You know I’m all about being prepared. Today we’re going to talk about water storage.  You’ll get lots of options and ideas for putting together emergency water storage for your family, including how you can do it virtually for free.

But first, why is water so important?  Don’t we all have it coming out of our faucets?

Why store water?

Yes, we are blessed to have clean water coming out of the tap 99 percent of the time. BUT in times of natural disaster or a disruption or contamination in your water supply (whether you have city water or a well), having water is CRUCIAL to your family’s survival and well-being. Water is even MORE important than food.  You can live a lot longer without food than you can without water.

Water storage comes in very useful even without a major disaster. We’ve lived in our house for about three and a half years, and during that time there have been four times when our city water supply has been compromised and we were advised to either not use the water at all, or to use it only for emergency and essential purposes. Each time was for a period of 24-48 hrs. One of those times was even during one of those days-long power outages that PG&E plans.

What would you do if you couldn’t use your tap for two days? Are you prepared with an alternate water supply or would you be running from store to store hoping to find one that still has water on the shelves?

And by “alternate water supply” I don’t mean anything fancy. In those four instances where our tap has been unavailable we just used water that we had stored in a few empty gallon juice bottles. It was easy to store, easy to use, and we had plenty of water until we could use our tap again.

Even more often though, we will grab a gallon or two of stored water when we go on a trip in the car, or to the park, or on a picnic. It’s quick and convenient, a great way to rotate our water storage, and it doesn’t cost us anything!

How much water should you store?

While you can pretty easily store a few months, or even a year, of food, storing that much water just isn’t possible for most people. Water takes up a lot of space!

And if we aren’t carefully monitoring our water usage we can use A LOT of water. Just go and check your last water bill to see how many gallons of water you used last month!

If you can’t go look up your bill right now, I’ll give you our numbers. We’ll go back and use the month of March, since that was before we started watering our garden. In March we used just over 23,000 gallons of water. We are a family of 8, but we also have an Airbnb rental on our property that usually has 1-2 people in it.  If we divide 23,000 by 10 people, we find that we used 76 gallons per person per day!

Crazy, isn’t it!

The standard recommendation for emergency water storage is to store a MINIMUM of 1 gallon per person per day and store a MINIMUM of 3-day’s supply.

Going from 76 gallons per day to 1 gallon per day is pretty drastic. That would cover drinking water and food preparation, and not much else. If your water shortage also involves high temperatures, physical exertion, sickness, injury, or cleaning, you will definitely need more. So we are much more comfortable planning for 2 gallons per person per day.

Let’s say you have a family of four and you want to be prepared with 2 gallons per day for each person for three days. You’re looking at

4 people x 2 gallons x 3 days = 24 gallons

For our family, we’ve decided we want more than a 3-day water supply. We are aiming for at least two weeks of water. For us that means

8 people x 2 gallons x 14 days = 224 gallons

Options for Emergency Water Storage Containers

So how on earth do you store 24 or 224 gallons of water? Since we were newlyweds we’ve always kept a few gallons of water on hand, just in case. We started very simply and only recently got a little more involved with a larger family and longer water supply.

Soda and Juice Bottles

I’ll start with an option that’s literally free. The cheapest, easiest way to store water is to recycle plastic juice and soda bottles. We don’t buy juice very often, but when we do, we always wash out the bottles and refill them with water. There have been a few times that I’ve even bought juice especially so that we could reuse the bottle for water storage. You can get 2 half gallon bottles of apple juice for less than $2.50 from Walmart.com and get free delivery to your house with a total order of $35. Drink the juice, then wash out the bottles and refill them with water. Bam! You have water storage!

Find somewhere in your house or garage to store them. A closet. A high shelf no one uses. Under the bed. There are very few things that will be as valuable to you as emergency food and water when you need it. It is worth making space for!

These bottles are super convenient for bringing water on a picnic, a car trip, or to grab and go in an emergency. During each of the four times when our tap water was unavailable, we’ve simply used water from our juice bottles.

Disposable Water Bottles

But you don’t need juice bottles. If you regularly buy bottled water, then buying a few extra cases for emergency storage would make sense. Pay attention to how much water you are actually storing, though. It takes quite a few small water bottles to equal a gallon of water.

We don’t use this method for our family because we drink tap water and don’t generally use bottled water at all. In California especially, where we would pay an extra deposit for each water bottle, buying a lot of small waters bottles seems wasteful. But if you’re already buying water bottles, it’s easy to buy a few extra cases and keep them on hand for an emergency.

Empty Mason Jars

If you are a canner like me, then at any given time you have dozens (or hundreds) of empty glass canning jars. The unused jars take up the same amount of space whether they are empty or full, so why not store water in them? When you need to fill them with produce, you can easily empty the water from the jars.

You might want to get plastic screw-on lids rather than using the normal metal flat lids and rings. You can use flat lids and rings, but if you’re like me, you don’t have nearly as many rings as you have jars, and getting extra lids and rings isn’t as convenient as a simple reusable plastic lid. The metal rings will also rust sometimes if left on a jar and exposed to water or humidity.

