Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Food Storage

I alluded to this in another post where I talked about using our camper for emergency storage, in case we had to evacuate quickly for whatever reason. This past winter we had some slow times in our household and we didn't have as much income as we had in past years during January and February. In past years my husband worked some in these months but this year he hardly had any work. Therefore, we were lacking in the money department.

Once we feel the strain we tend to tighten the belt a bit more and start to look at ways to make us feel a bit "looser" in the wallet. Sometimes we start selling stuff and other times we look for what we have in the house to get us through.

Thankfully this year I had a bit of a stockpile of foods in the pantry and we used a lot of what we had stored to help us round out our grocery budget. I was glad I had the extra on hand. Prices seem to be rising both in groceries and in gas. This little stock of food helped us out.

Beginning in April we moved our pantry from the downstairs family room closet to the first floor hall coat closet. We built shelves and moved our coats to our rooms. The closet was just a catch all for junk on the floor of the closet and old coats that we rarely wear. The closet is close to the kitchen which helps a ton in meal prep. While we were moving it I realized that we had really gone through some food that I had stored. I was not only impressed that we had this store of food and it could help us during our lean months but was also amazed at how little we had left.

This brought both me and my husband to start thinking about stocking up again. We were convinced that this is the right and good thing to do for our family. Both of us began looking on the internet for food storage organization. We found these awesome boxes to help store and rotate your canned goods. We haven't bought them yet but will be buying them soon.

We also found that many Mormons store food. This sent us through a ton of blogs dealing with food storage acquisition and storage organization. They are awesome at creatively storing food.

http://preparedldsfamily.blogspot.com/

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/FN_502.pdf

http://www.dealstomeals.blogspot.com/

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/

http://everydayfoodstorage.net/tag/food-storage-blog

http://histakes-food-storage.blogspot.com/

http://blog.totallyready.com/

http://safelygatheredin.blogspot.com/

http://modernsurvivalblog.com/preps/food-storage-101-inventory/


Now don't get me wrong. I am NOT a survivalist, I am NOT a greenie, and I am NOT thinking the world is going to end or anything. I AM thinking that we have lean times in our household.

Eight years ago we had a hurricane come through our city and it wiped out our power in our house for 14 days and our phone for 28 days. We had two toddlers and an infant at the time. I wasn't as prepared for that disaster as I could have been but we survived it. This event also taught us that we aren't immune to natural disasters where we live. Being more prepared will only help us next time.

So there are many reasons why we are going to stock up on food and related items. You may have some reasons too.

"They" (the Mormons, survivalists, and preparedness people) say to work toward a stock of three months supply of food that you already eat first. Also stock up on water. Then stash some cash for emergencies only. Once you have done that then they say to work towards a year supply of food with basic staples.

So my question today is, do you have a store of food for your family? How long can you go with the food you have in your home right now?

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