The Food Storage Blog

I’ve decided to put up our Order Insert Mailer up on the blog at the beginning of each month to allow more people access to the deals and promotions we offer.  This year, I’m also going to be running the newsletter for two months instead of one, as I don’t think we were allowing folks enough time to actually take advantage of them.  Any graphic designers who would like to help me with a new design for the mailer, let me know.  I realize it’s very basic and I’d love to give it a facelift.  If you have any simple food storage recipes we could put in future mailers, send them our way (no direct copies from cookbooks or other blogs please) and we’ll give you $5 credit at the store.

• Thank you for your order; we will always do our best to earn your business!  If you have any questions, please check out our Frequently Asked Questions at Food Storage FAQ.  If that doesn’t answer your question feel free to give us a ring at 615-945-0762 or email us at admin@discountmylarbags.com.
  

• Thank you for an awesome year!  Our customers and their stories and comments this past year were amazing.  Please always feel free to share or ask questions!
  

• Submit an article about anything preparedness or food storage related to admin@adviceandbeans.com.  Include pictures and links.  If we use it on the blog, we’ll give you a $20 gift certificate to the store! 
  

• New Products:  Pick up a Mylar Bag Sampler Pack at the store.  If you’re new to food storage or wonder which size bag would meet your needs best, this sampler pack can help you decide! (Edit: The sampler will be available soon, we are currently finalizing the contents!)
  

• Jan-Feb Promotion:  Buy any 50’ Paracord and we’ll throw in a random 50’ Paracord free!  A great way to stock up for bug-out bags or general use.  This is the cheapest you will ever see 50’ Paracord!

• ‘Like’ us on Facebook by searching for Advice and Beans!  We gave away $50 at 50 Friends and $100 when we hit 100 friends!  After we reach 200 friends we’ll do another random drawing for a $100 gift certificate from the store! 
  

• Product Updates:  We will finish up our stocking of 5 mil bags in all sizes in the first and second quarter (In December we added a 5 mil 4″x4″ Zip Seal Bag and a 5 Mil 10″x16″ Zip Seal Bag, both Tamper Evident and available in the store now).   If you’d like to see a size or style of bag that we don’t carry yet, please let me know and we’ll consider it for our inventory!
  

• Advice for 2012:  It’s just another year, and we can only do the best we can.  Keep moving forward and you’ll be in the best possible position for whatever life throws at you!

Oxygen Absorber Answers:  How do I know if my oxygen absorbers are good?

1:  Check the vacuum seal of the package.  If it is intact, your absorbers are guaranteed to be good if within the shelf life of the product (6+ months after you receive them).

2:  Pinch the absorbers before you use them:  fresh absorbers will feel soft and powdery inside, while used absorbers will feel hard or crunchy, or like a single solid wafer.

3:  Oxygen absorbers will get warm as you work with them.  This can take from 30 minutes to a couple of hours (they will work faster in a humid environment).

Wow, what a year that was.  It was a year of milestones, and I have every one of our customers and readers to thank for it.  So I do that.  I thank you, sincerely and with great humility.  Without you I’d probably be getting a ‘bad attitutde’ on my annual performance review and fuming at my boss.

Poncho

I saw my 40th birthday (with my 41st only a week away!) and spent the day with the favorite people in my life.  I reached the end of one career and the beginning of another.  I accomplished many goals, and missed some as well.  (AT anyone?)  My wife and I worked a lot of 16 hour days, with a few days like today where we take a little break during the day (We watched Green Lantern today during lunch- 3.25 stars; he was my favorite superhero when I was a kid, with Iron Man a close second.)  While the business has required a huge amount of effort, the rewards it has provided have been immense as well.  I love spending the days with my wife and dogs.  I love having the freedom to work in comfortable clothes in a comfortable environment.  Listening to the Cat Stevens channel on Pandora today while building orders has been a nice reminder of why we decided to take a huge risk with our future.

It has been a little wistful as well.  I wish my brother Todd were here to see what we’ve done; I think he’d be proud.   I wish our insurance didn’t cost as much as our mortage.  (We’ll be looking for a cash only physician in Nashville once our COBRA runs out this year if you know one!)  And I wish I could find a Mylar bag with a spout!  (Still trying!)