I love that this method doesn’t require any extra storage space. You’re already storing the jars. The water stays clean and safe and it’s really easy to rotate the stored water as you use your jars to can.

55 Gallon Drums

Large plastic barrels are a great option for storing a larger amount of water. They often come in 55-gallon sizes, so they make an efficient use of space. You can sometimes find these used from restaurants or food suppliers. Be sure they are food-grade plastic and were previously used for foods or beverages, rather than chemicals, and be sure that you can clean them adequately.

You can also buy these barrels new specifically for water storage. I found the best deal on new barrels at Sam’s Club. We were actually planning to buy some there when an older couple from church who was moving out of state asked if we were interested in adopting their 55-gallon water drums and some other food storage items. What a huge blessing!

When you store water in a 55-gallon drum, you will need a way to use the water. Some barrels come with a bung and spigot installed, or you can retrofit one onto an existing barrel. If you don’t have a spigot, the simplest way to get water out is with a siphon made of a hose or plastic tubing, but a hand pump is also really convenient when you go to use the water.

You’ll want to store the pump disconnected so that it doesn’t get dirty or broken, but keep it close to your drums so you don’t have to go searching for it when you need it.  These barrels from Sam’s Club actually come with a siphon hose and hand pump, but if you are able to get recycled or second hand barrels like we did, you can also just get the hand pump on Amazon.

Not everyone has a garage or basement to store large barrels like this, but they can actually be stored outside as well.  Dark is best, so you’ll want to keep them out of direct sunlight if you can and cover them with a dark tarp. Once you clean and fill a barrel, you can add 2 tablespoons of liquid bleach to the 55 gallons of water and it will last for many years without growing algae or bacteria.

The downside of barrels is that they are extremely heavy when full, like 480 pounds of heavy.  We put each of our barrels on a rolling base so that we would be able to easily move them around in the garage when we need to.  I ordered the bases from Sam’s Club. Mike made some heavy-duty rolling bases for his mom’s water barrels years ago, and it actually cost more to buy the parts than it costs for the Sam’s Club kits.

Another thing to remember is that you won’t be able to take these big water barrels with you if you have to evacuate. The barrels are best used to refill smaller containers after you’ve used up the more convenient water stored in those.

Water Boxes and Bricks

Water storage comes in all shapes and sizes.  You can get heavy duty plastic “bricks” that hold several gallons of water. They tend to be better priced at Walmart or Sam’s Club than at Amazon or a preparedness specialty store, but you can do your own research and find the size and shape that works for you.

We even have some 5-gallon water “boxes” that are sturdy cardboard with a mylar liner designed to hold water. The box keeps it a more “shelfable” shape, though they definitely aren’t as sturdy or stackable as the plastic bricks.

The benefit of smaller containers, around five gallons or less, is that you can easily carry them into the house when you need to use them or bring them with you if you have to evacuate.

How NOT to Store Your Emergency Water Supply

There are lots of good ways to store water, but there are also some things you shouldn’t try.

• Don’t use milk-type jugs to store water.  Although you can buy distilled water in milk-type gallon jugs, this plastic does not hold up over time.  It will start to seep water, making a mess that won’t make you happy.
• Don’t store water in a recycled container that previously held anything you wouldn’t normally consume.  For example, bleach bottles or containers that held other cleaning products are not a good idea for water storage.
• Empty containers.  It sounds silly, but we waited two years before we actually filled up our water barrels.  My in-laws had empty water barrels in their basement for many years before actually filling them up. They were waiting for rolling platforms, which Mike built back when lived with them.  You can’t count containers as part of your water storage until you actually put water in them!
• Finally, don’t store gasoline or other chemicals near plastic water storage containers, as chemicals may leach through the plastic.

Get Started on Your Water Storage Today!

Whatever methods you choose, start now! Don’t make excuses. It doesn’t have to cost anything. It can be as simple as not throwing away that empty two liter pop bottle or washing out that juice bottle and filling it with water. Don’t be overwhelmed. You don’t need big barrels to get started! Emergency water for three days for a family of four is about 20 gallons. That’s easy and doesn’t take a lot of room.

Water is essential for life–even more so than food!  Now more than ever, we’re seeing that we can’t rely on anyone else to provide for us during an emergency.  Do your future self a favor (that could possibly save lives) by getting water stored for your family now.

You can do this!

More on Food Storage

• Getting started with food storage
• Where and how to keep your food storage
• How to rotate your food storage
• Non-food items to store

This post contains affiliate links for products that we actually use and love.  When you purchase something through these links it helps support this site at no extra cost to you.

The post Planning Your Emergency Water Storage appeared first on Six Figures Under.

We’re back to talking more about food storage!  Today we’re going to cover how to rotate your food storage.

And when it comes to rotating your food storage, you pretty much have two options: to rotate your food storage and to not rotate your food storage (well at least not regularly).

Both can work!

We’ll briefly cover both schools of thought and then I’ll tell you what I do and why I do it that way.

