My Food Storage Deals

WEEKLY QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:

Question: What are some already prepared meals/recipes that I can have on hand in case of an emergency?

Answer: Besides the MRE meals, their are other meals/foods you can have on hand in case of an emergency. Some examples are canned chili, stew, soups, pancake mix, spaghetti and bottled pasta sauce, etc. Pretty much anything that the preperation time is quick and easy to do--nothing more than warming up and eating. Canned food is great because you can warm the food up in the can and don't need to have any other attachments. The other great thing about having a stocked freezer is you will have frozen bread, tortillas, etc.in your freezer, that you can make sandwiches (PB&J, tuna), quesadillas, etc. with not much preperation. Visit our website under the FREE DOWNLOAD tab and download the FOOD STORAGE RECIPES to give you some ideas of easy meals you can make with your food storage food. If the power was to be out for an extended period of time, it's important we have an idea of how we would cook and stay warm. Camping stoves are something most of us have already and would make cooking easy. Costco sells propane and it's a good idea to have several stored for an emergency. When deciding what to add to your food storage, the LDS church recommends starting with a three month supply of foods/meals your family eats on a regular basis. Once you have your three month supply, then branch out and start getting your long term food storage items. Another way I tell people to start your food storage is to come up with several meals you can make from food storage food and build your food storage around those meals/items. Thinking in 'meals' makes it so that if you had to eat and live off of the food in your food storage, you would be able to create meals that were fast, easy to make and ones you know your family will eat. Make sure you are buying ALL of the components of meals so that if you needed to cook something you would have all of the ingredients. Powdered milk is an important one to have. You wouldn't have a way to eat your cereal, oatmeal, or make many recipes if you didn't have milk. People often times forget about spices as well. Spices are what makes food have flavor and taste good. Having a good supply and variety of spices in your food storage will make it easier to make yummy meals as well. Food storage isn't something that sits in your basement and never gets eaten. It is food that you are eating on a regular basis. I think of my food storage as my own 'store'. The items I buy at the store, I try to have a year supply of in my basement. Between a full freezer and fridge (and a generator/gas to keep them going in an emergency) it would make an emergency or hard ecinomic times easier to handle. It can seem overwhelming, but if you add to your storage a little each week (we tell you exactly which items to add each week and how much of each item), you will eventually have ALL of the items you would normally buy at the store--in your own basement/storage! It's a great thing :)

QUESTION: Why don't you charge less for your monthly membership? My friends aren't signing up because they think they can't afford the monthly fee.

ANSWER: I think you have a valid point. However, if you check around for similar services (we are the only ones that offer any help or info. on food storage), ours is BY FAR one of the cheapest! Many companies like My Grocery Deals charge $25 a month for 5 stores, and many other services charge $2 a week for 1 or 2 stores. Many of these companies also make people sign year long or 6 month long contracts. I didn’t want to do that because I feel that if people aren’t saving the $1.13 a week, then I want them to be able to cancel anytime. We also guarantee that if people don’t save $1.13 a week, then we will refund their months membership 100%. I am hoping that people not only save money on their groceries, but that they also save time. It takes me over 20 hours a week price matching, doing research, getting info. on food storage, etc., and I want people to not have to do any of that. I am hoping that all they will need to do is print off their sheet and go to the store. I don’t know about you, but I feel like my time is worth more than $1.13 :) Before we looked into what it would cost to start this ‘business’ we were wanting the monthly price to be even less. With all of the monthly costs, expenses of website designers/programmers, hosting fees, advertising fees, etc. we make under .25 on each email I send out. There isn’t too much more room to negotiate price without losing money. I have learned a lot from this process and want this service to be beneficial to all—I wish I could still offer it for free. I did that for nine months and hope that those who aren’t able to pay the $4.95 a month, would still find the free weekly email helpful. Tell your friends I’m sorry I am not able to make the monthly membership less, but that I hope they enjoy the weekly newsletter and help them understand that if they want to try the service, they can do that at anytime and if they don’t save, I will refund them their money.