Once you have complete the first 11 days for a friend, or family member, it’s time for them to keep the journey going themselves. To help them do that, we have our BabyStep Checklists:

Free Email Checklists

Have the person you are giving to sign up for our free email checklists. You could even sign up for them with their email address and print out the first checklist for their gift. The checklists last for one year, and are sent every 2 weeks. After following the 26 checklists they will have a full food storage.

Food Storage Made Easy Binder Ebook

Compiled into an ebook is all of our 26 checklists, along with all our BabyStep information posts, and recipe index. It’s over 100 pages and is a great gift to help someone really get going. You can email the eBook to your friend or burn it to a disc and wrap it up with the Day 12 Tags attached.

Assemble Food Storage Made Easy Binder Ebook for them

An even greater gift would be the eBook assembled into a Food Storage Made Easy Binder. You buy the eBook, print it out, and assemble it into a binder with the Day 12 Tags attached. Instructions on how to do so are included with the eBook.

To help you with this one, until MIDNIGHT MST TONIGHT, we are selling the eBook for $5 off! You can only purchase it at the discounted price at this link.

Back to the 12 Days List

Although Food Storage (and Christmas for that matter) are a lot about food, we can’t forget the non-food items that are important and necessary to store! Remember to share some of these ideas and cuten them up with ribbons and the Day 11 Tags:

Tube of Toothpaste

Do we need to explain much here?

Package of Toilet Paper

Again, enough said

Assortment of Paper Products or Cleaning Supplies

Put together a gift basket, full of items from our non-foods list. These kinds of things are really nice for people on a tight budget because they aren’t things you think of as life-sustaining, but you would NOT want to be without them in an emergency.

Back to the 12 Days List

NOW THIS feels like Christmas. We had plenty ideas for this part of the 12 days of Christmas. Feel free to use some of these, or choose your own. Comfort foods are definitely things people need in time of any type of crisis:

Candy Bar or Pudding Mix

Even just a candy bar or 2 in your storage for just in case scenarios are great. Pick up the person’s favorite one and surprise them with a little treat to have in time of need (and tell them they can’t eat it right away, they have to store it Tie a cute ribbon around the candy bar and add the Day 10 Tags and you’re all set.

Big Baskets of Goodies (that would store well)

Take a look at our list of common comfort foods and pick some to compile in a gift basket with the Day 10 Tags attached. Trust us- these are things people want in times of stress!

Extra Set of Common Spices

A great thing to store one extra of is all your spices. Spices can be pricey, so it’s not something people tend to buy extra of on a regular basis. Surprise someone with an extra spice set and don’t forget the Day 10 Tags!

Back to the 12 Days List

While not critical for sustaining life, fruits and vegetables are a welcome addition to any food storage program for the health benefits, variety, and to help you save money on your day to day grocery shopping. Include the Day 9 Tags to complete today’s gift ideas:

Gardening Seeds

Gardening is a great way to become more self reliant. Try giving a few packs of gardening seeds to help motivate people to get going on gardening. If you know the person doesn’t have a lot of space, pick herbs, or things you can grow on kitchen counters.

Canning Supplies

A fun way to start using foods you garden, or buy in season for great prices is by canning them. A lot of people don’t have what you need to start canning and don’t think of buying it for themselves. A small canning kit is a great idea to get started.

Food Dehydrator

Another way to preserve fruits and veggies is through dehydrating. Again, if you’re feeling generous a great idea is a food dehydrator. You might want to be sure this is something the person is open/ready to get going on. You wouldn’t want to intimidate them too much

Back to the 12 Days List

Extra Container of Salt

Salt is one of those things that you run out of, and don’t necessarily think of storing. Find or buy a container of salt and make it cute with ribbons, or put it in a gift bag, and remind them Food Storage isn’t just grains and legumes.

A #10 Can of Powdered Milk

Powdered Milk can be one of those things that are hard to find, or hard to remember to use. Give someone a nice #10 can, or box and challenge them to try it out the next time they are cooking with milk.

A #10 Can of Powdered Eggs

Another item that is hard to find, and can be pricey if you don’t live where they sell it locally is powdered eggs. Try giving someone a #10 can of powdered eggs to help them try out a new thing they may not have thought of.