If you’re following along, hopefully you’ve already taken time to plan out your food storage using the Food Storage Planning Worksheets.  You’ve probably started stocking up on the items you need, and you’ve made a plan for where and how to store your food.

So now it’s time to talk about rotation.

Let me start with a story.

I had a conversation with an older friend whose first foray into food storage was stocking up before Y2K.  Remember when people thought there would be a disaster with all of the computers failing with the new millennium? Many people stocked up on food like they hadn’t done in the past.  Well, the year 2000 rolled in and…. nothing bad happened.  That stored food sat around for years and eventually my friend threw it out.  She was sorely disappointed by all the food she had lost and time and money that were wasted.

What was the problem here?  There were two things:  (1) she wasn’t “storing what you eat and eating what you store” (we covered this in the first post of this series) and (2) rotation.

Actually though, those two things are really two sides of the same problem, because if you’re eating what you store and storing what you eat, rotation is simply a matter of being organized about how you do it.

How to Rotate Your Food Storage

First, what do I mean by “rotate your food storage”  Rotating your food storage simply means that you are eating the OLDEST food in your food storage FIRST.  It’s a first-in-first-out system.  The idea is that your food won’t go bad because you are eating it before it gets that old!

The truth is that most foods that you keep in your food storage don’t go bad as soon as you think they do.  The date on the packaging in most cases is not an expiration date.  It’s sometimes called a “best by” date, but in most cases it’s used for the stores to rotate their supply and for manufacturers to encourage stores to order more product.

According to the Canned Food Alliance,

Canned food has a shelf life of at LEAST two years from the date of processing. Canned food retains its safety and nutritional value well beyond two years, but it may have some variation in quality, such as a change of color and texture. In fact, canned food has an almost indefinite shelf life at moderate temperatures (75° Fahrenheit and below). … If the can is intact, it is edible. Rust or dents do not affect the contents of the can as long as the can does not leak.

So if the can is intact, there is no reason to throw out canned food past the date stamped on the can.  It is edible and may just save your life in an emergency.

What about boxed food and food in other packages?  They don’t have quite the bragging rights that canned food does.  For more about how to store dry goods, check out the video on how and where to store your food.  If stored properly, some dry goods last 30+ years.

Baking mixes and other dry goods like granola bars definitely go down in quality after passing their best by date. Food that contains nuts or nut products will have a shorter shelf life than comparable products that don’t.

In case you’re worried about those brownie mixes I bought for our food storage, don’t worry, we will be faithful at rotating through them before they go bad!

So even though you don’t need to throw out food that’s past the date stamped on the package, it’s still a good idea to try to use your food in good time and eat the older things first.  I just didn’t want you to empty out your pantry thinking everything in there is bad.  And I don’t want you to be afraid to stock up, especially when it comes to canned foods and long-term foods that have a really long shelf life

Keep track of what you use

The first step to rotating your food storage is to keep track of what you use. This will help you know what you need to buy to keep your food storage stocked to the degree that you want (whether that’s a 1-month 3-month or entire-year supply).  Once you have your food storage built up to that level, it’s just a matter of maintaining it that way.

Since you already have a list of all the ingredients needed for your food storage, you can just copy the list of ingredients over to the tracking sheet.

Put the tracking sheet in a place where it’s convenient to mark when you use something.  This might be inside a cupboard or hanging on a clipboard in the pantry.  I like to mark things down as I bring them into the kitchen to use them.  Even if I don’t use the entire package or bottle or jar, I mark the item down when I open it.  If you prefer, you could mark things off as you finish them.  Just decide what your system will be and stick to it.

It will take some practice to be consistent with this new habit, but you can do it! If you aren’t the only one who cooks regularly in your house, then be sure your spouse or kids know your system.  Explain to them that this is how you will know what to buy to keep the food coming around here.  Be patient with them (and be grateful that you get to share the responsibility!)

Then when you do your grocery shopping you can restock what you used.  If you have a one-month supply you’ll probably want to restock what you used more regularly than if you have food storage for a longer term.  It’s okay (and encouraged) to wait for a good sale before you stock up.

Here are some principles to help you keep your short-term food storage rotated

Put new food in the back.  When you’re rushing to put away groceries, it’s definitely easier to just stick things right in the front of the cupboard or on the edge of the shelf, but it doesn’t take THAT long to put the NEW items at the back of the cupboard instead.  If you do nothing else I suggest here, this one simple change will help you rotate the majority of your food.

Write dates on the package. What date should you write?  It’s up to you.  Just be consistent and know what the date means for you.  I prefer to write the date I bought the item (rather than amplify the date printed on the packaging).  Since, like I mentioned earlier, most shelf stable food doesn’t actually “expire,” I’m not worried about it going bad.  Seeing the date I bought the item helps me keep it in the right order as I rotate through it.  It also gives me an idea of how far ahead of our consumption we are.

