Food Storage

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once you have kept track of your family's eating for 1 month, you get to make THE LIST! actually, before you make THE LIST you need to have made a decision regarding how long you would like to prepare for. for my family, we feel that a 3 month food storage is appropriate for our budget and space. you might want only 1 month, or rock it like my mother-in-law with a 1 year deal! whatever you choose, you will use your new info from the chart to decide how much to buy. it is mostly simple math. for example my family uses 2 boxes (lbs) of butter, 2 jars of peanut butter, and 1 can coconut milk regularly every month. my food storage for these items would be: 6 boxes (lbs) of butter, 6 jars of peanut butter, and 3 cans of coconut milk. go through all the items and calculate how much of everything your family needs, and make THE LIST. this is what you will use to keep track of what you need, and once you have it, you can use THE LIST to make sure you keep up with your food storage. buying all your food is definitely going to take some spending. but it can work with what you have got. our family has a certain amount of $ allotted to food storage each month, i buy what i can that is on sale from my LIST, and then stock up on 1 or 2 items that may not be. some people save for several months, or use a bonus of some kind, and get all of it purchased at once. whatever works for your family is what you need to do. a couple of things to remember:

*keep a notepad by your food storage area, and once an item has been "taken" mark it down so you can replace it on your next grocery trip.
*keep up with the replacing of the items, so you don't have to start from scratch again!
*as mentioned before, mark the date you buy the food, on the food. little kids are great @ marking on non-approved surfaces! so let them help.
*EVERY budget can make this work! even spending $5 each month towards your food storage is better than nothing!