What We Learned

While we have done evacuation exercises in the past, we always learn something each time we do it. Jodi has been disorganized lately and had her “grab list” items all over the house. She has always felt like her front hall closet is too full and small to REALLY contain all her evacuation tools. But on this day she realized that her basement would be a better “landing pad” for evacuation. There is an exterior door that leads to the driveway and she has storage shelves right by the door already. Definitely a light bulb moment for her.

Julie attempted the evacuation with her husband and got to try out her new and improved grab lists that she posted right on her front closet door for a fast and easy evacuation plan. Check out her great lists.

We both realized we still had some items to add to our Emergency Binders (Julie needed a will, Jodi had a missing birth certificate for one of her kids). We’ve had a few frustrations with our binders as we’ve been trying to expand them to consider more scenarios where we might need them. A few weeks after this challenge we discovered an amazing product that has helped us a ton. You can check it out here.

What YOU Learned

A few of our favorite comments from our Facebook discussions and comments:

Take the photographs, leave the teenagers

Well in my haste guess what I forgot? I forgot my medicine !!!! Fortunately my husband did not. On his last quick trip through the house he saw my pill case on the table and grabbed it and then looked in the fridg. to see if I had forgotten that too? Yes I did so he grabbed it also. Thank God for the blessing of a thinking husband ! It is good to have two minds working at the same time, especially if you are elderly and if you are excited and in a hurry. You can be as prepared as you can be and still something can go a miss ! God Bless All.

This challenge prompted us to straighten up the store room. Now to clean up the garage. It was a real pain climbing over stuff to get to our gear plus we couldn’t get near the tent & couldn’t find a few other thing we know are in there.

I thought my binder was in good shape, but had to spend a couple of hours this afternoon updating it and adding a few more things. My inventory is a mess. I started several times. Some is photos from a couple of years ago, some is digital and now I am motivated to get it all together, digitize everything and get it in my binder. Thanks for the kick in the butt!

Don’t forget about your pets!

Read more about how people “survived” this day’s challenge

Follow-Up Questions

Where can I learn more about evacuation tips?
We have a page on our site that includes an evacuation list.

What is an emergency binder for?
An emergency binder is where you want to place all of your important documents, insurance information, etc. so that you can easily grab it and go in case of an evacuation. For more info on how to put together your binder read this post. If you are struggling with putting together your binder properly, check out this post for a solution that worked miracles for us.

Our To-Do’s For This Year

To Do: Redo our Emergency Binders using the Prepare My Life Planner, move as many grab list items as possible to one location
To Learn: Figure out different grab list needs depending on different evacuation scenarios
To Buy: Add some more “hot meal” items to 72 hour kits along with a method to cook them

What We Learned

We spent a large part of our summer practicing our powerless cooking skills, so on this day we were excited to put them to use. We did use the quickstove (use referral code jodi&julie and get 50% off per can) for the first time on this day of the challenge and we were pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to use. Julie also cooked pizza from scratch this day – like ground the wheat for the dough, used freeze dried cheese, and cooked it on the Volcano kind of “scratch”. This process will get its OWN video in another post.

Julie shows you how she cooked her breakfast:

What YOU Learned

A few of our favorite comments from our Facebook discussions and comments:

I personally think this one will be the easiest We have a sun oven and have been using it for most of our cooking this entire summer. It saves on the utility bill, and doesn’t heat up the house like the oven does! as long as there’s a bit of sun we can cook with it. And because we’ve been doing it all summer, we’re used to it, I personally think all my food tastes better using it, stays moister.

We have many choices for powerless cooking – small folding hiking stoves & fuel (we need to add more cans of fuel), charcoal grill (could use a few more bags), a butane stove that we bought at the self reliance fair (only 3 cans of fuel & having trouble finding more), propane grill w/ 2 tanks (only a tank and a half on hand), several of those disposable charcoal emergency grills (caught them on sale for a dollar a piece), and Teff’s cat food stove.

Well, this was my 51st wedding anniversary! Thank goodness last year I canned swiss steak so that is what we had today. We heated it up on the grill, along with some peas and corn, made some instant mashed potatoes with water and canned milk and some home canned butter. We don’t eat cake in this family but we do like the hobo pies made with a pie iron held over the hot coals.

