The infamous "they" recommend you test your supplies to make sure it works for you, before you actually need it. In the process of moving to our new home, we got a chance to "practice" with our 1 month food box.
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One thing I often do before moving is eat only what is in my fridge. Like may other people who employ this tactic, eat what you have and now you have less food that needs to be packed, in a spill-proof / spoil-proof manner for transit.
This also means you move into a new place with no food. But not us!
8 Lessons Learned while Testing our 1 Month Food Box
1. Super useful, even without zombies:
This box turned out to be more useful than I even imagined. It doesn't have to be the end of the world, zombie scenario, for our food preparedness supplies to be useful. We have shelf-stable food while we unpacked, before we hit the grocery store.
2. First meals in the new place:
We still ate the fresh things in our fridge and didn't replace them. Less to move, less to spill. Our first few meals came directly from our box. We had a few trips to the store for things we needed (new locks, extra spare keys, light bulbs, etc), but the grocery store wasn't one of them. This was one less expense and worry, since moving can be stressful and costly.
3. Easy meals to make:
We ate our shelf-stable, easy to prepare meals when unpacking. These meals require little to no water, little to no cooking and few pots. Ready to serve soups, or dump chili was the perfect meals while our life was in boxes.
4. Can Opener:
We also learned we need a different can opener. Yes we had a can opener in our 1 month food box, but it's wasn't very good. It was a cheap one, and we struggled with some of the cans.
5. Spices:
We missed some spices. I had salt and pepper, the essentials. We also had the pre-measured taco packets for chili but we missed garlic. How can you forget about garlic?!
6. Coffee:
I had whole bean coffee, which is what we normally use. Tim grinds the beans in his (electric) grinder, and then we use the French press with hot water. This doesn't quite work well if you packed the grinder and don't know what box it's in. Some ground coffee would have made those first mornings easier.
7. Importance of Resupply:
While I mark my calendar to check this box every 6 months for things that mysterious disappear, there were a few less protein bars than there should have been...but this time I need to be on top of my schedule to replace what we use, for the next time we rely on this box.
8. No snacks.
While we weren't dying, there were no snacks in our box. The Ritz crackers that were supposed to be in there were missing. It seems they never last more than 1 week in the house, so I don't think they are a good thing to count on for the box.
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But other small snack packs would have been nice. I think I will look into the 100-calorie packs, or individually packaged Goldfish, for some moral boosters. (I would say chocolate, but that would also be raided within the week 🙂 Too tempting.)
Conclusion
Our 1 month food box definitely eased our move. I am super happy we had this box stocked and ready to go. It was food we didn't have to worry about, and included ready to eat items like protein bars to prevent those hangry moments.
What other uses have you found while using/testing your food preparedness supplies? Let us know in the comments below.
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