Sunday, January 15, 2012

Food storage-week 2

This week all I did was evaluate my long-term food storage, and make plans for what I need to get for that. I added two sheets to my spreadsheet. The first one has a list of all the stuff I have or need and how much I have and need. I included a list of non-food items I use regularly that I would like to have as part of my long-term storage, as well. Ideally I'll have a year supply of the long-term stuff, but realistically at this point I'm just working on getting what I think I might be able to accomplish this year. Baby steps to start.

The second sheet I added (the last sheet at this point) is a list of all the long-term items I need, and where I typically buy those items. My church runs canneries all over the country, including one here in my town, where you can go and work with others to pack up a bunch of long-term food storage, then buy it pretty much at cost, so I stick to that for anything that they have there. You can also order some pre-packaged stuff online if you want. For the other items, I get a lot at the grocery store or Sunflower Market. I also enjoy the fruit, especially, from Shelf Reliance (they have a GF list if you ask for it), and get some other items, including long-term gluten-free storage stuff from Augason Farms.

So the plan at this point is to spend either $10 or $20 each week (I haven't quite decided how much yet) on accumulating short-term storage items, and each month spend up to $100 on a few long-term items, rotating through the different places that I buy my long-term storage each month. If I have extra money in my grocery budget at the end of the month (according to my trusty mint.com budget tracker), that'll go for a few extra items as well. I'll probably base my short-term purchases on what is on sale that week, and if nothing is on sale that I need, I'll just go down the list.

Hopefully by the end of the year I'll have a healthy store of food we can all eat and enjoy. :)

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