Three Month Supply

part of my food storage room

Saturday was our Stake Women's Conference (a meeting at church where the ladies can attend classes on a variety of subjects). I'd been asked to teach a class on getting and organizing your three month supply. I don't consider myself a food storage guru. When I asked, "Why did you think of me?" I was told, "Well, you do the produce co-op, you use coupons, and you have a big food storage room." "Ok," I thought, "But why did you think of me for this class?"   A brief summary for those of you who missed it and might be interested in what I shared.

What is a three month supply?
Your "Three Month Supply" is a storage of groceries drawn from recipes your family eats. It also includes plans for obtaining fresh water and a financial reserve.  As opposed to "Long Term Food Storage" (aka food for the dead in our family) the food in your three month supply is something you are constantly rotating because you're actually using it on a daily basis (it is 3 months of groceries).

Why have a three month supply?
I can think of lots of reasons.  Here are some of them.
1. It saves you money. You can buy what you need in advance when it goes on sale. You avoid going to the grocery store for that one item you need for a recipe and coming out with 1 item you need plus 9 impulse buys.
2. It saves you time. I live next door to a grocery store. Literally! Yet, I can't stand to be ready to make something (or even worse be in the middle of preparing something) only to discover that I'm out of an ingredient.  I don't have time in my busy days for extra trips to the store.  Having a food storage allows me to plan my grocery shopping for when I actually have time for it.
3. (A combination of 1 and 2) When you plan out what you're going to eat ahead of time, you can plan ahead for those busy days when there's not much time for making dinner.  You'll be able to thaw out meat ahead of time and have a plan for quick and easy meals.  You can plan for the days you will be going to a restaurant so instead of nights where you feel like, "I'm too tired to think about dinner, let's go out." you already know what you're making. Then, when you do decide to eat out, it's a treat.
4. It gives you peace of mind. If something happens (job loss, illness, snow storm, just a very busy time) you've got what you need to provide tasty healthy meals to your family.

How to build it
Every family's three month supply will be different because we all eat different things.  The way to come up with yours is to figure out what you're eating and buy enough of those things for three months.  You can do this by writing down everything you make for a month and listing all the ingredients for those meals or by brainstorming meals your family likes and coming up with ingredients for those meals.  Once you have your list, take an inventory of what you already have and figure out what you need to buy.  Come up with a budget of how much you can afford to spend each week/month and slowly start to build up your storage. 

I suggested that families start with breakfasts.  Why?  They're cheap so you can quickly build your three month storage.  There aren't a lot of ingredients involved to think about.  The items don't take a lot of room in your storage (unless you're storing lots of boxes of cold cereal, I don't count that in my three month supply.  Those boxes are "bonus" items).

Once you buy your food, you need a way to organize it so it's usable.  There are commercial can organizers that allow you to always use the oldest can first.  There are also plans on the Internet for building wooden can organizers.  You can go the low tech (and cheap) route, like us, by using regular shelves and having a system for labeling the cans as they come in.  Some people write the date purchased on the cans.  I find I am too lazy to do that.  I use colored stickers like you'd see at a garage sale.  When I grab a can, I look for the oldest colored stickers.

Pink: Jan-March
Yellow: April-June
Orange: July-Sept.
Green: Oct-Dec

I organize my shelves like a grocery store (all canned vegetables together, all baking items together, etc.)  Once a quarter I go through my shelves and take a quick inventory of what I'm running low on.  I also put mis-shelved things in their proper homes because I have a lot of helpers when the groceries are being put away and sometimes things get a bit jumbled around.

Tips
One little thing that I found while researching my presentation that has really helped me is to put a rubber band around the last item of each type of thing in your food storage. When you're using things up in your pantry and get to that rubber band, you know that you've GOT to buy more of that item, even if it means paying full price. I've often run out of things and not realized it. (Like I'll buy 5 canisters of salt and one day I'm making cookies and run out of salt and think, "No problem, that is why I bought extras" and then find there's nothing left in the pantry so I'm left stealing from the salt shakers.)

 
We live in earthquake country.  We've not had one for a long time but I've been hearing since I was a child that one is eminent.  In order to keep our home canned food safe on the shelves from a minor earthquake, I use a bungee cord.  I use the bungee cord in front of the jar sections.  The bungee will keep jars from "walking" off the shelf.

Also in this photo are the colored stickers I use to show when an item was purchased and my rubber bands.

It's a good idea to incorporate some of the items you store in your long term food storage into your daily meals.  Know how to use the grains, beans, etc. from your long term storage.  I use "Gamma Lids" to allow easy access to the 5 gallon buckets I use to store the wheat, cereals, barley, and lentils I use frequently.  The gamma lid has a plastic ring you hammer to the top of the bucket and a twist off top that goes into the ring.  It makes getting in and out of the bucket quick and easy.

As you slowly build your three month supply of groceries, you will be amazed at how quickly you'll be able to rely on your own "home grocery store" when making things.  The money you save on groceries and on unnecessary eating out can then be put to better use, like having fun as a family!