Like many, my wife and I are setting some goals for the year ahead, both personal and for the business.  On the personal side, many might be the same as some of y’all are setting.  I had a physical a few weeks back and I lost 9 lbs this year just because I haven’t been sitting in an office environment all day.  Instead, I’ve been slinging 50 lb boxes and Postal Totes, something I haven’t done since I was a much younger lad.  So I’ll try to lose another 9 this year.  So why not 50?  At my former job at Dollar General, we did ‘SMART’ Goals.  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timebound.  Often, when we set ‘New Year’s goals’, we are Specific, but less than Realistic.  Sure, I’d love to lose 25 or 50lbs…but I know for myself, with all we have going on, it would put too much pressure on and I’d be more likely to give up than accept something more reasonable.  So why not just pick something Realistic to start with?

Arnold and our friend Meg

It’s kind of like that with everything in our lives, and I’ve always preached it to anyone I mention prepping to.  It’s better to set a goal of 1 month’s food storage if you won’t ever realisitically hit one year of food stored, whether it is due to space, time, or money.  Accomplishing a small goal makes us more likely to strive and succeed on a new one.  Failing at a goal makes many less likely to try again.

So this year, instead of the huge goals I attempted (and with more than a few, failed at) in 2011, I will be putting ‘Realistic’ at the forefront of our goal-setting. (Unless of course you are a venture capitalist and will grant us $300,000; I’d love to talk to you about some ‘Home Run’ ideas we’ve had kicking around!)  I still have some great things in store for those who have stuck with us (and another thank you!), but I won’t try to do so many at once I burn out and don’t get any done at all.

In my next post I’ll talk about the state of the business, where we are, and where we want to go in 2012.  You’ll also start seeing some guest posts from the AdviceWife later this month; she has some great things going on this year and I hope she’ll provide another perspective as to what goes on in our house in terms of prepping.

Again, thanks to everyone for a fantastic 2011, and we look forward to an awesome 2012 as well!

Hey y’all, long time I know!  It’s been very busy here in AdviceLand, and I thank you for that.   Here are our updates for December!  We’re excited to bring you some new products and to help out our International customers!

• We now have 2 new bags in the store.  We’ve had lots of requests for alternate size and style Zip Seal Bags, so we produced 2 new ones.  The first is a 10″x16″ Tamper Evident Zip seal, and the 2nd is a 4″x4″ Tamper Evident Zip Seal.  They are both a solid 5 mils thick.  ‘Tamper Evident’ means they are pre-sealed on the Zip side, with an open bottom.  This allows storage of your food, with the added protection of a Zip Seal once you’ve opened it.
• For a limited time and in limited quantities, we will have a little ‘Survival Stocking’ available at the store.  It contains a selection of cool stuff for the survivalist on your list, pre-packed in a little red stocking!  It’s also a also a deal for all the stuff in contains, as we’ve set it at a flat $20.
• I’ve started putting up ‘International Flat Rate Kits’.  We get a lot of email from folks in other countries wondering if we will ship to them (we will!).  To make it easy, we’ll be putting together our standard kits, but including the shipping in the price.  For example, a Large Bag Kit of 10 5 gallon bags and 10 2000cc oxygen absorbers will be a flat $40 to anywhere in the world.  From what I’ve seen, we will be able to offer better pricing than almost any foreign-based Preparedness Store, although admittedly it usually takes 10-15 days for your parcel to arrive.
• Have a great Christmas (or Hanukkah!) everyone!  If there is anything I can do for you now or if you have suggestions for items or services we could offer in the new year, please let me know at admin@discountmylarbags.com!

(Warning, this review contains spoilers.)

