I would also recommend establishing a good business relationship with a local "food repair shop."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCxscU0hWok
Regards,
My food insurance is canned meat and a 1000 lb of Yukon golds in the basement every fall; a man can do pretty well.
I have hard time keeping more than three months food in pantry without argument from wife.
I was going to post this to the Garden thread & then I saw “you” had posted this .... LOL!
I’m sending this to my nieces/nephew. With canning supply shortages, beef processing shortages, plus all the other “shortages” this year, I think ‘some’ folks learned that they should keep food, things like toilet paper, cleaning supplies (FINALLY found alcohol & the shelf already had big gaps in supply), etc. stocked up. Two of my nieces are on “farms” and looking at more of a homesteading, being self-sufficient way of life. About two weeks before the panic buying due to COVID, I told my mom to make an effort to get what she needed in the next couple of days - I did the same. When people were going crazy over toilet paper, various foods, etc., we were ‘sitting pretty’ and had enough of certain items to make it through until months later, the shelves were being restocked, & even then the restocking was often limited.
Nice post - love the way she expresses feeling so good about having food insurance. I used to love my grandmother’s root cellar with all the jars of canned food lined up, bins of veggies, etc. To me, as a small child, it was a wonderful place. The one thing I do wish I had now was a root cellar.
batteries, bullets, and antibiotics.
With modern canning and packaging, and local retail sales events weekly, building a pantry could never be easier.
We ain’t our grandparents.
Buy what you buy, just buy some more when it’s on a particularly good sale. Build it over time, no need to go whole hog and buy all at once.
and Date Tag & Rotate, Rotate, Rotate.
** Airtight, moisture proof, critter proof and stable temperature storage is most important.
Had an LDS friend that kept a 40 gallon drum (food-safe, bagged and sealed) of red wheat. He dumped it after 6 months as it got rancid.
Spent the summer building up about a 3 month supply of food, toiletries, vitamins. Can’t do much more without more spousal buy-in, but I feel good about being at maintenance level with some baseline supplies.
" Instead of stocking my pantry for a few months' time, which I had been doing for many years, I decided to stock my pantry for six to twelve months.
First, I made a list of all our most used grains/pastas/dried beans/flours.
I looked at my supply on hand, figured out how much we would use in that time frame, and bought what I needed in bulk.
I couldn't get everything in bulk, but I tried if I could as it was more cost efficient.
I stored these items in large plastic containers in my pantry."
It goes on with examples of her larder, and indicates what supplies she has on hand.
How do your home supplies measure up ?
Have you looked lately and checked for expiration dates (which can be exceeded) and evaluated the extent of your resources ?
And have you restocked the shelves since you last drew some resources off with replacements ?
IE. : Dry goods, canned goods, freezer, personal hygiene and cleansers, bulk grains, canisters and containers, hand and power tools, etc.
If not just for yourself, there may be other family members who will be depending on you for supplies.
We are soon to enter into uncharted waters of civil, domestic, political, and economic disturbance .
The hour of preparation is late,.. but it can be done !
It's called 'Personal Responsibility' as well as prudence.
It is what sustained our forefathers - preparing for the unknown... and we are there now !
Sadly, she forgot to stock up on commas.........LOL!
I used the $1200 stimulus check to buy half a beef. Cheaper and better quality by far than buying the reduced for quick sale meat I had been buying for years at the grocery store.
I would like to buy a generator in case I need it to keep the deep freeze going. Anyone in TX who wants a half or whole beef, freepmail me. I will hook you up. $5.00 a lb, inclusive, for custom cut real choice+ TX beef.
I see that this prepper sticks to the essentials.
High proof vodka can be used for cleaning and sanitize your liver!
“Food insurance is a well stocked pantry.”
I learned this, living with my widowed Grandmother for a summer while working in her area.
She raised 4 daughters and 1 son through 2 WW’s, the Korean War, a depression, several recessions and the dust bowl.
She still had a garden and raised enough to have a small roadside shed selling her surplus. She canned veggies/fruits
in late spring, summer and early fall. She traded some of her veggies/fruits with neighbors for what she didn’t raise.
I tried to buy groceries for her/us, and she limited me to only buying some fresh meats and supplies like detergent and cleaning. She and my mother taught me to buy non perishable items if they were really on sale to save money and store them until needed.
My wife grew up in the mid west where they might be snowed in for a week or more or floods kept them in their little town for days.
Her grandmother and mother canned veggies and fruits, and made sure they had months of those foods and at least 2 weeks of grocery store non perishable items.
We live in the land of fires, floods and earthquakes, and my wife has a pantry of rotating foods that are used/replaced and could last a few weeks. She has upped her pantry and new storage area to half of our laundry room. She has increased her inventory of canned/non perishables.
When Costco or Walmart has a great sale on non spoiling items like cleaning supplies, we stock up and save the $’s.
Flr