Trying to cook on the grill with pots that have wooden handles is NOT a good idea Need to replace one of the wifes pots now and get at least one that can be used on the grill or over open fire. Wish we hadn’t given away all our camping gear when we moved.

Read more about how people “survived” this day’s challenge

Follow-Up Questions

How do I learn to cook without power?
We spent a large part of our summer practicing our powerless cooking skills. Visit our powerless cooking class page and learn more.

Where can I buy the Quickstove Julie used?
You can purchase the Quickstove at this link. As Food Storage Readers you get 50% off per can if you use referral code JODI&JULIE.

Our To-Do’s For This Year

To Do: Research generators (if we lose power, we may want to extend the life of our fridge/freezer foods)
To Learn: Learn more about canning without power (Jodi also wants to look into some more options for cooking inside)
To Buy: Generator – maybe – if we’re lucky (Jodi also wants to buy a butane stove to use for indoor powerless cooking)

What We Learned

In past years’ challenges we have practiced full days with no water. It definitely takes a lot more water to cook, clean dishes, wash yourself, etc. then you would think. The 1 gallon per person per day is NOT enough for proper hygiene. This year we wanted to focus on the sanitation aspect of things because last year we wasted TONS of water flushing our precious stored water. We knew there had to be a better way. This year we hinted that people should put together a basic “Sanitation Kit” before the challenge

Julie highlights some of the contents from her kit here:

What YOU Learned

A few of our favorite tips from our Facebook discussions:

Milk Jug Shower/handwashing: Tie large nail to a string and tie it to the handle of a milk jug. Shove the nail into the side bottom (1/2 inch up) of the jug – it acts as a plug and string keeps it handy after you pull it out to get water. The lid tightness adjusts the water flow. —– Put heated water in it and hang from your shower head for regular shower. It doesn’t give good volume to wash hair but showers great. Put one on kitchen/bath sink side to keep hands clean.

I emptied the toilet bowl by shuting off the little faucet, took an 18 gal. plastic garbage bag set it in the bowl. (Had to use some paking tape to keep it in place.) Sprinkled a little cat litter then went to the restroom! Sprinkled a little more on top – closed the lid & it was ready for my next trip.

For in between shower days, instead of baby wipes they also have oversized ‘shower’ wipes. They use these in hospitals instead of the old fashioned sponge bath. They carry them at the pharmacies. They’re nice because it’s large and thicker than wet wipes and helps stretch the days between baths

I did go out and shut off the main water supply, so I can check that off my list. Unfortunately, I was gone for a walk when hubby got up and he called the water company, then had to call them back when I got home and explained what we were doing for the week. Yes, he called and explained to them that there had been an error and his wife had intentionally shut off the water because she was spending the day being a pioneer.

Read more about how people “survived” this day’s challenge

Follow-Up Questions

Where were the instructions on how to put together a Sanitation Kit?
We hinted about this on the blog a few weeks ago. Click here to see the post.

Where can I buy the “SuperSorb” mentioned in the Sanitation Kit list?
We found it online at Amazon.com. Click here to go straight to that product.

Where can I just buy a ready-made sanitation kit?
The kit from the video above is from Shelf Reliance. It is a deluxe 4 person, 1 week kit and costs $135. It’s not available online but we can take phone orders for it. (Email fsmethrive@gmail.com if you are interested in buying a kit).

You can also buy a less deluxe kit from Emergency Essentials for about $50 at this link. Individual items for homemade kits can be purchased at Shelf Reliance, Emergency Essentials, and Amazon.com

Our To-Do’s For This Year

To Do: Research water purifiers in depth, add to our first aid kits
To Learn: Learn more about safe first aid practices
To Buy: A water purifier system and add to first aid kits

If you were following along with the challenge, whether actively participating or not, we hope that you filled out the report cards each day and the master game plan worksheet from Day 7. We did this last year and spent a year working on all of the areas we found we were lacking. We are looking forward to doing the same thing this year and encourage everyone else to join in with us!

To make it easier to come back to all of the challenges and great comments from everyone, we have summarized everything here for you so you can get to it in one place.