Survivors, A Novel of the Coming Collapse, James Rawles’ sophomore fiction novel, is both better and worse than his first, Patriots.  I didn’t realize it prior to reading the book, but Survivors is a prequel to Patriots.  This seems to limit the world-state of Survivors and the ability tell a vibrant tale, as the story feels bound by the mythology of the first book.  The novel, while technically (much) better written than Patriots, suffers because of it.  For example, the climax which links the two stories is not nearly as powerful as the original.  Plus, unlike Patriots, there were many loose ends, and I had to wonder whether this was because of the author’s desire to write another novel in the series or something else, such as page limitations.  Finally, as with Patriots, Rawles’ leaves open the questions of human nature which could have provided power to the story, instead opting to go with Ayn Randian one-dimensional character models, i.e. every character is either good or bad, and no one has any inner battles or demons to conquer.

The opening of the book is similar to Patriots, with an imminent economic collapse forcing the characters to try to get to their respective home bases or bug-out-locations while collecting supplies to live on.  In Survivors, this is complicated by the fact that the main protagonist is serving in Afghanistan and will need to find his way home.  Luckily, the character is just about to leave active duty as the collapse occurs, and with the help of $20,000 in gold coins he has with him, proceeds to make his way across the globe to his home in the American southwest.  Other major and minor characters are introduced as well.  They are a decent cross-section of society and range from a southern grandmother, a trio of Hispanic orphans and one of the antagonists of the story, a mid-western gang member.

One aspect of Rawles’ writings one must get used to is his heavy use of technical and military acronyms and jargon.  While some of this is useful for those who want to reference topics after reading it, much of it is distracting.  For example, while the detailed explanations of Ham Radio usage which appear in the books could be a good jumping off point to someone interested in pursuing Ham communications, the esoteric rules and regulations of US Army discharge procedures probably has less value for most folks.  However, this technical knowledge does provide some realism to the story, and it appears that is what Rawles strives for.  Plus, the overall writing quality of the book is a vast improvement over Patriots, and Rawles  seems comfortable telling a story, something I wasn’t convinced of with his first effort.

The main failure of the novel is the same as in the prior…one-dimensional characters and storytelling.  There is no emotional component to the characters, and they are all too good to be true.  They always do the ‘right’ thing.  Their one-sidedness makes them forgettable, and in many cases, interchangeable.  All the main characters pray regularly and act with virtue; there is nothing wrong with that.  The problem is they are never put into a situation where they might have to make a decision that may be morally questionable.  For example, the character who is striving to get home from Afghanistan is lucky enough to have his tour end just as the Crunch (the apocalyptic event) occurs…meaning there was no tough moral choice as to whether he went AWOL to get back to his family, as many others in the story did (though no actual characters).  He is lucky enough to have accumulated plenty of gold coins with which he barters his way across Europe, South America and the American Southwest…bypassing the need of the character to find food and water, or heaven forbid, steal them.  After the character becomes injured, he is taken in by some random strangers who nurse him back to health…again avoiding any actual storytelling where the character may have had to make difficult choices to survive.

And it wasn’t just this character, but all of them, that seem to have providential protection which prevents them from ever having to make judgement calls.  The orphans are turned out from their orphanage with skills, guns, horses and plenty of food.  The couple that takes them in finds guns, ammunition and pounds of silver coins hidden in a barn, making their stay in the post-apocalyptic world fairly comfortable.  While every story can survive some deus ex machina and Dudley Do-Right characters, in general those are not the interesting ones.  Show us the reactions and the soul-searching of these survivors if they were bereft of their food, their guns, and their safety.  Would the main character have stowed away on a ship if he couldn’t buy passage on one?  Would the orphans have maintained their belief systems if put out with nothing but their clothes?  And if they did, how would they have survived?  Would they have become conscientious bandits, stealing only what they needed to survive day to day?

As a prepper and survivalist, I would like to see what Rawles’ thinks it would take to survive if all our preps were not available.  Would even the most devout characters turn to theft or violence to survive?  Would they try to live off the land, only to perish with their values intact?  Those are the stories begging to be told in apocalyptic fiction.  The greatest characters in the genre struggle mightily, with their consciences as well as with the outside world.  Mad Max, the father from The Road, and the struggles of those in The Walking Dead.