Back to the 12 Days List

Next up on our list is Legumes! Legumes can be very intimidating to a lot of people so this is a great one to help people realize they aren’t so bad. Here are some ideas to help people use, and understand legumes a little better:

12 Bean Soup

Purchase a 1 lb bag of 12 bean soup mix from the grocery store. Tie a ribbon around it and include the Day 7 Tags. If you want to be really ambitious you can include this 12 Bean Soup Recipe on a cute recipe card too. It’s delicious!

Sprouting Kit

Ever tried sprouting? Well if you know someone who wants to get into the real good stuff, give them this sprouting kit. Sprouting is a great way to use some of your food storage, and it’s super healthy and nutritious! Add your Day 7 Tags and it’s the perfect food storage gift.

Pressure Cooker

Here’s another one of those – if you’re feeling REALLY generous gifts. This pressure cooker is a DREAM come true for cooking dry beans. No pre-soaking, waiting hours, and worrying about your beans turning out ever again! Don’t forget your Day 7 Tags.

Back to the 12 Days List

Now we’re on to the real nuts and bolts of Food Storage. Help someone out this holiday season by showing them how to actually USE their Food Storage. Day 6 is going to start the actual food items with GRAINS. Make sure to add your Day 6 Tags to whichever gift option you choose.

Blender Wheat Pancake Mix

If you haven’t seen Crystal’s Blender Wheat Pancake mix gift idea, you’re gonna love it! Check it out here. It wont cost you much, but will surely impress and motivate someone to use their food storage.

Wheat and Handout

Get some of those cute decorative plastic food baggies and fill it with your favorite grain. Maybe wheat, pasta, rice – whatever you wish. If you fill it with Wheat for someone who doesn’t have a wheat grinder, make sure you print out this post for them. It has A BUNCH of ideas on how to use wheat without a wheat grinder.

WonderMill

If you’re feeling REALLY, and we mean REALLY generous – give the gift of a WonderMill! For the month of December Wondermill has their electric mills on sale for $239.95. We’re dealers and offer free shipping – so now is the perfect time for a gift you know they will love!

Back to the 12 Days List

A lot of people have a hard time storing all the “Food Storage” type foods because they have no idea how much to store, or how to use it. Use these great ideas to help people get going and don’t forget to add the cute Day 5 Tags:

Print-Out of Long Term Needs

Here is a handout that includes instructions and a food storage calculator that you can print out, tie a ribbon around, and give to someone. This will help them determine quantities of foods to purchase based on their family size.

Favorite Food Storage Recipe Delivered

Since it IS Christmas, try baking one of your favorite food storage recipes and bring it over to a friend. Who doesn’t love treats?! Tell them (after they have tried it) that you used Food Storage and they can too!

Any Number of Food Storage Books

To really help someone learn about Food Storage, give them one of these great books:
The Family Preparedness Handbook
I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage
Country Beans
Marlene’s Magic with Food Storage
Food Storage 101

Back to the 12 Days List

It’s recommended before getting heavily into storing “long term foods” such as grains and legumes, to start with a 3 month supply of foods you typically eat. Ideally you’ll start gradually using your grains and legumes in foods you typically eat, but before getting overwhelmed with that … start with your typical foods:

Planning Sheets

Print out these worksheets to help someone get started on their 3 Month Plan. There is an Instruction Sheet, a Menu Plan Sheet and an Inventory Sheet. You will need to print the Menu Plan Sheet multiple times depending on how many different meals you want to plan. There is also a video tutorial to go along with these printable forms found here. Put the printed worksheets in sheet protects or roll them up and tie a ribbon around them. Don’t forget to attach the Day 4 tag!

2-3 Cans of Common Foods

Buy a few cans of common foods, tie a bow around them and add the Day 4 tag. This gift will help someone get started on storing extra food by giving them a few ideas of things to store.

A Basket of Canned Goods

If you’re feeling really generous, get a cute basket, and fill it with tons of common foods. Tell the person, they have to use this in their Food Storage as a way to get a great jump start. Don’t forget to add the Day 4 tag as a finishing touch.

Back to the 12 Days List

Water is the most necessary item to have stored! You can last without food for much longer then you can last without water. Make sure you stress the importance of water storage as you help people get started. Whichever option you choose, don’t forget to add your Day 3 Tag!

Water in Juice/Pop Jugs

Did you know you can store water in Pop or Juice bottles. This a great little token to give someone to help them get started. Put a ribbon around it to make it cute. Make sure you don’t use empty milk jugs – the plastic in milk jugs will deteriorate.

