One of the great things about the Parade of Giveaways is that you get to learn more about all of these great companies and products and see how they can help you build your food storage. The BEST part about the Parade of Giveways, is that entering giveaways has never been easier, and is open for the whole month. So don’t be afraid to sign up for your favorite ones (or ALL of them!)
 

Here is a list of some of the great products (and we have a couple more coming, so check back):

• Shelf Reliance’s most popular Food Rotation System
• 3-Day Emergency Kit from Emergency Essentials
• Chef’s Banquet Freeze Dried Fruit Variety from Ready Project
• 2 FREE 1 Year Memberships to Deals to Meals
• Quality spices from All About Food Storage
• “I Can’t Believe it’s Food Storage” by Crystal Godfrey
• Augason Farms Breakfast Pack
• “Gardening for Beginners” from My Square Foot Garden
• The new 16″ deep Shelf Organizer from Can Organizer
• Golden Flaxseed from HiStakes-Spelt
• Food Storage Made Easy Binders on CD
• JUST ADDED: WONDERMILL JR DELUXE HAND GRINDER

1. CREATING A PLANNING TEAM/CONTINUITY OF AUTHORITYParticipants will discuss the importance of creating a planning team and who should be included. Creating a chain of command with continuity of authority maintains leadership during any type of operational interruption.

2. COMMUNICATION
Maintaining reliable communication with employees, key personnel, customers, vendors and first responders can minimize confusion during any type of event. Options and solutions for a communication plan will be discussed.

3. RISKS AND HAZARDS
Learn how to recognize the risks and hazards that are the most probably for your facility and location. How should you plan against specific types of interruptions?

4. INTERNAL/EXTERNAL RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES
Each business or organization has internal and external resources that can be utilized for emergency response and recovery. Participants will learn to identify what capabilities are currently available and how to develop others.

5. VULNERABILITY ASSESMENTS
What types of emergences within your facility or community are most likely to occur? This point will cover a vulnerability assessment tool to determine probabilities, estimate impact and assess resources using a numbering system to identify certain types of interruptions.

6. ESSENTIAL BUSINESS FUNCTIONS
Your bottom line could depend on how quickly you are able to resume normal business operations – but what needs to be operating first? Planners will learn how to focus on a company’s most essential business functions to retain the “what, who and how” of business resumption.

7. HUMAN RESOURCES
The human resources within your organization are likely your most valuable assets. Discover the skills and specialized training that cannot always be replaced with outside resources.

8. WORKPLACE EVACUATION AND SHELTERING IN PLACE
Training employees in a simple evacuation or fire drill plan prepares them to respond without confusion during an actual emergency event. Assigning responsibility to assist customers, clients, or patients out of the facility increases exit efficiency. Where should they go? What should they take/ How long should they plan to stay away? Or is it safer to shelter in place?

9. WORKPLACE EMERGENCY SUPPLY ITEMS
Emergencies are unpredictable and could happen during working hours. Is your workplace prepared with necessary supplies to sustain occupants for 8-12 hours if necessary? Receive a practical emergency supply list for workplace environments.

10. INSURANCE COVERAGE/REVIEWS
Would your insurance claim benefit be enough to keep you in business? Identify alternate types of insurance to cover possible gaps.

11. VITAL RECORDS
Could you provide vital documents or records upon request to an insurance provider, banker, or tax accountant? Recognize types of records that are vital to the survival of a business or organization.

12. DATA PROTECT/STORE/RECOVER
A major cause of business interruption is significant data loss. Human error, power failure, a facility fire –all could be the cause. What should an organization do to protect, store and recover vital records and safeguard their cyber system? (Check out computer back up with MozyPro Options)

Awhile back we did a fun post on 72 hour kits for the office. If you don’t have one already, you should check it out and get going on it!

p.s. Share what you know about your company’s emergency preparedness plans in the comments below. If you don’t know them, find out!

The 7 DAY CHALLENGE is quickly approaching… When is it you ask?

Remember, on a SURPRISE day in September, we will email you (if you are signed up for the challenge – sign up here) and announce the challenge has begun. At that point, you will not be allowed to spend ANY money for 7 days, or go to any kind of store (for those of you who think you can use gift cards -you can’t). Each day we will present you with a different kind of challenge or emergency to deal with USING ONLY WHAT YOU HAVE ON HAND!

• You WILL need a 72 hour kit/Eprep Plan. That’s not a maybe, its a FOR SURE
• You will want your recipes printed (you may not be able to jump on the internet for a recipe)
• Make sure you have water stored
• Make sure you have a way to cook without power
• Inventory your storage and fill in the gaps of things you have forgotten to replace recently
• Make sure you are a fan of Food Storage Made Easy on Facebook -SO much discussion and learning goes on over there, especially during the challenge
• We will MAKE you use your long term storage – it’s not just for collecting dust you know. Do you have a Wondermill? They are on sale for one more week! Get one here.

