You can’t eat money, unfortunately.
You are most likely familiar with the term “rainy day fund.” It’s a term used to describe a savings account that ensures you have money to use when times are tough. Think of your 90-day supply the same way: a way to ensure you have food to eat when times are tough.
And it makes sense, right?
You know the importance of a savings account, and now you can have a supply of food to ensure you can feed your family following any job loss, family sickness, busy day, or personal emergency. Simply put, it’s 90 days of meals that your family already eats.
It includes foods that are shelf-stable, like the foods in your pantry, but it also includes foods that are in your refrigerator and freezer and foods that you pick fresh from your garden. It is 90 days of meals you can use every day and during life’s emergencies, insuring that your family will stand strong through any storm.
Everybody has life emergencies that just affect your family. These unplanned events include things like a very busy day, illness, injury, surgery, death, or job loss. Knowing what a functional 90-day supply can do for you is essential knowledge for gathering the items that will help you, not hurt you.
Never Run Out Of Anything.
A 90-day supply is also a great way to never run out of anything again. Don’t you hate it when you’re cooking a dish and discover that you don’t have on of the ingredients? It can ruin your day, not to mention your meal! With a 90-day supply, you never run out of ingredients you regularly use, because you always have extras on hand. you will b able to make any favorite recipe at any time, with no more emergency trips to the store.
How to Build a Super-human 90-day Supply in 3 Easy Steps
Welcome to stress-free cooking!
Sounds like utopia, right?
Did you know ABC News recently followed a family who loved to eat out to see which is really faster: eating out or cooking at home. They discovered that while people think it takes less time to go and pick up food, the truth is that cooking a simple meal at home is faster–and cheaper!
This is where a great 90-day supply works for you! It supplies you with a great way to never run out of anything again, a solution for life emergencies, and a plan of action for dinner (tonight, tomorrow, and next week).
- START BUYING A FEW EXTRAS:
A 90-day supply of food should consist of food your family already eats. Build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet. One way to do this is to purchase a few extra items each week to build a one-week supply of food. then you can gradually increase your supply until it is sufficient for three months. These items should be rotated regularly to avoid spoilage.And do not get hung up on shelf-stable meals. Before you let the clamor of freeze-dried-loving-food-storage-friends get in the way, let us reassure you that your 90-day supply does not need to be entirely shelf-stable. Since a 90-day supply is the food your family eats right now, doesn’t that also include the food in your fridge and freezer as well as the pantry?A 90-day supply is mostly for those life emergencies that interrupt your life today…while you still have electricity. If you don’t have electricity for extended periods of time, then your long-term supply will step in and help. You can’t spend so much of your time thinking of all the possible big Earth-encompassing emergencies that you don’t think about the emergencies that can happen today at 5 o’clock when dinner needs to be on the table. So for that reason, yes, we give you concrete permission to count fresh and frozen food as part of your 90-day supply.
2. BECOME THE MASTER OF YOUR FOOD
The secret to great meals is in the planning. The truth is, many people think they hate to cook when they just haven’t figured out how to plan what to cook.
When you plan your dinner menus ahead of time, you eat healthier, save money, reduce stress, and enjoy delicious meals.
Here’s the good news, menu planning isn’t brain surgery.
When you see how simple it is to plan your own meals, you’ll be amazed. Start with one week and work your way up to longer amounts of time.
Of course, you can also check out the newly remodeled and updated Ultimate Everyday Menu Planner: A go-to guide full of irresistible recipes to get dinner on the table the easy way! to get instant access to over 100 of mouth-watering recipes and menu plans along with brilliant tips for getting dinner on the table.
Or do-it-yourself with these no-fail tips for menu planning:
- LOOK AT YOUR CALENDAR: Consulting the family calendar and weather before you plan your menu gives you the information to make better decisions. Give yourself a break on Monday (soccer night) with an easy meal, soup on Thusrday during the storm, pizza on Friday with your family movie night, and a roast on Sunday when life has slowed down.
- ASSIGN EVERY FOOD A JOB: With this rule, instead of seeing a jumbled mess of food in the fridge you will see Wednesday’s broccoli, berries for yogurt parfaits, cheese for Tuesday’s enchiladas, and a roast thawing for tomorrow’s dinner. Planning for every aspect of the meal could save you $600 this year (the average cost Americans spend on spoiled food in one year).
- VARIETY IS THE SPICE OF LIFE: Variety is what gives a menu all of its flavor. Be sure to vary the types of meals throughout the week. Mix it up, making sure you have different meats (e.g. chicken, fish, beef, pork) and different types of meals (casseroles, roasts, salads, soups, etc.) in the course of the week.
- START PREPARING EARLIER: This is mind-blowing step will change your life. It will make the difference between sticking to your menu and eating greasy take-out tonight. Starting your dinner meal prep much earlier in the day, is your fighting chance for a stress-free meal prep. If you’re always thinking ahead, you are less likely to run out of trim and energy. Plus, your kitchen stays much, much cleaner! Oatmeal can be started in a slow cooker the night before, sandwiches can be made at breakfast, and dinners can be prepped the night before or at lunchtime.
- ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES: You don’t have to be perfect! Not even close! There is no expectation that you never deviate from the menu. We totally understand that life happens. The value in menu planning doesn’t come from managing the easily foreseeable (though if ignored, these will nail you). The value comes from managing the unforeseeable more effectively.
3. HAVE A GOOD BACK UP PLAN
Stuff happens, but it doesn’t need to get you down. With a great 90-day supply, you will have emergency meals you can fall back on when life gets in the way of your plans.
- ORGANIZED NO-BRAINER MEALS
No-brainer meals are those go-to meals you make when you don’t have a lot of time to make dinner, the ones that are simple enough your 12-year-old could put them together. Everybody has them. We’re just going to take those one step further and have you organize them so that most, if not all, of the ingredients are store together, making the entire meal a no-brainer for someone to pick up and make. - FREEZER MEALS
Freezer meals are a perfect addition to any 90-day supply. They are little mess and no fuss, and most can be ready in under 30 minutes. Not even fast food or your local pizza joint can claim that, especially when you include driving and waiting time. We understand that freezer space can be similar to New York real estate, so make sure you are organized! You can either purchase meals from the grocery store, turn favorite family meals into freezer meals, or use a combination of buying and making.
CHALLENGE #2
Now it’s time for you to take control of family meals. You deserve it. The greatest part about a 90-day supply is it builds in the option for you to take the night off with out spending on take-out. You owe it to yourself and your family to build your “rainy day” supply of food and become the master of your food!
BECOME A FOOD STORAGE PRO-THE EASY WAY!
Look—we get it, the world of food storage can be a confusing place not many people want to visit, but we’re changing all of that with our food storage best-seller books Store This, Not That! The ultimate food storage guide and I Can’t Believe It’s Food Storage: A step-by-step program for using food storage in your own recipes. Think of them as the Cliff notes for food storage. You know, just go straight to what works, and forget everything else. We’ll help you quickly decipher what you should and should not be storing, share with you space saving tricks and insider information to save you $1,000s of dollars when buying your food storage, and in the end, how to make something your family would actually eat! Grab your copy today at Amazon.com or Deseret Book.