Water Filter

While we DEFINITELY recommend STORING water, we have found that it’s a good idea to have a way to clean water in case you run out, or to get extra for dishes or other things. Check out these inexpensive water bottle filters as a possible gift idea.

Water Containers

A great gift idea is these water containers from Emergency Essentials. Stay tuned on these! Next week we are going to be doing a review and GIVEAWAY on them. We’re so excited to test them out! TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY ENDING DEC 21 GO HERE.

Back to the 12 Days List

Once you are ready to make the Food Storage Plunge, it really feels great to know you have a well organized PLACE to put all that food. We recommend starting with 1 to 2 shelves and then moving on from there. You don’t need an entire room custom built to get going! Check out these ideas:

Small Spaces Solutions Handout

Do you know someone who complains about starting a Food Storage due to lack of space. Well help them out by giving them this AMAZING handout. Compiled from reader suggestions, is a list of amazing ideas on where to store food in small spaces. Print out the handout and put it in sheet protects or roll it up and tie a ribbon around it. Don’t forget to attach the Day 2 tag!

Cardboard Shelf

Have you seen those great little rotating shelf racks that you put your food in and the oldest rolls to the front. Check out this rotating rack Jodi’s husband made out of cardboard. Make one for only the cost of cardboard and glue! For an extra bonus, include some canned goods with the shelf. Attach the Day 2 tag and you’re all set.

Large Shelves

Try a nice heavy duty shelf or 2 to really help someone get started. You can find these at hardware stores, walmart, or even online. You can choose which shelf would work best by thinking about how much space the person may or may not have.

BONUS: You can also include these cute labels as a bonus! And don’t forget your Day 2 tag.

Back to the 12 Days List

The best way to start a Food Storage, is with Emergency Preparedness. In fact, it’s one of the most popular reasons why people decide to get going on a Food Storage in the first place. Help someone start out their journey right- with some of the following ideas:

Emergency Preparedness Plan

Print out our Emergency Preparedness plan that has detailed checklists to help a family make their family plan, build a disasters kit – including a 72 hour kit, and put together an evacuations list and car kit. Roll up the pages, tie it up with a cute ribbon and attach the Day 1 tag.

Car Kit or 72 Hour Kit

Make, or purchase a pre-made Car Kit, or 72 Hour Kit. These can be found at stores, or online. Consider even just putting together a little first aid kit for someone’s car. Don’t forget to attach the Day 1 tag to your kit!

Subscription to Mozy

One thing people rarely think about with Emergency Preparedness is computer back-up. With all the pictures, work, and data on our computers, the last thing we would want in case of a fire or earthquake is to loose all that precious stuff! Consider purchasing a monthly, or one-year subscription to our favorite online back up. See why we love it here! Print out the receipt, roll it up, and tie a ribbon around it and attach your Day 1 tag. Anyone would be thrilled to receive this on their doorstep!

Back to the 12 Days List

SALE ITEM: Food Storage Made Easy eBook Binders

For 2 DAYS ONLY (until 12:00 midnight MST Tuesday night) you can purchase one of our Binder eBooks at a $5 discount! If you don’t like waiting for your next BabySteps Checklist to come out, now is your chance to grab the entire set plus all of the additional material that comes with them. Sale has now ENDED!

SALE ITEM: Emergency Essentials Deals and Giveaways

To celebrate the Holiday Season, Emergency Essentials is offering 10 Days of Holiday Deals and Giveaways – starting today! Each weekday from today through December 11th they will offer great pricing on one of their emergency preparedness products, as well as have a drawing to give one of the featured products away. Visit their blog for more details.

SALE ITEM: WonderMill Electric Mill

From now until December 31st, WonderMill is running a sale on the Electric Grain Mills. Instead of the regular price of $259.95 it is now available for only $239.95. You can also take advantage of our free shipping promotion to get your mill at rock bottom prices.

SALE ITEM: 72 Hour Kit from The Ready Project

Save 30% off of a 2 person 72 hour kit from The Ready Project. Regular price is $64.95 but sale price is $44.95 plus free shipping! You may purchase your kit at The Ready Project’s website.

SALE ITEM: Mozy Online Backup

Save $15 on a 1-year MozyHome subscription and $30 on a 2-year MozyHome subscription with promo code MOZY. Hurry, offer ends Monday, November 30, 2009. Click here to purchase your online backup subscription TODAY!