A great way to make sure you are prepared for real life, AND the challenge, is to use the checklists and over 100 pages of information found in our Food Storage Made Easy Binder. The Binder is a downloadable file, so you can purchase it today, and get started RIGHT AWAY! Quit worrying about HOW to build your food storage, and just get started- we’ve done the hard work for you.

• The more you participate in the challenge, the more you learn, actually doing it really helps you learn
• You’ll have to modify some of the scenarios for your own family depending on diet, work schedules, marital status, kid status etc… We’ll try to be generic, but just relax and adapt
• Don’t skip out on work, or neglect important things just because you are doing the challenge -we can’t write “doctor’s notes” and excuse you from stuff
• Buying gas is up to you for the 7 days – if some of these things happened in real life, you wouldn’t be going to work at the same time using up gas etc…

Happy preparing! We’re so excited to SURPRISE you!

Emergency Preparedness, and Food Storage companies are sponsoring the giveaways on this index. Each sponsor is featuring their own product giveaway on their own sites. Visit each of the sponsors to enter. Don’t worry – we have rules for the sponsors to ensure entering will be EASY!

Check out the great products, sponsors, and giveaways for the entire month of September. Winners will be selected by each individual sponsor, and contacted by each individual sponsor. This is just an INDEX of all the giveaways (we’re not in charge of, or responsible for each individual giveaway).

My computer crashed and I lost everything … I know you told us to back up our computers but I didn’t … Could you please resend my Food Storage Made Easy Binder file?

And that is the part where we say “I told you so!!!”. In our BabyStep Checklist program the VERY first thing we tell people to do is to have some sort of backup plan for their computer. This doesn’t seem like a typical recommendation from a food storage/preparedness site, but it is the MOST common “disaster” that people have and it is absolutely devastating when it happens. To lose all of your work and school files, not to mention family pictures and videos … it has happened to me and it is awful.
 

Well today I had a serious computer emergency myself. I was working on my laptop at a little table in front of my couch and had a nice full glass of ice water sitting beside me. My five year old son wanted a turn to hold my 2 month old baby, so he came and sat down beside me on the couch and tried to situate himself to comfortably take the babe. Well, in the process of doing that … he kicked the entire glass of water right onto my computer keyboard.

Needless to say I FREAKED OUT. I hurriedly put the baby down and tried to salvage the computer. I burst into tears because my MacBook is my other baby and it is only about a year old and it was FULL of WATER. My 2 month old was screaming because I scared him by putting him down so fast. And my five year old started crying because I was so upset and he was worried about the baby. Plus my three year old girl kept saying “What’s wrong, why is everyone crying?” It was quite a scene.

I thought the computer was completely ruined, as it kept doing crazy freak-out things whenever I tried to use the keyboard. But it appears to work ok if I use an external keyboard and mouse plugged into it. So I’m writing this blog post on my poor flooded MacBook and crossing my fingers that it will still function tomorrow.

The funny part about this is that I was not at ALL worried about my data. The very first thing to cross my mind was “Thank goodness I finally transfered my Mozy account to this computer (after procrastinating for almost a year).” I only had to be sad about replacing a $2400 computer, but all my non-replaceable files are safely stored in my Mozy account and were accessible to me all day while MY computer was drying out.

Use coupon code AUGUST for an additional 10% off your subscription!

So don’t let yourself be one of the people who emails us and says “I know you told me to get a Mozy account, and I should have, but I kept putting it off … and now my computer is fried … can you please resend my checklists?” (Have we mentioned that we have to do those manually and it is HARD to keep up with!) Those emails are the saddest because it is so cheap and easy to get an account and the amount of pain it can save is immeasurable.

Can you tell I’m a BIG Mozy fan? (Julie is too, you can read her story here).

Remember that building a Food Storage is a PROCESS, so don’t get overwhelmed, celebrate your successes, and make goals to keep moving forward. Last year we learned a lot, and know that even REAL experts learned too. Wherever you may be, there is something you can improve on. If you plan on participating in the challenge here are some ideas to help you educate yourself, and get ready.

• IDEA #1 Go through the BabySteps and see where you may have holes in your preparedness plan and Food Storage.
• IDEA #2 Make sure you’re signed up for the Checklists, as they help you keep on track all year round. Along with bi-weekly reminders, you get a monthly Newsletter with tips, ideas, and great deals we find.
• IDEA #3 Get the Food Storage Made Easy Downloadable Binder. This 100+ page pdf helps you get organized with all 26 checklists, and all the best site posts, info, recipes and more.
• IDEA #4 Familiarize yourself with our Facebook Page. A ton of discussion, learning, and sharing goes on over there during the challenge. So come on over and get to know everyone and get used to how the page works before the challenge starts.