Food storage that doesn’t need regular rotation

Some people prefer the “get it and forget it” style of food storage simply so they won’t have to rotate it.  Maybe you stash your food storage under your bed and do one big rotation every 5 or ten years.  You take out everything and put it into your normal pantry to use and then restock everything and hide it back under the bed.  That’s not my method, but it might work great for you.

The more common kind of “get it and forget it” food storage is long-term food storage.  Remember when we talked about number ten cans last week?  The rice, beans, wheat, oats, pasta, sugar, etc has a shelf life of 30+ years.

You can get yourself a year supply and you don’t need to rotate it.  In fact we have “inherited” food storage from several older couples who bought number ten cans of food storage when they were raising their children.  When they sold their homes and moved out of state, they shared their long term food storage with us (for which we are grateful).

While long term food storage IS important, when you’re actually living off of it it’s really nice to have other things to go along with it.  We definitely saw this in our quarantine food storage challenge.  Having fresh vegetables from your garden to go along with that rice or some raisins to go along with those oats will make a huge difference.

In a future post, we’ll dive more into long-term food storage and how much you should store.

At our house, we have a combination of some items that we rotate and other things that we’re storing for the long haul.  The food in our short-term food storage we rotate through.  We even rotate through lots of our long-term food storage like rice, oats, and wheat, since they are a part of our normal diet.  Still, we have other food that is stored in number 10 cans that we try to avoid using until it’s necessary since it costs a little more to replace and lasts pretty much forever.

So does rotating food storage seem a little less daunting now?  It’s probably not as complicated as you thought!

More on Food Storage

• Getting started with food storage
• Where and how to keep your food storage
• Planning your emergency water storage
• Non-food items to store

The post How to Rotate Your Food Storage (So Nothing Goes to Waste!) appeared first on Six Figures Under.

In our last food storage post we talked about getting started with a 1-3 month food supply of your meals that your family loves.  We talked about why everyone should have food storage and how to start and implement your family’s custom food storage plan.

Today we’re going to go into more detail about WHERE and HOW to store your food.  If you’re making the effort to get prepared and have food storage for your family, then you’re going to want to be sure it’s stored properly so your efforts aren’t in vain.

If you don’t have the food storage planning printables yet that I talked about in the last food storage post, you can get them and get started on your family’s custom food storage plan.  If you need help planning, check out my first food storage post for an easy-to-use plan for storing meals you actually eat.

First we’ll talk about HOW to store your food, then we’ll talk about some options for WHERE to store your food.

How to store the foods in your food storage

If you’re like me, your food storage will be a combination of different food storage containers and methods.  There’s no one right way.  You have to find a balance between cost and convenience, all while making sure your food is safe to eat and maintains as much nutrition as possible.

Many containers can be stored just the way you buy them; others take a little more maintenance.  For example, jars of peanut butter and jam can be stored just the way they are.  Canned food can simply be set on the shelf to store.  Easy peasy.

Bug-Free Storage

Pantry staples like flour, beans, rice, pasta, oats, cereals or other grains AND boxed mixes including any of these as ingredients can be infested with weevils, mites, moths or other bugs depending on where you live and your climate.  It is important to store them in airtight containers so they aren’t spoiled by insects.  The big problem is that sometimes these foods actually comes with bug eggs, larvae, or adults packaged with them when you purchase them!

The best way to deal with this is to freeze the product for at least 24 hours when you get it home from the store.  Sounds simple enough, but when you’re buying in bulk, it could be more complicated, especially if you don’t have a deep freezer.

After spending time in the freezer, products should be stored in airtight containers.  I’ll talk about containers in a second.

I have also read that storing a bay leaf (or several) in your air-tight container of rice or flour will keep the food products safe from bugs.

Honestly, I have not had any issues with bugs in food.  It may be because we have a dry climate and weevils and other food bugs prefer a moist climate.  Up to this point I haven’t made a practice of putting newly purchased grain in the freezer before storing it.

Okay let’s talk about containers.

Canned Foods are a Great Option

We don’t typically buy a lot of canned food.  They just aren’t our normal staples.  But when it comes to food storage they are great.  Sure, we prefer fresh or frozen veggies over canned veggies in most cases, but if fresh and frozen aren’t options, canned foods are great!  Plus, they are much more affordable than their freeze dried counterparts.

If you used the Food Storage Planning Worksheets I introduced in the last post, you probably had canned goods on your list of shelf stable ingredients for your recipes.  That is great!

Even if you don’t regularly use canned foods, they are great to have for food storage.  It DOESN’T mean you have to regularly use them.  For example, I’m storing more cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup (as you’ll see in my upcoming grocery haul in a few days).  I usually make my own from scratch, but having cans is really convenient when eating from food storage.  The same goes for spaghetti sauce.  I make and can my own tomato puree for spaghetti sauce, but I like to have canned spaghetti sauce in my food storage.

Another great thing is that canned goods have a very long shelf life.  We’ll be talking more about expiration dates and rotating food storage a little further along in this food storage series, but for now, know that canned foods are safe to eat well past the dates on the cans.