For all my criticism, I enjoyed the story.  Survivors was a much more human tale than Patriots.  And while the ‘love story chapter’ seemed a little forced, I appreciate that Rawles’ tried to flesh out his characters a little.  To me, that shows he is growing as a writer.  However, he still has a way to go in his world-building, particularly in regard to the forced ‘black and whiteness’ of it all.  It is easy to make good choices in comfortable situations, but it makes for poor storytelling…good fiction asks characters to make difficult choices in uncomfortable situations.

With the dearth of good survival fiction, you’ll likely want to pick up Survivors, even with its flaws.  Rawles is a mainstay of the survival community, and his contributions, especially the knowledge gathered at his blog, is considerable.  Overall, I give Survivors 3 of 5 stars.

The trip to Pack Expo last week was amazing!  I walked over 10 miles during my time there, and said hello at at least 200 booths.  I came back with over 20 new potential vendors, a brand new vacuum sealer, and a huge amount of knowledge.  (Even if the knowledge is something simple like knowing better how to find an answer to a question) It is sometimes daunting, especially when we think we know something well, to admit that we don’t know what we don’t know.  That is a little how I felt when presented with 25,000 exhibitors, thousands of vendors, and hundreds of pieces of equipment I’ve never seen before.

The food storage/preparedness niche is a very small subset of the packaging industry, and I may well have been one of the 10 smallest business owners there.  While I have always tried to be educated about the products we offer and unlike many we do regular testing of our products in-house, (as well as regularly use the products ourselves), it is now very obvious that many of the sellers in the niche are under-informed about what they are selling.  For example, a new eBay seller who has shown up recently has a great listing presence.  Meaning, his listings look great and ‘professional’.  However, upon further examination and Googling, I noticed that he also has great listing presence for a multi-level marketing scheme, a cure-all liquid remedy, a no-money down real estate course, among other products and services.  I’ll admit it’s a little frustrating knowing that he really has very little understanding of the food storage process, but has set up shop with some information from the LDS website and tries to portray himself as the most knowledgeable seller in the niche.

I always remind myself that this is the day-to-day of running a business, so instead of worrying about what someone else is doing, I will focus on what I need to do.

So what is that?

1.  I will continue to make Advice and Beans/Discount Mylar Bags the go-to source for accurate information on food storage products and processes.  This means that like teachers and CPA’s and other industry professionals, we will adopt a policy of ongoing education.  There are several industry groups and trade associations I found at Pack Expo whose only focus is to provide non-biased, factual information about packaging, packaging best practices, manufacturing processes and dozens of other related topics.  I will work with the goal of gaining whatever industry certifications are appropriate for our business.  I don’t want to just know more than our competitors, I want to know as much or more than the experts in the industry, and I commit to my customers that I will achieve that.

2.  We will begin industry-standard testing of our products, and eventually will purchase our own testing equipment.  While we have the results of our our manufacturers’ MOCON testing for all our Mylar Bags, and we test our oxygen absorbers in-house, we are committed to random-sample testing of our entire product line, with proper record-keeping of the results.  This will ensure that whenever we provide an answer to a customer question, we have the best information available.

3.  We will begin to collate a database of all public-record studies of long-term food storage results and to have that information available for our customers.  While there is a lot of information available on the Internet and elsewhere, sometimes these studies are a little hard to find.  As I often get questions about ‘how long will this or that item store’, I would like to be able to offer referable information (assuming it is available) instead of generalizations.

4.  We will begin to add more questions and answers to our FAQ.  While I have done my best to answer the most common questions, it needs to be more in-depth and answer some of the questions customers might not even know to ask (including some I found myself at the show).  For example, why is LLDPE a better barrier layer than OPP?  What is the real difference between a 4 mil bag and a 7mil bag (you might be surprised at the answer)?  And many others.

Maybe it’s a little overkill, but as they say about small businesses, if you are not moving forward you are falling behind.  Our customers deserve to have as much information at their fingertips as I can possibly give.

As always, if there is something you think we need to do, a product line we need to carry, or general comments, good or bad, please drop me a line at admin@adviceandbeans.com.  I look forward to our next milestone, our 2nd year anniversary in April 2012!