We’re so excited (well not REALLY), to do this again! We can’t wait to learn from each other like we did last year, and meet more of you on facebook – as that is where we do a lot of chatting about the days as we do the challenge.

This list was put out by BeReadyUtah.gov but we have included our own links and comments in italics along with it.

Plan for the types of disasters that can happen in the area where you live. You may need to plan for a snowstorm instead of a hurricane.
 
There is no need to purchase preparedness items for disasters that are very unlikely to happen in your area. Check this post to find out the common disasters that occur in your area as a starting point.
 

Create your own personalized list. You may not need everything include in “ready made” kits and there may be additional items you need based on your personal situation. For example, if you have pets, you may need special items. Don’t forget to have supplies in your car and at work.
 
Another special circumstance is if you have small children or babies. You will need to plan differently. Check out our ideas on disaster kits for toddlers/babies.
 

Budget emergency preparedness items as a “normal” expense. Even $20.00 a month can go a long way to helping you be ready. Buy one preparedness item each time you go to the grocery store.
 
You may find that you working on your food storage can actually end up SAVING you money. Read our post about food storage and money savings to see how!
 

Save by shopping sales. Make use of coupons and shop at stores with used goods. Don’t replace your ready kit items annually, just replace and cycle through those items that have a shelf life (e.g. batteries, food). You may want to test the radio and flashlight every September to make sure they are in good working order.
 
Use a service like Deals to Meals to help you save money on your groceries so you can buy even more food storage!
 

Store water in safe containers. You don’t have to buy more expensive bottled water, but make sure any containers you use for water storage are safe and disinfected.
 
One of the most cost-effective storage containers (besides “free” juice and pop bottles) are the water storage boxes. Read our review about the ones from Emergency Essentials.
 

Request preparedness items as gifts. We all receive gifts we don’t need or use. What if your friends and family members gave you gifts that could save your life? Don’t forget to protect them by sending preparedness gifts their way too.
 
Julie’s mom gave her and her sisters the ultimate food storage gift a few years ago … WONDERMILLS for them all! Check out the picture of the happy threesome
 

Think ahead. You are more likely to save money if you can take your time with focused and strategic shopping. It’s when everyone is at the store right before the storm hits that prices are going to be higher. Use a list to avoid duplicating items when you are stressed or panicked.
 
Our Emergency Preparedness Plan can get you started with a basic list of items you may want to include in your emergency prepping.
 

Review your insurance policy annually and make necessary changes. When a disaster strikes, you want to know that your coverage will help you get back on your feet. Renters need policies too, in order to cover personal property.
 
Recently Julie was offered earthquake insurance in addition to her regular homeowner’s policy. She asked if it was worth it on our facebook page and discovered that it was actually a fantastic deal and she bought it right away. Find out what limitations or additions your policy has or you might want to include.
 

Update contact records. Have an accurate phone list of emergency contact numbers. If you are prepared, you may be able to help friends and neighbors who need assistance. By sharing preparedness supplies, you can help each other.
 
This is great to include in your emergency binder and also to print out and stick on your fridge.
 

Trade one night out to fund your 72-hour kit. Taking a family of four to the movies can cost upwards of $80-$100. Just one night of sacrifice could fund a 72-hour ready kit.
 
This can apply to many things. If you are already on a tight budget you are probably not spending that much on entertainment. But there is always something you can trade or cut in your budget to add a little to your preps. Even if you have to do it gradually.
 

p.s. If you have any more ideas that have worked for your family please share them in the comments. If we get enough ideas we will add them to this list and make a follow-up post with a hand-out!

And of course, we wanted to share these “HOW-TO’s” with all of you so that you can be prepared too. (If you have already purchased a Food Storage Made Easy Binder we will DEFINITELY be including these as handouts in the free updates). So let’s get started!

In the event of an emergency, if you have identified a potential natural gas leak, it is important to shut off your natural gas and then report the leak to 911 or to your local gas company. Here is a quick video showing how to shut off your main gas valve as well as the gas to your furnace/water heater.
 