Day 1: Natural Disaster – “Sanitation Crisis”
Daily Challenge and Comments on Day 1
Facebook Discussion about Day 1
Day 1 In Depth Recap and Learnings

Day 2: Powerless Cooking – “Anniversary Dinner”
Daily Challenge and Comments on Day 2
Facebook Discussion about Day 2
Day 2 In Depth Recap and Learnings

Day 3: Evacuation – “Evacuate and Evaluate”
Daily Challenge and Comments on Day 3
Facebook Discussion about Day 3

Day 4: Be Prepared – “Getting Your Affairs in Order”
Daily Challenge and Comments on Day 4
Facebook Discussion about Day 4

Day 5: Economic Crisis – “No Money!”
Daily Challenge and Comments on Day 5
Facebook Discussion about Day 5

Day 6: Dietary Issues – “Gluten Free”
Daily Challenge and Comments on Day 6
Facebook Discussion about Day 6

Day 7: Natural Disaster – “Bread from Start to Finish”
Daily Challenge and Comments on Day 7
Facebook Discussion about Day 7

As a special bonus this year, we are going to be going over each of the day’s challenges in more depth once a week for the next 7 weeks. We’ll go over our learnings, some of our favorite comments from others, and go into more detail on things that you could do to be better prepared for that particular scenario in the future. We hope that will be a fun way for everyone to get even more out of the challenge!

A natural disaster occurred quite some time ago. You have been without power for a very long time. You’ve eaten all the easy-to-make meals, canned foods and all that. Today your task is to make bread, from scratch, without power. Once you are done making your bread you are officially done the challenge, and we encourage you to compile all your report cards from the week and put them on the master list of things to do and to buy.
Today’s Goal: To practice making bread (the hard way) and a game plan.

Today’s Tasks:

• Make bread- from start to finish with no power
• Compile all your report cards from the week into a master list of things to do, learn, and buy (use our master plan outline to help guide you)

Today’s Limitations:

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.

Advanced Tasks:

• You have to HAND GRIND WHEAT for the bread, no all-purpose flour
• Do a full inventory of your current food storage and make a list of things that are missing

The stomach aches you have been having have gotten worse. Your doctor just confirmed you can not have gluten. Any gluten makes you very ill and you’re finding out gluten is in EVERYTHING! What are you going to do with your daily cooking, and your Food Storage? This is a very common thing for many of our readers, and we hope that today is mostly a day of sharing ideas and encouragement for those who face this in real life. You never know when you may need to help someone with specific dietary needs.
Today’s Goal: Learn about gluten free cooking and food storage.

Today’s Tasks:

• Find out what it means to eat a gluten free diet (hint, it probably won’t say “gluten” on your labels)
• You can’t eat ANY gluten today – READ YOUR LABELS (look it up if you have to)
• You look at your current food storage and realize it is full of gluten. Brainstorm ideas about how to build a gluten-free food storage
• Share in comments and on facebook how to make this new life work. If you are currently living this way, PLEASE share for others who are new and haven’t figured out how to make this new diet work for them.
• Think about other possible food allergies and how you could add to your food storage for those too

Today’s Limitations:

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• You can’t have any gluten today- ask on our Facebook page if you are unsure about a specific item.

Advanced Tasks:

• Make a list of replacement foods if you have to eliminate gluten from your food storage
• Print out some gluten free recipes
• Develop a gluten-free 72 hour kit, just in case

Something has happened with payroll at your job. For some reason all of the company’s assets have been frozen. You won’t be getting paid for at least the next 2 months. You are hesitant to leave and find another job since they are few and far between these days. You have to save money and conserve the cash you have like crazy. If you have a reserve of money saved up you are hesitant to use very much of it.
Today’s Goal: Practice frugal living for tough economic times.

Today’s Tasks:

• Cook breakfast from scratch – you can’t afford store bought pre-made items
• Cook lunch from scratch – you can’t afford store bought pre-made items
• Cook dinner from scratch – and you’ve already used up all your freezer foods!
• Do a fun -FREE- family activity tonight

Today’s Limitations:

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• You can’t make any foods from pre-packaged items. Everything must be from scratch using food storage items.
• You have had to cut back on your expenses so you don’t have Internet access any more (no searching online for recipes)
  We give you permission to break the “no spending rule” and buy food storage cookbooks online today if you find you have NONE in your house

Advanced Tasks:

• It’s one of your dearest friend’s birthday – do something nice for them without spending money
• If things get any worse, you’re going to have to sell some of your things- make a list of items you could/would sell

