Food Storage!

My mom just spent 2 weeks up in Virginia with me.  She had told me before coming that she wanted a project to do while she was here.  And oh boy did I come up with a project.  Justin and I have been talking about wanting to have a year supply of food on hand in case of an emergency.  Our church has taught us for years.  When we got married we used some of our wedding money to get some basic items, but most of it were things that we normally cooked with, but not enough to make a whole meal.  So while mom was here our goal was to come up with a year supply of food so that we could be more prepared for this unpredictable world we live in.

This post will hopefully serve two purposes.  1. Remind myself of things to do better in the future. 2. Help others learn from my experience.

Step 1 - Come up with meals that don't involve perishable foods.  

We did 10 dinners, 5 desserts, 4 breakfasts, 4 snacks, and 2 lunches.  The tricky part for me was finding a variety of flavors.  There is only so much you can do with rice, beans, canned tomatoes, etc.  We tried all the recipes first to make sure that we liked it, because our plan is to live off of this, so we would be eating the same meals over and over again.  Some are better then others, but all doable none the less.

Next time I will find recipes that have fewer and cheaper ingredients and will start now collecting new recipes to try in the future.

Step 2 - Price what food costs.

Actually this should maybe be step 1 in the future, that way you know what food are less expensive and plan your meals around that.  We went to Costco, Wal-Mart, and the churches cannery.  We established which place was the cheapest to shop.  For the most part Costco was by far the cheapest way to go with the exception of the cannery, which only sells a few staple items.  

Step 3 - Compile a grocery list.

We made copies of the recipes and put them all in sheet protectors so that would all be in one place.  Then we decided how many times we would be cooking that recipe in the next 6 months.  (Somewhere along the line we were overwhelmed with the year supply and decreased it to 6 months.  Best idea ever!!)  We then took each ingredient and multiplied it by how many times we would be making it so that we knew how much of each thing we would need to buy.  Then we decided if it was worth it to buy it in bulk or if it was a small enough amount then we would just get it at Wal-Mart.  

Step 4 - Start shopping

We managed to do all the shopping in two days.  On Friday we went to Costco.  I had to buy a membership which obviously added to the cost and time of the trip, but all in all we did it in 2 hours, with Hazel in tow.  My girl is some kind of trouper and was great the whole time.  She did consume about 50 lbs of goldfish, but it was worth it.  I was on a budget so we wrote down everything that went in the cart so that I knew if I needed to cut some things out for the moment, which I did have to do.  I only ended up buying a couple sets of tuna and canned chicken, because they were the most expensive things, so next month I will go back and get some more until we have enough stored up.  On Saturday, we went to the cannery and Wal-Mart while Justin stayed home with Hazel.  We finally got home around 3 and had the food all put away by about 5.  

Other steps we had to do.

- Find a place to put all the food.  Mom is some kind of magician, because she managed to fit almost our entire hall closet (which was a lot of stuff) into Hazel's much smaller closet which freed up a lot of space in the hall which is where the food is now.

- Get a shelf to put it on.  We ended up making our own shelf made out of sender (sp?) blocks and plywood.  It only cost us about $40.  

- We also got a lot of household items to.  Laundry detergent, shampoos, cleaning supplies, etc.

Here is a break down of what we spent to give you an idea of what it will cost.

Costco - $422.26 (we signed up for a credit card with cash back points which took $25 off the bill)

Costco Membership - $100.  Regular memberships only cost $50, but again this had some good rewards so we went for it.

Walmart - $123.15

Cannery - $106.00 (we opted to just by the bulk bags and store them in 5 gallon buckets to save some extra money.  Food doesn't last as long in buckets, but we are planning on living off of this so we don't need it to last 30 years in #10 cans.)

Shelf Materials - $42.86

Total Spent: $769.  I can easily spend over $350 each month so this is a big savings for us for 6 months of food!

Okay so our plan is to now use this food to keep me out of the grocery store!!  We are planning on making a lot of things here at home.  I have started making our own bread, cereal, granola bars, etc..  It feels really good!!!

Here is what our food storage closet looks like.

  

We are so happy to be able to follow a living prophet's counsel by getting a start on our food storage.  It is also nice not to have to come up with what to have for dinner for the next 6 months!