How to Identify an Outside Gas Leak:

• Hissing, roaring or blowing sound
• Dirt being blown into the air
• Water being blown into the air at a pond, river, or creek
• Continuous bubbling in wet, flooded areas
• Fire at or near exposed piping
• Flames apparently emanating from the ground
• Dead or brown vegetation in an otherwise moist or green field
• A “rotten-egg” odor (this is the most common sign inside your home)

Important Reminders:

• The gas company has to come and restart your service if you shut off the gas, so make sure you only do it IF you identify a leak. If there is no leak then it is not necessary to turn off your gas.
• If a gas leak is discovered, turn off any potential “ignition” sources and evacuate everyone from the area
• Do not attempt to make repairs or extinguish fires

Our Grandma Lori Food Storage Makeover project has led to quite a few questions from readers on the different types of “ready-made” Disaster Kits that are available. We initially outlined three disaster kit options and chose our recommendations based off of Grandma Lori’s preferences. We asked our friends at Emergency Essentials to help us put together a list of all of the kits that they have available and when you might use each one. They gave us some great information for us to share with you, and also offered to do a GIVEAWAY of one of their great kits. Yay for one of our lucky readers!

To enter this giveaway, simply leave a comment telling us what aspects of Emergency Preparedness you would like to learn more about. The winner will be randomly selected from all of the comments. The giveaway will run until next Sunday, February 21st at 10 pm MST and the winner will be posted Monday.

A Trekker 2 Disaster Kit from Emergency Essentials. A 3 day supply for 2 people, retail value $99.95 on sale this month for $84.99. See below for more information on what the Trekker 2 kit contains.

Bottled Emergency Kits {more info}
Bottled kits are economical and contain basic emergency supplies neatly packed into a 32 oz. water bottle for easy transport. They contains items such as hand & body warmers, ponchos, emergency blankets, matches, flashlights, whistles, basic first aid kits, and more.

Starter Emergency Kit {more info}
This can act as a basic kit or an add-on to any other emergency kit for additional people. It includes food, water, light, warmth, communication, and more.
 

3-Day Lite Emergency Kit {more info}
This economical kit gives you the basics you will need in an emergency. It includes food, water, warmth, light, communication, and first aid all packed in a medium backpack for easy transporting.
 

Roadwise™ Emergency Kit {more info}
This kit includes items specially selected for storage in your automobile.
 
 

3-Day Emergency Kit {more info}
Calorie food bars and aqua blox allow this kit to be stored in varied temperatures so it can also be used as an auto emergency kit. It contains basic food, water, warmth, first aid, light and communication items all packaged in a medium sized backpack. Recommended for one person for up to three days.

Trekker™ Kits
These kits are designed for either one (Trekker I™),
two (Trekker II™), and four people (Trekker IV™). The Trekker II™ Kit was rated ‘Best Value’ by the Wall Street Journal. These kits contain calorie food bars, aqua blox, and over 120 (Trekker I™), 150 (Trekker II™), and 275 (Trekker IV™) additional preparedness items. Some additional items found in our Trekker™ Kits that are not found in our 3-Day Emergency Kit are fire starters, purification tablets, more extensive first aid kits, additional hygiene items, and larger backpacks for storing the additional items.

ReadyWise™ Kits
Our ReadyWise™ line combines portability with convenience and ease. In addition to calorie food bars, these kits include MRE’s and MRE Heaters providing additional variety and nutrition. They offer a more comprehensive first aid kit when compared to our Trekker options as well as some additional items including a wool blend blanket, flashlight with the ability to charge a cell phone, and some emergency tools. ReadyWise kits are available in either 1 person or 2 person kits.

Comp™ Kits
Comp™ is short for ‘comprehensive’ which is the word that best describes this line. We have combined the convenience and ease of MRE’s and MRE Heaters with over
280 (Comp I™) and 390 (Comp II™) emergency supplies. These kits offer improved warmth, cooking, light and communication, first aid and sanitation, storage and tools supplies when compared to other kits. Some additional items that are unique to this line include an emergency toilet and water storage kit, our finest first aid kit in any of our 3 day kits, survival book, sewing kit, tri-fold shovel, and Deluxe Hiking Pack.

We hope you find this information helpful when selecting your Disaster Kits!

Are you having a hard time deciding what to get your “special someone” for Valentines Day? Well worry no more. We have made it easy for you – and what’s better then the gift of preparedness? Send your loved one to work with a special 72 Hour Kit for the Office. We even made a contents list and cute little tag for you to attach to the container you gather the contents in.

For the tag – that reads “Because I always want you to be safe” and contents list, click here. As always, you may customize this list to meet your specific needs and don’t worry if you can’t get all the items at once. Put a few of the items in, and keep giving them extra “parts” as special surprises through out the year.