AND DON’T FORGET:

Coming tomorrow is our 12 Days Of Food Storage Christmas. We will be celebrating all day, with a post each hour!

AND ONE MORE THING:

Wednesday we are going to be on the James Talmage Stevens Radio Talk Show Online. Come listen at the following at link at 6:00 PM MST.

James Talmage Stevens is an expert in Family Preparedness and author of The Family Preparedness Handbook. We are honored to be able to be his guests.

Remember our All We Want for Christmas Post? Our families must have been spying on our blog because we received several items from the list!

Julie STRUCK GOLD this year! She got a WONDERMILL GRAIN MILL! Her mom got her and 2 of her sisters the best present ever. Needless to say she’s been going to town (remember her all about wheat post). She loves it so much, we became Authorized Dealers for WonderMill to help people buy them at the Minimum Advertised Price allowed (click here for details). By the way, aren’t Julie’s sisters cute?

Jodi received a few books that will definitely help her with her food storage goals this year, Cookin’ with Dried Eggs and the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. She also got some food from The Ready Project which she’s excited to try out!

So now for our “NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS”:

• I want to save up enough money to buy a wheat grinder so I don’t have to borrow Julie’s any more
• I want to plan my summer garden specifically with canning in mind
• I want to create a recipe binder full of meals that use my long term food storage items and cook from it frequently

• I want to cook more with dry beans and quit being so afraid of the soaking concept
• I want to plan dinners ahead of time to use more of my long term foods
• I want to find a way to help people who hate excel do an effective 3 month food supply plan even though the current excel file ROCKS! But I know, I know you don’t all love excel

Here’s our little Christmas update since we haven’t blogged for the past few days (been a little busy with Christmas and what not). Both of us received some of the items on our Christmas Wish List:

• Julie – Received a Wondermill Wheat Grinder for Christmas, YAY! Her mom is so sweet and bought one for all three of the daughters.
• Jodi – Got a great Peggy Layton book called “Cooking with Dried Eggs“. But her favorite gift was an autoshipment of The Ready Project foods that will come every month! Her mom took advantage of our referral program to get 5% off the initial order (you just enter code 61838, it’s so easy).

And as a reminder, in case you missed any of our gifts to you this holiday season, here is a summary of what we have done for you:

• Gift #1 – Babystep Checklists: We’re starting a fantastic email reminder system that will help you build your food storage in one year. We break it down into assignments for every two weeks and provide you with simple instructions and free checklists to help you along the way.
• Gift #2 – A Big Surprise!: We are going to be teaming up with some other food storage bloggers to provide a fantastic overall system to help with your food storage. Check back January 1 as we will be announcing some more details about our January 5th launch party!
• Gift #3 – Revamped BabySteps: We rewrote our babysteps to include more information, better outside resources, and a great summary of each of our personal approaches to food storage. Not to mention we added cute new icons to represent each step

If you haven’t already subscribed to our RSS feed make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss any of the exciting stuff we have planned coming up in the new year!

Here are a few highlights of things we have updated:

• Updated icons for each step
• Simple navigation tool at the bottom of each step to help you easily move from one step to the next
• More info about us and how we are approaching our personal food storage
• Updated some of the resources
• More clarity in some of the steps
• Last but not least, a CUTE new setup on the main BabySteps page

We are so excited to give you this gift right before Christmas. Hopefully it will help you be more motivated to get going on the BabySteps in the new year. And if you haven’t signed up for our checklists yet you better get on it asap!

Let us know what you think of the new icons We LOVE them!

While we can’t give away too much right now, we wanted to give you a sneak preview of something exciting coming up soon. To make food storage even more EASY and FUN for you we are going to be joining up with some fabulous ladies to provide you with all of the tools and resources you will need to help you plan, buy, and actually use your food storage all in one place. We want to help you make this the year you really get it done. This is one New Years resolution you will not fail!

Make sure to come celebrate with us on January 5, 2009 with prizes, giveaways, and fun activities all week long. This is one event that you will NOT want to miss. Tell your friends and family, spread the word, and be a part of sharing this wonderful gift of food storage with everyone you know.

Although you will not be able to officially “open” gift #2 until January 5th, we wanted to give you a heads up so you can make sure to catch some of the fun the week we launch. We will be working VERY hard between now and then to make this an incredibly useful (and fun) gift to our readers.

