Mom Blog Work

We have been talking about food a lot lately since we started blogging again. This is another "Food" post but in a different vein. This is the second post in our Emergency Prep series. We are building out our Emergency Kit and this week's focus is food and water.

Water
Water is the single most important item in a family emergency kit and you need a lot of it for a family of 4. You want one gallon of water per person per day for at least three days. For our families of 4 that's 12 gallons of water! Not to mention more for Megan's family pets.

Food
We waffled a little on the food front at first. Do we just get those emergency ration bars? What are those things anyways? How much variety do you really need? Won't you eat anything if you're hungry? We have decided to buy practical food that is familiar to our families. Think peanut butter, canned stew, chili and fruit. Throw in some hard candy or lollipops as a comfort item. We are buying enough food for 3 days and figure a few cans for each meal.

Shopping Tips

• Watch expiration dates
• Buy your can opener now
• Think high protein, low salt
• Items prepared with water (soups, oatmeal, etc) require additional water to be stored
• Items you can eat without heating are ideal
• Watch out for strong smelling items like mint gum which might flavor other items
• Pop top cans can explode - regular tops and your trusty can opener may be a safer bet
• Don't forget baby food if you have a little one still in that stage

Cost
We are aiming to come in around $30 but admit it was a guess. I was really dissapointed in the sales ads looking at them from a stock-up perspective but Here are a few sales that might come in handy this week:

• Cliff Bars, 10 for $10 / Safeway
• Crystal Geiser Water, 1 gallon for $1 / Safeway
• Quaker Granola Bars 2 for $5 / Safeway
• Chicken of the Sea tuna 3 for $1 / Fred Meyer
• 24-Pack Nestle Pure Life Water 3 for $10 / Fred Meyer

We'll be shopping this week (or, more likely this weekend) and will show off our new stashes next week.

Good luck, Emergency Kit shoppers!

Photo: Seattle Municipal Archives

The two of us have a tendency to obsess over things a little bit. We grab on to a subject and it consumes our daily IM conversations, our online reading, our thoughts and our conversations with our husbands. This week that subject is emergency preparedness. Megan kicked it off with her post on Monday and we've been spinning about it ever since. Building an emergency kit for a family of four and pets is daunting to say the least. The subject is scary and something nobody really likes to think about. At some point though we just have to jump in and get started. Enough research and "what-if" questions.

Introducing "Project: Emergency Prep"!
We are going to get our kits built and document the process here. With the recent disasters in Japan it looks like a lot of people are doing the same thing. There are premade emergency kits sold out all over the web and apparently some people are busy securing luxury bunker space as well.

While bunkers didn't make our list, we do have a list put together based on a combination of two lists found online:

• American Red Cross
• Ready.gov

We've broken down the list into four categories. This will give us something to focus on each week, group store trips and hopefully make the process a little easier. Our categories are:

• Food and Water
• Safety
• Shelter and Protection
• Communication and Logistics

We invite you to join us in this project and get your kit set up too. Each week we'll focus on one of the categories above.
Spend this weekend getting your list together so you're ready to get going next week.

Our focus next week will be food and water supplies. Check back next week to see what food and water was on our list, how much we spent and some pictures of the start of our emergency kit.