IN THE KIT (buy trial size if you can)
- food (protein bars, granola bars, beef jerky, candy, fruit roll ups)
- toothbrush/toothpaste
- washcloth/facewash/bodywash
- shampoo/conditioner
- razor/shaving cream/deodorant
- change of socks/underwear
- kleenex/wet wipes
- hand sanitizer
- travel-size first aid kit including small bottle of Tylenol
- work gloves
- rain poncho
- space blanket
- small flashlight with spare batteries
- a whistle (to draw the attention of rescue workers)
- carbon-filtering dust mask (for smoke, dust, debris, etc.)
- small novel
- small radio with spare batteries
- cash (small bills for vending machines)
- contents list

WITH THE KIT
- crow bar
- water

To print the tag and contents list, click here, or click on either of the images. Good luck and Happy Valentines Day!

p.s. If you want to give your husband a hint on something to get for YOU, you can always send him the link to our Food Storage Made Easy Binders

Get your family together for a fun night. Whether you hunt for the items in your house or at a store, make it fun! Included in the scavenger hunt are strips of paper you can cut with the name and image of the item – that way young kids can get involved too! Cut up the strips and assign different family members different items. Make it a race and see how quickly and fun getting prepared can be!

When you’re all done make sure you store your kit in a safe place you would have quick access to in times of evacuation. Click on the image to download your scavenger hunt kit today!

Also – don’t forget to fill out your family plan and get your evacuation plan including car kit in order!

We’re so excited about our Extreme Makeover: Food Storage Edition project we are working on with Grandma Lori. We decided to start with getting her Disaster Kits put together. Disaster kits consist of a 3 day supply of food, water, and emergency items). As we went through our Emergency Preparedness worksheets we realized that they might not be ideal for every situation (including Grandma Lori’s). We came up with the following 3 options to discuss with her:

Make sure to stay tuned next Monday for the next video in this series to see what Grandma Lori decided on and to see the results of the first phase of her Food Storage Makeover!

If you get wet from rain, snow or sweat, change into clothing that is dry. Wet clothing loses its insulation value and extracts body heat 240 times faster than dry clothing. Wool clothing and blankets are preferred. Cotton clothing, particularly denim, retains water. Woll clothing is insulating, water resistant, and keeps your body warm even if it is wet.

Covering your head is vital as you can lose up to 80% of your body heat through your head. A knitted wool stocking hat is good.

Feet can be kept warm by wearing wool socks and wearing two pair if your shoes are large enough. A towel could also be wrapped over shoes and duct-taped on.

Several thin layers of loose-fitting clothing retain body heat and can be removed easily if body starts to perspire and/or you are chilling. Water & wind resistant outer clothing with a hood. Also, scarf or towel to cover your mouth to keep cold air from your lungs.

Two or more people huddled together inside two sleeping bags zipped together will be warmer than each in separate sleeping bags. A smaller bag can also be placed inside a larger-sized one.

If trapped in your car during a snowstorm, run heater 10 minutes every hour. Make sure the exhaust pipe is not blocked by snow and open one window a crack to allow ventilation.

Good in wind or rain. Put a wool blanket between you and the Mylar blanket, if possible.

You can also use socks filled with rice/beans and tied shut. Heat the packs/socks in a fire or coals. They will maintain heat for a period of time. Rocks or bricks can also be heated thoroughly, then carefully wrapped in towels or newspapers.

Leaves, newspaper, straw, etc. (stuffed between two layers of clothing). Tie your shoe laces around the cuffs of your pants to hold material in. If you were trapped in a car during a snowstorm, use the stuffing from the seat cushions.

This can be worn as a rain jacket or can insulate the body if stuffed with dry leaves or grass

***Modified from a church handout, no sources credited***

p.s. Do you have any more ideas for alternate heat sources? Share them in the comments below!

This year we will be striving to learn new things about specific kinds of disasters and more about emergency preparedness skills (like the whole cooking without power, and a new and improved 72-hour kit)

We thought the best place to start was to know what could likely occur where we live. Some states are more prone to certain types of disasters then others. We remembered this AWESOME chart we wanted to share with you guys to help you get started also. Found in Making the Best of Basics (an incredible resource everyone should have) is a chart that outlines potential disasters by state. DOWNLOAD the chart by clicking on it, look up your state, and start along this journey with us of learning about different kinds of natural disasters and what you need to do in them. Thank you to James Talmage Stevens for letting us share the chart from his book with you!

When we first started our Food Storage programs thinking about all this literally freaked us out, but since we have become more and more prepared, we are now feeling ready to learn more about and tackle some of the sticky stuff this year. If you’re just starting out, don’t get too overwhelmed, start with our checklists that help you start your program little by little!

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

1. Natural Disasters
2. Economic Crisis
3. Health Benefits
4. Everyday Emergency
5. Religious Reasons

Today we will be talking about the second reason, Economic Crisis, and encourage you to visit our Facebook Discussion on this topic. We learn so much more from each others real life experiences and opinions, so come on over and join the conversation. (You don’t need to be a member of facebook to read the discussions).