(Did you miss Gift #1? Check it out It’s another one you definitely don’t want to miss)

With the new year approaching we have been hearing our readers talk a lot about getting their food storage put together this year. What a FABULOUS time to get a fresh start and really DO IT! We wanted to find a way to really help people be able to achieve this goal so our first gift to you this season is a series of BabyStep Checklists. These are email reminders that will be sent to you every two weeks with information and specific to-do lists that you can print and check-off as you complete each item. After a year of receiving our reminders you should have your 72 hour kits, water storage, 3 months normal food supply, and one year of long-term food storage all accomplished.

As you plan your New Year’s resolutions we hope that you will accept this gift from us and make food storage a top priority this year. To start getting the reminders as soon as they are available you can pre-register for our reminders by filling out your information below.

We wanted to share with you the top 10 things on our Christmas lists this year! Leave us a comment below and tell us what YOU are hoping to get for Christmas.

#10 Food Storage Books

Julie needs a new copy of Food Storage 101 as it appears that her son Tyler has mysteriously misplaced her book (he has been really into throwing stuff in the garbage lately. Yikes!)

Jodi loves cooking with recipes so she really wants to get some good food storage recipe books. One she’s been eyeballing is Simple Recipes Using Food Storage. It starts out with recipes that only use SIX food storage ingredients!

#9 Food Storage Shelves

Jodi LOVES to have things organized for her easily and has been dying to get one of the amazing Shelf Reliance food rotation systems. Her husband keeps promising to build her some shelves but she has yet to see it happen *hint hint*.

Julie has all of her shelves purchased and loves the flexibility of being able to store different sizes of foods on them. However she would love some of the “cansolidator” products to organize her 3 months supply canned goods.

#8 Kitchen Gadgets

Julie had a little bit of apple corer peeler envy when she saw the pictures from Jodi’s applesauce adventures post. She would love to have her own one of these little guys.

Jodi has had fun experimenting with desserts using her food storage. She found this cute cookie press and decorating kit and thought it would make the job even more fun. It would have been perfect for the Cookie Clay Dough cookies!

#7 Herb Growing Kit

We are researching and gearing up for some fun gardening stuff in the spring and thought that an herb growing kit would be good practice and give us something we can start using in our cooking and food storage right away!

#6 Bread Machine

Jodi was very smart and gave away her bread machine because she hadn’t used it in 4 years. Now she has bread machine envy of Julie and so she’s hoping that she can obtain a new one somehow.

Since Julie already has a bread machine, all she needs is this nifty slicer tool to make the bread into nice little sandwich slices. One of the main problems with bread machine bread is getting the slices to work for good sandwiches.

#5 Portable Power Backup System

One question we’ve been asked a lot is what do you do with all this food if you can’t cook it? We have found a solution that seems a little more feasible than getting a generator. This product made by Xantrex is a power source that charges using a solar panel and then stores the electricity so you can grind wheat or run an oven/stove for a period of time. Very useful!

#4 Ready Project Food

We have found a way to make food storage REALLY easy! This company called The Ready Project sells packs of food that you just add water to. It’s an interesting idea and we think it could be very useful for a component of your food storage plan. If you decide to buy from The Ready Project make sure to enter our referral code 61838 and you can get 5% off your first order!

#3 Traditional Food Storage Foods

A few of our favorite food items are powdered milk and powdered eggs. These are so important to store so that you can cook normal foods. And it’s a great idea to start using them in everyday cooking to get used to them. Neither of us have our full supply of these items yet so they would be GREAT gift items.

#2 Wheat Grinders

Jodi and Julie both REALLY want the Wondermill Grain Mill as shown in our wheat grinder video. Jodi was lucky enough to inherit a nice Back to the Basics Hand Grinder from her mom, but it’s not great for doing everyday cooking with your wheat. So she’d like an electric grinder and Julie would like ANY grinder but would prefer the electric one as she has been using her wheat a LOT lately.

#1 New Macbooks!

So we promise this is food storage-related Both of our husbands have confinscated the “family” macintosh computers and we love using them to make our videos and graphics for our blog. So in our dream world we would each have our own brand new sparkling macbook (maybe even a macbook pro if we were REALLY lucky!)

What’s on YOUR wishlist this year?