Some numbers would be helpful when reporting test results.
I think numbers was part of my problem. I had used the tactic of buying extra each time we went to the supermarket. Our shelves were full so we felt like we had a good start. For our test we purchased milk, eggs and a little meat but didn’t buy anything else.
By the end of the month our shelves were pretty much empty. We would have been on beans and rice for another month, maybe.
My lessons:
1. Don’t underestimate the serving size. I counted a can of tuna (plus sides) as a meal. In reality we used two cans and got really tired of tuna quickly.
2. The importance of variety is not to be underestimated.
3. An inventory would have helped us figure out what we really had.
4. Its harder to bake tasty bread once you run out of sugar.
5. My wife made some pretty good dishes out of the freeze dried food we bought.
On the plus side we now have our old stuff gone. Moving forward I’ll count serving sizes more closely and watch staples like sugar and flour. Things like if you want a canned vegetable each day then you need 365 cans of em, sounds simple but we overlooked it.
Also, many of the 1-year supply kits you can buy are short on calories so be careful with what you buy.