While Natural Disasters is what encouraged us to START our food storage, we have to admit – the concept of an economic crisis is what KEEPS us building our food storage. We feel that the likelihood of money being tight is MUCH higher then a power or water outage type disaster. Money being tight could come as a national, local, or personal emergency. You never know what could happen and it’s such a blessing to have food stored, and a plan in place for a time when you might have to live off what you have stored.

BONUS:  Food Storage Saves Money!

Awhile back we did a post on Food Storage and Money Savings. The post talks about how your 3-month supply can save you money by buying foods only when they are on sale and stocking up. You can also save on your grocery bill by actually learning how to use and cooking with your long term food supply. Buying grains and legumes and cooking things from scratch can save you a lot of money!

1. Natural Disasters
2. Economic Crisis
3. Health Benefits
4. Everyday Emergency
5. Religious Reasons

Today we will be talking about the first reason, Natural Disasters, and encourage you to visit our Facebook Discussion on this topic. We learn so much more from each others real life experiences and opinions, so come on over and join the conversation. (You don’t need to be a member of facebook to read the discussions).

So here’s our take on the “Natural Disasters” reason to store food. The truth is, this was one of the main reasons we “STARTED” our food storage program. After “growing up” and having kids we started realizing we were in charge of our families now. If some crisis were to happen, we would have had no idea how to deal with it and we were definitely not prepared.

We would ask ourselves- “If an earthquake hit and we had no power or water for days or weeks, would we have the supplies we needed on hand?” The list of potential “Disasters” is LONG! Here’s just a few that we have come up with:

Natural Hazards
Floods
Tornadoes
Hurricanes
Thunderstorms and Lightning
Winter Storms and Extreme Cold
Extreme Heat
Earthquakes
Volcanoes
Landslides and Debris Flow (Mudslide)
Tsunamis
Fires
Wildfires

Technological Hazards
Hazardous Materials Incidents
Household Chemical Emergencies
Nuclear Power Plants

Terrorism
Explosions
Biological Threats
Chemical Threats
Nuclear Blast
Radiological Dispersion Device (RDD)
Homeland Security Advisory System

WAIT! Don’t get too freaked out. We will be going into more details about all of these situations in future posts (one at a time and with tips on how to deal with them), but for now, we found there is GREAT truth in the following:

REALLY! We started out SO overwhelmed, and totally unsure of how to go about actually becoming prepared. Through BabySteps and patience we have actually gotten to a point where we feel a little more confident and not so afraid to learn more! For a little motivation take a look at Julie’s and Jodi’s beginnings only just 16 months ago. Don’t let the fear overcome you! Get started today!

We want to remind everyone of the Wondermill Hand Grinder giveaway going on. When you sign up for the Challenge you are automatically entered, and for each friend you refer to the Seven Day Challenge, you get an EXTRA ENTRY TO WIN. So go ahead, remind all your friends. We will be announcing the winner THIS FRIDAY morning, so hurry up and spread the word!

Just as a reminder the Wondermill has their $20 rebate going on with the Hand Mill until THIS Saturday. So if you don’t win Friday, make sure to hurry up and get yours before the rebate is gone! Remember we are dealers for the Wondermill and get you the lowest prices, along with free shipping* on both Wondermill Electric and Hand Grinders.

Can’t wait to start the challenge and learn from each other,

*(within the U.S. not including Hawaii and Alaska)

    

Don’t forget that all of this information can be found in our Emergency Preparedness Plan Workbook which contains simple checklists to help you develop your family’s emergency plan (download in excel format or pdf format).

As we have grown and expanded our food storage knowledge, we have continually added to our site. While the site has expanded with so much information, we still want to make sure that it’s still easy for beginners to navigate. Since we are about halfway through our Summer Crash Course we decided to give you a little break and announce some changes we made to our site recently to help you get the most out of our site.

You will see that the top navigation buttons have changed slightly. Here is a run-down of the new things to look for:

• The Start Here tab now contains helpful tips for how to best use our site and where to find the information you are looking for.
• The Checklists page now offers you a choice of how you would like to receive your checklists based off of what your preferred “learning style” is.
• We added an Emergency Preparedness tab as we have found that this is something people are looking for quite a bit, and we feel it is a prerequisite to getting started with your food storage. Check back on Friday as we will be adding some new sub-pages to this section which will include even more detailed information
• Tools and Products remain the same. We consistently put a lot of work into those sections so make sure to check them often.
• We added a tab for Recipes so that you can easily navigate to any of the food storage recipes we have tried and posted about.
• Links and About remain the same, although we will be revamping the links section soon to make it an even better resource for you.

