Small Tips for Accumulating a Large Food Storage

by: Aine Schulmire

Regardless of religion, keeping a good food storage is just good common sense.  It wards of hunger during periods of crisis, such as unemployment, strikes, famine, etc.  Most people think they cannot afford to acquire food storage, especially when groceries are so expensive these days!  Here's a few small tips I've learned over the years to accumulate my own year's supply:

1.  Store what you eat.  If you don't like tomato soup, don't store it!  If you use a lot of cream of mushroom, the next time you buy a can, throw another can into the cart.  You won't miss the extra dollar out of your wallet, and you'll see your food storage grow!

2.  Learn to cook from scratch.  Did you know you can make those soups from scratch?  There are lots of websites than can help teach you to use bulk ingredients to make your favorite dishes.  This will cut down costs tremendously, but it will take a desire to learn on your part, and a willingness to spend a little extra time in the kitchen.

3.  Use a budget to buy in bulk when on sale.  This is my husband's favorite way to buy our food storage.  Budget some money for food storage use, even if it is only 5.00 a week.  Put it in an envelope (or in our case, a mason jar), and keep it there until you run into a great sale.  If you find tuna on sale for .30 a can, you'll have the money on hand to buy quite a bit for food storage!  My husband once bought mac & cheese for .09 a box - he bought two cases without ever feeling a squeeze in our pocketbook!

4. While you are doing this accumulating, don't forget to look at overall nutrition.  Make sure you add  fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and other sources of protein to your food storage.  Spices, sweeteners, condiments and oils are important to keep a food storage alive and interesting.  Water storage is important to keep on hand for an emergency situation.

5.  Finally, when you start to feel good about your food storage, start adding to your NON-food storage.  Things like toilet paper, toothpaste, soap, and medications are important things we all need.  Make sure you watch the expiration dates on things, so that you rotate accordingly.  Otherwise, instead of wisely storing for a rainy day, you will end up unwisely wasting your funds!

Related Articles: From The Homemaking Cottage
Related Articles: From The Deluxe Edition