According to the Canned Food Alliance,

Canned food has a shelf life of at LEAST two years from the date of processing. Canned food retains its safety and nutritional value well beyond two years, but it may have some variation in quality, such as a change of color and texture. In fact, canned food has an almost indefinite shelf life at moderate temperatures (75° Fahrenheit and below). Canned food as old as 100 years has been found in sunken ships and it is still microbiologically safe! We don’t recommend keeping canned food for 100 years, but if the can is intact, it is edible. Rust or dents do not affect the contents of the can as long as the can does not leak. If the can is leaking, however, or if the ends are bulged, the food should not be used.

So if the can is intact, there is no reason to throw out canned food past the date stamped on the can.  It is edible and may just save your life in an emergency.

Another nice thing about canned foods as opposed to dehydrated foods is that the canned foods already contain water.  In some situations where you are eating from your food storage, you’ll have a limited supply of water.  Having foods that don’t require extra water is really convenient.

For storing convenience, I like to buy canned foods in the case or flat.  At the grocery store, this just means grabbing the cut down cardboard box that the 12 cans came in.  At a store like Sam’s Club, you can buy 6-12 cans in a thin cardboard case which acts as an easy can dispenser.  It’s convenient to be able to store the case flat or on its end.

Glass Canning Jars

Glass canning jars are a great option for food storage. As long as the rims are free from chips and cracks, glass canning jars can be reused again and again. You will need new flat lids each time, but you can reuse the jars and the rings.

We have 300-400 jars that we use and reuse for canning fruits and vegetables.  I’m planning to start canning meats as well.

Some people use a water bath canner.  I use a steam canner for everything you would use a water bath canner for (high acid things like tomatoes, peaches, pears, applesauce, etc). Then I use a pressure canner for low acid foods like green beans and meats.

You can also can dry foods in glass jars.  If you have a food saver with the jar sealer attachment, you can remove the air from items like rice, oats and flour, and greatly increase the shelf life of items like chocolate, raisins, and nuts.

Food Grade Plastic Buckets

We have food grade plastic buckets that we got during our law school years for free from a friend who worked at a Kraft factory.  They originally held mayo, but we cleaned them out and have been using them ever since.  We use them for wheat, oats, sugar, flour, rice, pasta, beans, and any other bulk foods that we store.  The only regret I have is that we didn’t get more!

What I love about plastic buckets is that they can be reused over and over.  They are great for storing food that you are rotating through (as opposed to a “get it and forget it” sort of food storage.  You can use what you have stored in the plastic buckets to refill your pantry containers of flour, sugar, rice, etc.

You can even get food grade plastic buckets for free.  For example, the bakery at your local grocery store gets many of their ingredients like frosting in these food grade buckets.  They just throw them out, so if you ask they will likely give them to you or save them for you.  You could also try asking at restaurants.

If you want to order buckets, you can get them on Amazon.  The buckets come in all sorts of sizes.  I don’t recommend anything bigger than 6 gallons, as those get pretty heavy.  Three to five gallons is ideal.  Make sure you get lids too.  The best deal I found was for 5 gallon buckets was in-store at Walmart.  You can either get the regular snap-on lids or the gamma screw-on lids.

The downside with plastic buckets is that they aren’t the best for extended long term storage.  Air can penetrate through plastic which will cause the food to break down over time.  It is still edible, but not as high quality.  For example, beans will harden and darken meaning they will need to be cooked longer.  Powdered Milk may clump which makes it much more annoying to use.

If you want to use them for long term food storage (and when I say long term I mean like 5-30+ years), you can, but you probably want to line them with mylar bags and use oxygen absorbers.  We don’t do that because we use these buckets for food we rotate through within a few months to a few years.

Number 10 cans

This larger can size is called a number 10 can.  Number ten cans are a common way to store long-term food storage.  It’s often written with the hashtag or pound sign, but it doesn’t mean 10 pounds.  The weight depends on what is inside.

The huge benefit of these cans is that the foods stored in them have a very long (often indefinite) shelf life.  You can get cases of 6 number ten cans through the home storage centers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or their online store.  I guarantee this is the best price you will find for can-sealed food of this kind anywhere. They are a non-profit with an interest in helping people be spiritually, financially, and physically prepared for whatever life has in store.

For example you can currently get six number ten cans of wheat for $35.70 and shipping is only $3.  Each can weighs 5.5 lbs of wheat berries.  Wheat stored this way will last 30+ years.  If you can pick a case up at a home storage center instead, you’ll save a ton of money.  A case of six cans of wheat is currently $24!  The prices are updated monthly.

These home storage centers have lots of long-lasting staples like rice, beans, pasta, sugar, flour, and oats.  You’ll want to call ahead and see if they are open and when, as I’m not sure how the pandemic has affected things.

Because you have to account for the cost of processing it into the number ten cans, some of the staples (like sugar and rice, for example) cost more per pound than what it would cost per pound to buy a 25 lb bag at the grocery store, but with the #10 cans, you don’t have to do anything to make them last for decades. I try to not use the food that we have stored in #10 cans because they last so long and are so easy to store. Instead, we rotate through what we have in buckets and save the #10 cans for really long-term storage.