Take a look around at the new sections and let us know what you think of the changes. We are trying hard to keep more experienced readers interested while still being able to help the brand new beginner. Believe us, we know how it feels to be getting started and get so overwhelmed with the abundance of information out there.

Well on the way home I had quite an adventure. We were traveling in our minivan which has over 150,000 miles on it but we had just had it checked out and were feeling confident that it would make the trip. On the way home on Friday things were running just fine and then all of a sudden the van completely overheated and started shaking until we stopped running it and let it cool down. We were about 20 miles from the nearest town and 60 miles from a major city in an area that had zero cell phone service and with our two little kids in tow. NOT a fun experience.

We stopped and ate at the town while we let the van cool down. Then we headed out again hoping to get to the city and pray that some kind of mechanic or auto parts store might HAPPEN to be open on Fourth of July weekend. We were able to get some new hoses which we thought were the problem but then on our way out of town it overheated again. Each time we tried to let it rest and cool down it ended up sucking the battery down to the point we would need a jump start to get going again. We were hot, miserable, and tired … just wanting to get HOME.

We finally gave up on fixing the car around 2 pm on Saturday after spending the night in Helena, Montana and ended up renting a u-haul to tow the van home. The only problem was it only had three seats so our kids had to share the middle seat and squish into the front of the u-haul cab with us and no car seats … EEEK. We made it home around midnight at the end of July 4th and missed all of the festivities. It was kind of sad but at least we made it home safely.

Emergency Preparedness Lessons Learned

What we were glad we had:

• Treats, drinks, and entertainment for the kids
• A spare jug of coolant and bottles of water to help us limp into town
• A map of Montana so we would know how far the next town was (we normally don’t carry maps with us but we had already gotten lost on this trip once so we happened to grab one)
• A small tool box my husband insisted we bring
• Cell phones and iPhone when we got to Helena (helped find the auto parts store and arrange the u-haul when we needed it)

What we wished we had:

• Jumper cables (we ended up buying another set after the 3rd jump we needed, and this is maddening because we have about 5 sets at home we had just forgotten to stick in)
• The repair manual for our van
• Spare cell phone chargers (my car charger stopped working)
• Printed directions/maps for the whole trip instead of depending on an iPhone that did not get service a lot of the time
• Hand fans to use when we couldn’t run our air conditioner
• Stuck with the caravan plan we had originally intended
• Taken the larger highway route instead of the “backroads” shortcut

Does anyone else have any advice for what could make a breakdown less traumatic? I’m SURE this has happened to more people than just my family!

To help you help your special someone come up with a thoughtful and fun gift for you we have put together a little handwritten note you can pass along telling them what you really want is a Food Storage Made Easy Downloadable Binder.

You can send your special someone this link, or print the note itself – whatever works. If your spouses are anything like ours, you’ll enjoy the letter. We finally decided hinting at things does not work so well. Read on…

Also to those of you have been asking, we finally have our bulk pricing for the Food Storage Made Easy Downloadable Binders. We had a lot of people ask about making multiple copies to share and we came up with a way to make it affordable to purchase additional “copies” of the Food Storage Made Easy Downloadable Binder. See the bulk orders sheet for more info.

This is a good time to re-evaluate our food storage supplies. If swine flu spreads to your area and you want to avoid going out in public, make sure you have actual MEALS that you can make without going to the store. Our Three Month Supply foods would be great for this.

Several of our readers have written in asking us to remind people to add some emergency items in to their non-food items list. Two of the main items recommended to help prevent swine flu are face masks and hand sanitizer. In some areas of the country you can’t even buy these things at the store right now, let alone stock up on them. So if you are still able to get them, it wouldn’t hurt to add them to your food storage.

Stay safe and check back tomorrow because we have a special handout for your HUSBANDS to help make this Mother’s Day your best one yet!

When Jodi first told me about Mozy I thought it was a great idea … for her. She could have her whole computer backed up online and it was only 5 bucks a month. She is a PC user and has had computer crashes in the past that wiped her whole hard drive clean, so I happily agreed to let her sign up for Mozy. She asked me if I wanted to sign up for it for my Macbook and I said no because I’ve never had any Mac crashes since I first got one in 1990.

Well about two weeks ago I was complaining to Jodi that my hard drive was almost full and it was driving me crazy. Once again she suggested I should get Mozy and back everything up so that I could clear it off of my computer. I still figured I was ok and just needed to do a clean install and I could just deal with it for now and do some backup DVDs sooner or later when I had time. You can probably tell where this story is going. A week ago, amid some frozen programs, I forced a reboot on the Macbook and it started back up, but just sat at a gray screen and wouldn’t do anything. None of my system install DVDs would load, and it just sat at that gray screen. About ten minutes of diagnostics in a Mac store found that my hard drive just wouldn’t boot. The computer was fine, but the hard drive itself had completely crashed. I lost everything!

