Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a FoodSaver starter kit. It has the vacuum sealing machine in black plastic and a small selection of bags and then the roll for making bags of any size. The box also comes with an instruction and warning booklet of about 20 pages in length and a brochure of supplies with current prices. Having the current prices is a nice know. Also in the box is an accessory tube fwith canisters and such. The instructions are fairly specific because the success of the product depends mainly on the operator. So far the product works quite well. Time will tell if it holds up. I will use it partly for sealing emergency items that I want to keep dry (like matches and batteries) and partly for food products. I would like to use it to extend the refrigerator life of milk, but I can find no information about that. I also want to use if to store dry cereals because I don't eat those very often and waste much of the box. I used to buy fish fillets that were individually sealed, and I see that I can no longer get those. So I can do it myself now. The label on the box says it saves $2700 per year, but I have no idea what formula was used for that calculation. I don't spend $2700/year on food, so it must apply to a family that eats very expensive foods. At any rate, I would just ignore that label as just nonsense that doesn't apply to the average family. UPDATE: The first few uses were excellent (see above). However, after using several times, I noticed the seal was never fully formed and the vacuum was immediately lost. Cleaned everything and reread instructions. Didn't help. The heating element started failing on the right side so I would only get a 75% seal. I then rebagged and kept trying. Eventually I was getting about 50% success at a good seal and the failure was always on the right end of the element. Then after more use I was getting a 50% successful seal. From what I can tell, the element simply does not heat evenly across the bag after the machine is used for about a week. This is not something I would recommend. The failure rate is too high.