bag in the closet (the truth comes out). I started to think, if I had to evacuate my house I would be in big trouble. All my food was in a bag in one closet, the emergency supplies I DID have were scattered around the house, and another thing - my important documents binder wasn’t made and I had no cash in case credit card systems were down. How would it have worked for me if I had to evacuate my house quickly - ummmm not so well!

It’s been about 5 days of me focusing really hard and now I finally have my emergency bin all put together! We are going to be focusing a whole month on Emergency Preparedness early next year, but for now I wanted to fill you in on a couple things I did and learned.

1- I bought a car kit ($20 at Wal-Mart). If your Wal-Mart doesn’t carry something like this, we found this Deluxe Emergency Road Kit that is very similar and is great because you can toss in a water bottle and some snacks into the bag as well.

2- I PUT my binder with important documents together (passport, birth certificates, social security cards etc). When doing this, I asked myself one simple question - if my house burned down - would I be annoyed I didn’t have this document? If so, I put it in.

3- I went to the bank and took out $200 cash - and asked for small bills. In Hurricane Ike, a lot of people commented on how they wish they would have had small bills so they weren’t paying too much for stuff when stores didn’t have change.

4- I put my 72 hour kit food in a nice old big plastic animal cookie bin. It fit perfectly and was easier than using milk jugs (I like easy).

5- I gathered up all the items in the disasters supplies area of our emergency plan and purchased the things I didn’t have.

6- I placed ALL this stuff in a big bin in my front hall closet. I was sad because I had a cute little shelf all arranged in my basement for this, but then learned that it’s best to keep your kit somewhere that you can access it easily if you have to evacuate quickly.

p.s. My wonderful sister sent me a list of things she compiled for HER emergency kit. Some of the items were not initially on the list that we posted under Getting Started. I have recently added them to our emergency plan checklist and uploaded the revised list so you may want to print off a new copy if you have been using the older version.

Have you done your emergency checklist yet? You can accomplish all of this within a few days if you just set your mind to it!

Technorati Tags: 72 hour kit, Add new tag, emergency plan, Emergency Preparedness

Filed under: 72 Hour Kits, Emergency Preparedness, Getting Started, Grains, Julie's Progress | 6 Comments »

Have you ever been out of work for a week, a month, even longer?
Do you wish you could buy foods ONLY when they are on sale and with coupons?
Do you wish you had a stockpile of grains now that the prices are getting so high?

In light of the current economic situation, we thought we’d share with you some ideas on how having your food storage in place can help you financially in both the short term and long term.

Short Term Food Storage
Your short term food storage consists of getting a 3 month supply of foods that you eat on a day to day basis. Once you have this in place you can start to grocery shop from your food storage and only replenish those items when they go on sale and/or you have coupons. This will actually reduce your grocery budget as you will only buy things that are deeply discounted. But those few dollars a month will not mean as much to you as the food will if you have a short term emergency. For example, my husband took a pay cut for several months and we were able to spend less than HALF of our usual grocery budget for those months because we had stockpiled so much of our every day foods.

Long Term Food Storage
Your long term food storage consists of getting a year’s supply worth of life-sustaining foods that have a long shelf-life. These are items such as wheat, white rice, dried beans, powdered milk, etc.  Since the shelf life is so long you can gradually purchase the items when they are on sale and work up to a year’s supply.  If you get brave enough to start using your long term food storage items in your everyday cooking, you can also save some money in the short term. Homemade bread is significantly cheaper than store-bought, especially if you grind your own wheat. Making other items from scratch such as muffins, pancakes, etc. can also save you money over buying packaged items.

In times of economic trouble you can rely on your food storage for long periods of time while other people are begrudging the high prices of rice and wheat. Prices will most likely come down before you deplete your stores. And finally if a major disaster, economic melt-down, or other long-term emergency were to occur, you can feel confident that your family will be able to survive with basic food and water for quite some time.

There is no better time to get started than NOW! Head over to the Getting Started page and follow along with us on this journey. We will be there with you every step of the way, cheering you on, and building our own food storage while we’re at it.

p.s. Did you notice the new look of our site? We will be adding to the design here and there so keep an eye out. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

Technorati Tags: budgeting, financial plan, financial planning, food storage, Long Term Food Storage, three month food supply

Filed under: General | 4 Comments »