Luckily for us, all of our family photos and videos were stored on Jodi’s computer. Unluckily for the company I work for, all of my work files were on that computer and were not backed up anywhere else. I do back up here and there on DVDs, but there were at least 50 GB of files that are now frozen neatly on a worthless chunk of metal in my closet. Needless to say I have learned my lesson.

Bottom line: even the mighty Mac can have a failure (even if it happens FAR FAR FAR less often than PCs, honey) and you really have to be on top of backing up your computer, whether it’s via an external hard drive, removable media, or something like Mozy. Jodi still enjoys reminding me of the fact that Macs apparently aren’t invincible after all.

-Mike

A note from Jodi: Even if your computer doesn’t “crash” it is still important to have it backed up online or outside of your home in case of a fire, flood, or other disaster that might destroy your computer completely. That’s why it is part of our Emergency Plan! If you are interested in using Mozy’s service you can get 10% off an annual or two year subscription during the month of October by typing in OCTOBER as the referral code. And you better believe Julie is LOVING this “I told you so” as Mozy’s BIGGEST FAN … have you seen her LOVE STORY about them?

The one part of getting started that we haven’t addressed until now is getting your computer backed-up. Chances are you have a lot of important stuff on your computer like financial documents, email, digital photos, music and more. Unfortunately, computers are vulnerable to hard drive crashes, virus attacks, theft and natural disasters, which can erase or destroy everything in an instant. I want to share with you my absolute favorite system for backing up files. It’s an online back-up system called Mozy. There is a free version that gives you a limited amount of space, but I HIGHLY recommend Mozy Unlimited Backup for $4.95/Month. Most of the time the free version of a website or program is good enough, but let me tell you in this case … so not true. $4.95 a month to back-up my ENTIRE computer! WORTH IT!!! Use coupon code SEPTEMBER in September 2010 for an additional 10% off your subscription!

Mozy is a simple and safe way to back up all the important stuff on your computer. A copy of your data is stored in a secure, remote location for safekeeping, so that in the event of disaster your data is still retrievable.

When you sign up for Mozy, you tell the system what files or folders you wish to have backed up (like “My Documents”). After the initial sign-up you never have to do anything, your files are backed up automatically daily, including the new files in those folders. IT’S SO EASY!

I am Mozy’s BIGGEST FAN! 2 computer crashes will do that to you! Sorry this video is a little corny, but if you have ever had a computer crash you will understand!

For those of you who have been to the Fun with Food Storage Party all week, you may already have received the party favor – Our Emergency Preparedness Plan Workbook. We made it in excel because that way you can customize and alter the sheets to fit your families needs. For those of you who don’t have excel or “hate” excel, -while Julie (the excel nerd) will never understand HOW that is possible… we have turned all the sheets in the spreadsheet into PDF’S. Your welcome! Thanks to a great comment we received on our Emergency Binder post last week, we added a sheet to the workbook for you to record what you would grab in case of evacuations (pictures, albums, laptop) in order of importance. This is new today so if you have already downloaded the file, make sure you get the new version and print out that page.

Make sure you have everything printed and ready to go because your first BabyStep Checklist is coming next week! And you better believe we’re starting with Getting Started.

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!

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 Emergency Road Assistance 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 Preparedness 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 Preparedness Plan 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!

If you haven’t already completed your “emergency plan”, be sure to go through the first component of our Getting Started page where we have outlined the basics of what you need to do. We include this under getting started because we feel it is important to have this done even before you get your food storage plan underway. For convenience sake, we have copied the information for you here.

Have a Basic Emergency Plan in Place:

• Before you begin your food storage, it is critical to have an emergency plan for your family. Read our article about this topic, or print out our simple checklist as a guide.
• The most critical component of your emergency plan is to have your 72 hour kits with food and water. We recommend creating your own kit as it is more cost-effective and you actually get REAL food.
  • To create your own 72 hour kit follow the instructions on our blog post or view our instructional video
    
  • To purchase a kit, check out an emergency supplies store or we really like the kits available online at America Family Safety.

Where are you on YOUR emergency preparedness? Let’s keep each other accountable. Post your updates in the comments section!

We wrote an article to help summarize the types of things you should include in your emergency plan. If you would like a quick summary, you should print out the Emergency Checklist that Julie put together. Just follow through the checklist and by the time you reach the end you should have your emergency plan in place. It is very helpful!