Mylar Bags

You can repackage food into mylar bags for long term food storage.

The downside of mylar bags is that while they keep moisture out, they aren’t actually rodent-proof.  It doesn’t take much for a rodent to chew a hole through a mylar bag.  The other tough thing about mylar bags is that they aren’t uniform size so they don’t stack well.

Like I mentioned earlier, some people use large mylar bags inside of plastic buckets so they get the benefits of both.

Where to store your food storage

Every home and family is different, so there’s no one-size-fits-all answer for where to store your food storage, but I can give you some ideas.

Lots of people’s initial reaction to the idea of storing one month, three months, or a year is “I don’t have space for that!”

I’ll repeat what I’ve said before about this…

If having food storage is important to you, you can make it happen!

There may not be room to add a 3-month supply of food to your house at this very minute, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.  You may have to make a choice.  You may need to do some decluttering or downsize other areas in your life, but you can make it work.

You can fit a one year supply of food for one person under a twin size bed.

Maybe there’s something else stored under there right now, but does it bring the kind of security you get knowing that your kids won’t starve?  Could you store what’s under your bed in the garage and keep food under the bed instead?

Do you have a coat closet that you could take over with food storage?  It might not be the most glamorous solution, but if food storage is a priority, you can make it happen.

Becca is a perfect example of this.  She commented to say that her family of 8 lives in a 1250 sq ft manufactured home and currently their food storage is in their hallway.  She doesn’t love it there, but sees food storage as a priority, so she makes it work.

The best place for food storage is somewhere that is cool, dry, and dark.

For some people this rules out the garage. BUT if your garage is cool and dry (and many garages actually are), it can be a great place for food storage where it’s convenient but also out of the way.

A basement is an ideal place for food storage.

You don’t have to have a dedicated room for food storage. It doesn’t have to be near your kitchen.  Think outside the box. Is there space in your laundry area? Could you trade out things from an infrequently used closet? Could you put your bed up on risers or cinder blocks to make more space under there? We have even used both at once (but do that at your own risk!). We’ve raised our bed up everywhere we have lived. A tall bed has given us lots of extra storage space. We don’t have food under our bed now, but we did for many years.  And we do have buckets of wheat under one of the kids’ beds.

If you use a garage or basement, you should not put your food storage directly on the cement floor. Cement gets too damp for that. You’ll want to put down some wood boards or pallets to keep your food containers up off of the cement.

I’ve seen some really creative ways to incorporate food storage into your home.  I’ve seen it dressed up under table cloths as end tables, under couches to make stadium seating, creating “shelves” by putting boards across buckets.  If I didn’t have pantry and garage space (which we thankfully have now), I would store our food storage under everyone’s beds.

I would love to hear your ideas for what you have done or seen done.  Making food storage a priority really is worth the hassle and effort

More on Food Storage

• Getting started with food storage
• How to rotate your food storage
• Planning your emergency water storage
• Non-food items to store

The post WHERE and HOW to Store Food Storage appeared first on Six Figures Under.

With food shortages, disruptions in the supply chain, and orders to shelter in place, it’s no wonder that food storage is a hot topic.  After seeing our family’s food storage challenge during the coronavirus quarantine, I’ve been getting lots of questions about food storage.

Maybe you’ve known that having food storage is important, but you just haven’t made it a priority in the past.  Or maybe until recently you had never even considered the idea of food storage.

Either way, now is a fine time to get started and that’s what I want to help you do!

I know if you’re here to explore frugal living and personal finance, you might be wondering how this fits in. I can assure you we’ll have more of those regular topics as well, but you might be surprised to see how much money a food storage plan is going to save you on a regular basis! I’m also excited to show you how food storage works as a release valve to relieve financial stress when it’s most important for you.

Today we’ll talk about why you should have food stored, what to do if you don’t have space, where you can find the funds to stock up, and a great method for getting started.  Then we’ll see how having food storage will lead you to a consistently lower grocery budget!

Why you should have food stocked

The stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic are a sober example of how food storage can be helpful, but there are a lot of other reasons too.  Whether it’s a job loss during an economic downturn, or a sudden need to care for a seriously ill family member, or a natural or political disaster, having enough food on hand meets one of your most basic needs.

It not only keeps your family fed, it also alleviates stress during an already difficult time. Imagine the comfort and security your family will feel knowing that, no matter what else might be happening, you have plenty of food and drink on hand.

Now imagine the opposite–the stress and uncertainty of not being sure how your family will eat, on top of the other challenges you’re facing.

And having food stored doesn’t just help out when disaster strikes–it’s a day-to-day blessing.  Being able to “shop” your pantry instead of running to the store saves so much time and money.  When you have to run out to the store “just for one thing” you have to pay top dollar because you need it now, plus you’re tempted to impulse buy.

On the other hand, when you have food stored, you can wait for a sale before you stock up again.  You never have to pay full price again!

