Stop Planning and Start Buying

By now, you should have a list of stuff you need to purchase. Do you feel better knowing that you have officially started your food storage program? If you don't have your list, go to Step by Step over there in the sidebar and start reading! Today, I was approached by someone who was anxious to get some more food storage done and after a short talk, we decided running out and putting up #10 cans probably wasn't the place to start for her. You can obsess over many things in life, but please, don't obsess over what to buy first for your food storage! Find a sale? Stock up! You now have your list so you know EXACTLY what and how many you need! Keep your master list with you at all times so you can refer to it when you see green beans on sale for .33 cents a can!

I don't personally subscribe to the idea of trying to prioritize my purchasing with any real precision. Some do. Whatever works for you. I'm more likely to buy in "chunks" with a set amount of money each month, but I'm also likely to spend my regular grocery money if something great comes along and then just eat out of the freezer and pantry for a couple weeks. Special purchases like a 5 gallon bucket of honey or a bag of powdered milk are not things on my regular shopping list, but they do need to be re-stocked periodically. The main thing to remember is that you are going to be spending more on your food bill than usual for a while. Make friends with that idea and you'll be OK. Once you have stocked up, you'll be able to cut back again, and you may find, as I have, eating simpler, whole foods is much less expensive and very much worth your time in preparing dishes from scratch. I have a friend who's much too modest to admit, but I'm fairly certain she's paid off her mortgage this past year, in part due to her commitment to not eating out and eating simple foods prepared at home.

Your best friend in storing food is your Sharpie marker. Go ahead and put that on your list. Any large batches of stuff you buy needs to be dated with the Sharpie. Just write on there somewhere. Month and year. That's it. Well, OK, you can put a smiley face if you want. Wendy Dewitt outlines her method for rotating and purchasing. It is as sound as any I've seen for a food storage that is kept separate from the family pantry. Basically, food is kept under the beds, and twice a year, she consults her list, looks for stuff that is coming due for shelf life, takes that item out of storage (like her boxes of cereal, she takes them out once a year) puts it in the pantry for use and replaces it with fresh stuff. It's simple and effective. If you are doing the traditional method, you need to make certain that you are eating at home! If you do that, your food storage will stay fresh. If not, you may be looking at giving some away if you can't use it before it goes stale. The only thing I've had go bad in food storage is a can of potato pearls that got forgotten and a couple bags of beans...and I'm not sure those were bad or if I'm just traumatized by my mom's pork and beans and all beans just taste bad to me as a result. I inherited the beans. Totally not my fault. (Long story short, mom made a huge pot of beans once in a while and that's all you got to eat for a month. OK, a week, but it seemed like a month. Ketchup doesn't help. No matter what she and grandpa said.)

It's late and I'm tired. I'll have a new installment or two this next week...provided calculus doesn't kill me off. I'll even add a link or two for you to check out. Namely a link to someone who figured out how to amass a food storage for $5 a week per person. Now there's someone with a plan. And a lot of extra time on her hands. Thank goodness for good people like her, right?