Today’s challenge is for you to consider what would happen should you and/or your spouse pass away. This is something we don’t like talking about (or preparing for), however it’s VERY important. There’s no way to put this lightly – but do you have your affairs in order should something happen to you? We are always trying to prepare for natural disaster situations, and sometimes people don’t survive these scenarios. What would happen if you didn’t make it but the rest of your family did?
Today’s Goal: Get your legal/financial affairs in order in case you die

Today’s Tasks:

• Prepare a draft for a will if you don’t have one already
• Make a list of all your assets for those you leave behind
• If you have children, develop a plan for who will take care of them if you and your spouse passed away
• Make lists of all the other things you would need/want surviving family to know
• BONUS: If one spouse normally handles the bills/finances in the family, have the OTHER spouse fill out this little questionnaire to find out what he/she knows about your family’s financials and how to access important family account information

Today’s Limitations:

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• Since this is a planning day, there are no other limitations

Advanced Tasks:

• Please note: These advanced tasks may take days or weeks of planning and consulting with your professional accountants and insurance agents.
• Put together your emergency binder if you don’t already have one (this is a great starting point).
• Create an actual PLAN ON PAPER for whomever you choose to be your children’s guardian (include specific care instructions, information to access life insurance policies, instructions where to find important documents for the kids, etc.)
• Whoever does the bills in the family, put together a master list of online account information, auto-pays that come out of your account, amounts in each account, investments and insurance policies and how to access them, etc. Anything your spouse would NEED to know if you weren’t around.
• Research life insurance options if you don’t have any yet.

A fire, flood, or hurricane is QUICKLY approaching your home. You have just been issued a mandatory evacuation alert. You have 30 minutes from THIS moment to leave your home and your home will NOT be there when you get back. Everything will be destroyed.
Today’s Goal: Practice your evacuation plan and refine your grab list.

Today’s Tasks:

• As soon as you finish reading this email, your family has 30 minutes to evacuate
• Use your grab list as a guide for things you will bring (it’s helpful to designate who is grabbing what, even in actual separate lists)
• Bring your 72 hour kits with you because you’ll need them
• Print out today’s report card and bring it with you as you evacuate
• Stay away from your house for 1 hour and during that time evaluate your 72 hour kits, your grab list items, etc. using the report card “questions to ask yourself” as a guide

Today’s Limitations:

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants.
• This task only lasts the 30 minutes you have to evacuate, and the 1 hour you have to stay outside of your home.

Advanced Tasks:

• Make your grab list after the fact if you didn’t already have it.
• Evacuate on foot as an advanced alternative.
• Once you have finished your evaluation, you have our permission to “cheat” and go and purchase any missing items, or replenish anything you used during the “evacuation”. But you can ONLY buy emergency kit items, no donuts. You can always shop online for great deals too.

REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S CHALLENGE WILL BE DIFFERENT.

Your power has been out for days. You’ve been getting by just fine making quick and easy meals from your Food Storage. Today is a very special event (either a birthday, wedding anniversary, whatever you want to call it). You need to pull off cooking one of your family’s favorite meals without power. Spirits are low, and you need to try and lift them up with a good meal. Don’t forget, yesterday’s limitations no long apply so you can use your tap water today.
Today’s Goal: Practice powerless cooking skills and living without power.

Today’s Tasks:

• Cook a “fancy” meal for your family for dinner tonight
• Cook that meal without using any power
• Make a dessert to go with your meal
• All other meals can be easy or “no cook” meals
• Do not use electricity AT ALL today (except to report your progress either here on the blog or on Facebook
• Entertain your family and/or yourself after dark with NO LIGHTS

Today’s Limitations:

• For this day, and ALL days of the challenge: no spending money, no going to stores, and no restaurants
• Don’t forget, yesterday’s limitations don’t apply, YOU HAVE WATER TODAY
• You have no power for the whole day
• The food from your freezer and fridge have all gone bad by now
• Remember furnaces and air conditioners/swamp coolers will not work without power

Advanced Tasks:

• Make the dessert a personalized cake
• Use water from storage to cook and clean up after the meal
• Cook three HOT meals today without using electricity (no cereal and PB&J)

REMEMBER, TOMORROW’S CHALLENGE WILL BE DIFFERENT.