What if I don’t have anywhere to keep my food storage?

In a later post we’ll go over detailed ideas for where to store your food, what containers are best, and how to rotate it, but for just a minute, let’s talk about where to store food. A lot of people just tune out any talk of storing more food because they don’t think they have anywhere to put it.

There may not currently be room to add a 3-month supply of food to your house at this very minute, but I do believe that where there’s a will, there’s a way.  If having food storage is important to you, you can make it happen!  You may have to make a choice.  You may need to do some decluttering and downsizing other areas in your life, but you can make it work.

You can fit a one year supply of food for one person under a twin size bed.  True story!

Sure, there may be something else stored under there right now, but does it bring the kind of security you get knowing that your kids won’t starve?  Could you store what’s under your bed in the garage instead and keep food under the bed?

Do you have a coat closet that you could take over with food storage?  It might not be the most glamorous solution, but if food storage is a priority, you can make it happen.

When we lived in my in-laws’ basement while we were paying off debt, we kept our food storage in buckets and boxes stacked from floor to ceiling against a wall in the kids’ bedroom.  Was it a beautiful, Pinterest-worthy set-up?  Heavens no!  I don’t even think I have a picture of it, as it was far from glamorous (and who knew I would be writing/talking about it years later!?).  But being self-reliant was more of a priority than drool-worthy decor.

Where do I get the money for building food storage?

Before you decide that getting food storage will be too expensive, let’s put things into perspective.  This is food that could potentially save your family’s life.  This food means that sometime down the road you won’t have decide between paying the mortgage and feeding your family.

If your current grocery budget doesn’t have a lot of wiggle room to get an extra month’s worth of food, you’ll need to find another way to fund your food storage.

What expenses in your budget are less of a priority to you?

Do you have some clutter around the house that you’ve been meaning to sell that would give you a chunk of money to get started with?

Of course you want to be prudent in your quest to build up food storage. Don’t go into debt to stock your food storage in a hurry!  It’s something to do gradually, but intentionally, over time.

To be successful, your food storage needs to be a priority and you need a plan for getting there. That’s what we’re going to put together today!

There are lots of methods to building food storage

There are lots of ways to build up a food storage and lots of methods and systems of what to store and how to rotate it.

You could just buy extra every time you shop–one for now, two for later.  This will increase what you have in your pantry, which is a great start, and you already know it’s what your family is used to eating.

You could go off of the “recommended” per person annual amounts.  For example, it’s a common recommendation to store 300-400 pounds of grain, 60 pounds of beans, 60 pounds of sugar, 16 pounds of powdered milk, 8 pounds of salt, and 2.5 gallons of oil to ensure that a person gets enough calories and nutritional variety for one year.

I’ll cover details of this long-term food storage in a future post because there are some strong reasons to have it, but you’ll probably want much more variety, especially if you’re relying on your food storage for a long time.

But today, we’re going to focus on a menu-based method.  It’s a simple method that I know can work for you. You’ll be storing what you eat and eating what you store.

This isn’t the type of food storage you just tuck away for a rainy day. This is food storage that you’re actively eating and replenishing during normal grocery shopping.

How long should my food storage last?

Our family is aiming at a year’s worth of food stored.  If you’re new to the idea of food storage then having a year supply will probably sound absolutely outrageous!

Food for a year surely sounds daunting at first, so let’s just start with a month, then work up to 3 months. If you want to continue from there, I’ll have some tips and tools to help you get there. But even having food to feed your family for a month is a huge accomplishment and will bring so much peace when disaster happens.

Let’s make your “Menu + Math” custom food storage plan

We’ll start with a plan for a month.  Once you’ve accomplished that, it’s easy to scale your plan to 3 months or longer.

Or if you want to start smaller, start with a week or two!

I created a set of printable Food Storage Planning Worksheets that will help you design your own food storage plan. Click on the picture below to check them out.  You can print them in color or they work well in black and white, too!

Breakfast Plan

We’ll start with breakfast.  We want to focus on meals your family loves, not random recipes from a food storage cookbook that uses ingredients you’ve never tried.

Obviously if you have fresh foods on hand when disaster strikes, you’ll want to eat those first.  If you have a garden, then you can supplement your food storage plan with produce you grow, but for your food storage plan, think of meals that don’t require fresh foods.  Get creative with how you can substitute other options like frozen, commercially canned, home-canned, dehydrated, frozen, or freeze-dried fruits and vegetables.

I bet when I said “frozen” some of you thought “yeah, but what if you don’t have power?!”  It’s true that some of the situations where you might be eating from your food storage may also be situations where you don’t have electricity, but that won’t necessarily be the case.  I think it is fine to include frozen food in your food storage plan, especially when you’re just getting started.

As far as cooking and preparing food, you might eventually want to figure out how to adapt your food storage meals to be able to be prepared without electricity and it’s good if you plan for at least some of your meals to not require electricity, but for now, just getting something stored is the most important part.

