After the Japan earthquake and tsunami, I got some new resolve to go shopping for my emergency kit, while also coming up with a new plan. My problem in the past has been that I don’t like to eat the stuff I buy for my emergency kit — e.g., canned fruit, canned soup — so it stays in the kit for years and enters the territory of questionable safety (although I vaguely remember some studies of very old canned foods showing that they are safe to eat well past the date stamped on the can). So this year I’m going to try buying better foods and then rotating through them every few months. For example, I bought a bunch of tasty KIND bars, some decent canned soups, German whole grain bread and other good-tasting items. I’m also going to buy a few gallons of water. I marked my calendar for a few months out. When the reminder shows up, I’ll buy new food and eat what I bought previously. I might drink the bottled water instead of tap, or I might just keep it around. In an emergency, it won’t be a bad thing to have too much water around.

Keeping additional kits in my car and my office is a bit tricky, as a few bottles of water in my trunk sounds like a recipe for a punctured bottle and water spilling all over the trunk.