So with that all out of the way, start by writing down 7 different breakfasts that will be part of your food storage plan.  If you can only think of 5, then just decide which ones you will eat twice in a week’s time.

Some basic ideas from our family’s regular breakfast menu are:

• • Oatmeal with raisins
  • Cream of wheat with honey and fruit
  • Scrambled eggs with salsa and fruit
  • Granola with milk and fruit
  • Pancakes with syrup and applesauce
  • Cold cereal with milk
  • Sourdough waffles with fruit

Now for each breakfast, write down all of the ingredients (including spices and pantry staples) and amounts to feed your family for each of your chosen meals.

If you are preparing a one-month food storage plan, multiply the ingredient amounts for those 7 meals by 4 to get 4 weeks. There you are! You have a rotating seven-meal menu, and with a little simple math, you’ve turned it into a list of everything you need for 28 breakfasts!

If you’re doing a three-month food storage, multiply the ingredients for those 7 meals by 13 to have what you need for 91 breakfasts (13 weeks).

If you’re doing a one-year food storage, multiply the ingredients for those 7 meals by 52 to have what you need for a year of breakfasts.

You get the picture.

Dinner Plan

Now we’ll do the same thing for dinner.  Write down 7 dinners that your family loves that can be made without fresh ingredients.

Here are some ideas:

• • Beef stew
  • Taco soup
  • Spaghetti with canned or frozen vegetables
  • Shepherd’s Pie casserole
  • Hawaiian Haystacks
  • Broccoli Chiken Rice Bake
  • Stroganoff with canned or frozen vegetables

Now for each dinner, write down all of the ingredients (including spices and pantry staples) and amounts to feed your family for one meal.

Multiply the ingredients for those 7 meals by 4 or 5 to have your ingredients for one month of food storage dinners.

Multiply the ingredients for those 7 meals by 13 to have what you need for dinners for a three-month food storage plan.

Multiply the ingredients for those 7 meals by 52 to have what you need for dinners for a one-year food storage plan. If you don’t want to plan on the same 7 meals all year, list the ingredients for 14 meals and multiply by 26.

Sounds simple enough, right?

What about lunch?

You can do the same thing for lunch if you want.  But, if you know us, we’re big fans of the all-American Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich.  We make sure we have the ingredients to make bread in our food storage, as well as peanut butter, jam, and honey.  We also have other sandwich options like tuna or egg salad.

We’ll talk more about bread ingredients to store when we get to the post on long term food storage.

Dessert?  You bet!

If you are eating from your food storage, chances are good that your life is in a bit of upheaval of sorts, whether it’s a personal emergency, natural disaster, financial struggle, political unrest, or pandemic.  There is nothing wrong with having some comfort food on hand.  In fact, I think it’s very wise.

I learned during our food storage trial run (aka Quarantine Food Storage Challenge) that I did not have enough chocolate chips on hand.

You decide how often you want a treat or dessert (every day, twice a week, you decide) and make a plan to store it!  Be sure you are storing all of the ingredients necessary for each.

Here are some ideas:

• • Brownie mix (that is first on the list for a reason)
  • Pudding mix
  • Chocolate No-Bake Cookies
  • Cobbler with dehydrated fruit
  • Pineapple upside down cake
  • Oatmeal raisin cookies
  • Peanut butter bars

Time to make a list

Now that you have a list of all the ingredients you’ll need for your food storage plan, it’s time to make a master list of ingredients that will be in your food storage.

You want a list where you can keep track of how much you WANT to store of each item (based on your goal time frame), how much you HAVE already stored, and how much you still NEED to reach your goal.

Perks of the Menu+ Math Food Storage Method

You will be intentionally planning for meals (not just food), so you’ll have all the ingredients. You will be completely stocked with your meals your family will enjoy eating. No running to the store to to grab anything!

When you have a buffer of food storage, you can restock on your terms (i.e. wait until the item is on sale) rather than just buying what you need right now (paying whatever prices the store charges).

With the Menu+ Math method, there is no questioning how long your food storage will last with your normal eating habits and portions (versus the great unknown of how long random buckets of long term food storage items will last).

And don’t worry once you have your food storage, you don’t have to eat just your food storage.  You aren’t limited to these 7 meals indefinitely.  Maybe once or twice a week you can eat one of your food storage meals, but make other “fresh” meals like you normally do the other days.  Not only does that allow you to rotate through your food storage (rather then having it sit on your pnatry shelf indefinitely), but it gives you a quick, easy meal for those crazy nights when you’re in a rush.

Don’t run too fast

Okay, I know we just talked about A LOT!

I don’t want you to get burned out or discouraged.  Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint.  You don’t have to get all of this food tomorrow.  Pick some up on each shopping trip.  Get in the habit of adding these items to your regular grocery trips.

More on Food Storage

• WHERE and HOW to keep your food storage
• How to rotate your food storage
• Planning your emergency water storage
• Non-food items to store

The post Getting Started With Food Storage– Building a 1-3 month supply (and why you should) appeared first on Six Figures Under.