Prepping for the beginner, any advice on starting a permanent stock pile for a family?

[SL6827]

Advice? Pics of your stash? What do you buy?

 

[littlejimmy]

 

[Cannot_Wait_4Disney]

The first thing to do is stock up on a 2 weeks supply of food and water. We're talking food that doesn't need refrigerated storage and doesn't need anything that needs refrigerated storage in it's prep. And no, you don't need to order expensive $25 a meal stuff to do this. There are plenty of things you can buy very cheaply to accomplish this.

 

[starry_solo]

A stock pile of food and other essentials?

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

Only buy shelf-stable foods that your family will eat as a normal part of your diet, remember preparedness is about helping you get through an emergency/job loss/etc. and not about who has the most 5-gallon buckets of freeze dried salisbury steak.

Start small with a 1-3 month supply of food and once you get good at rotating that you can expand.

Since I have a small family (just 3 of us) I prefer to buy a large quantity of normal size containers. So I will buy six 1-pound boxes of pasta vs. buying one 6-poud box. Or five 14-ounce cans of baked beans instead of one large Sam's Club can that would feed 20 people. Smaller packages of food are easier to rotate regularly, easier to store, you will have the packaging on hand in case of a product recall and if you store each package separately from the others then you won't lose the whole lot if one box gets infested with pantry bugs or gets wet, etc.

Dried beans, rice, and pasta are cheap and lightweight but make sure you store them correctly because they are prone to insect infestation, mold, etc. So if you are planning to buy large quantities you should also invest in airtight, moisture and bug-proof containers and possibly oxygen absorbers, depending on how much you have and how long you want to store them.

A good way to rotate your dried beans is to re-hydrate a whole package at once in a big stock pot and then portion them out into baggies with about the same amount as you would find in a standard can and keep them in the freezer and they are ready to go in your favorite recipe.

Ask a Mormon friend for advice on keeping food storage and rotating your pantry; we attend classes on it at church so we are a little more knowledgable about it.

 

[ajksmom]

I have had several pantries for close to 20 years now. Mainly cuz I hate shopping and hate paying full price.

Now that Covid is here it is tremendously helpful to have those items AND the space for them.

It all began with a list of all items we used on a regular basis. Just checked our cabinets, bathroom closets and any other place you regularly put things away.

I didn’t go crazy buying 20 bottles of ketchup or anything. Just reasonable amounts that we would use before expiration.

I’d guess you are interested in this due to Covid and supply chain problems in your area. If I was just starting out I would figure out a week or two of menus for what you’d prepare for your family if perishable items weren’t abundant/not available and start to build from there for your families liking. No use stocking up on canned tuna if no one eats it kinda thing.

Carve out some space for it as you will want to see and be able to rotate your stock easily.

 

[jdb in AZ]

Got this from my sis-in-law years ago. You can update it any way you want. (For example, I'd leave out the coins to use a pay phone.)

"USE IT UP, WEAR IT OUT, MAKE IT DO, OR DO WITHOUT!"

January
Monthly Storage Goal: Review finances and determine to set aside some $ each month for food storage. Take an inventory of your current supplies. Throw away anything that has spoiled and make a list of the items you have.

72 Hour Kit: Purchase a container for holding your kit-either a large garbage can with wheels, 5 gallon bucket, or back packs for each family member. Your First Aid Kit should also be part of the 72 Hour Kit

February
Storage Goal: Canned Meat or Fish, Bleach, Can Opener, Garbage Bags, Laundry Detergent

72 Hour Kit: Gather a change of clothing including underwear and shoes for each family member. Include coats and boots or have them immediately accessible.

March

Storage Goal: Pasta, Flour, Thread, Needles, Buttons and Zippers

72 Hour Kit: Water, Bible, Personal Documents-copies of genealogical records, wills, insurance
policies, contracts, passports, birth certificates, cash.

April
Storage Goal: Yeast, Baking Powder, Soda, Vinegar, Evaporated Milk, Peanut Butter, Spices, Condiments and Vanilla
72 Hour Kit: Beef Jerky (or any other type) Chewing Gum, Granola Bars, Hard Candies or Lollipops

May
Storage Goal: Cereal, Rice Grains, Oatmeal and Cornmeal, Toilet Paper, Paper Towels; Flavored Gelatin, Garden Seed, Small Bottle Olive Oil (for consecrating), At least a month prescription ahead for all dr. prescribed meds.

72 Hour Kit: Battery Powered Radio, Battery Powered Light, Batteries

June
First Aid Kit could include: Scissors, knife, thermometer, measuring cup, medicine dropper, hot water bottle, triangular bandage, soap, matches, razor blades, needles, safety pins, adhesive tape, elastic bandage, gauze bandages, paper bags, soda, ipecac syrup, ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, calamine lotion, rubbing alcohol, diarrhea remedy, antibiotic ointments, first aid instruction book, prescription meds, waterproof matches.

72 Hour Kit: Ax, Shovel and Bucket, Utility Knife, Cash -- $5.00 in change for the phones

July
Storage Goal: Sugar, Honey and Powdered Milk, Toothbrushes, toothpaste, mouthwash, Infant Needs-formula, baby food, diapers, Tylenol, etc.

72 Hour Kit: Prepare blankets or sleeping bags to be accessible at a moments notice. Emergency Blankets (silver foil, space blankets) Gather items to entertain your family (games, coloring books, etc.) Camp stove, or portable BBQ and fuel, Mosquito Repellant, Cash

August
Storage Goal: Canned Fruits and Vegs, Jams and Jellies, Feminine Needs, School Supplies, Pet Supplies

72 Hour Kit: Canned Meat, Pork & Beans, Dried Milk, Hot Chocolate Mix, Instant Soup Mix, Disposable plates, cups, bowls and plastic-ware

Sept
Storage Goal: Canned or Dried Potatoes, Fruit Juice

72 Hour Kit: Dried Fruit or Trail Mix; Soda Crackers or Graham Crackers; Juice

Oct
Storage Goal: Soup, Stew or Chili, Cheese, Shaving and Beauty Supplies, Dish Soap

72 Hour KitBefore re-buying these things, check for freshness from month 4) Granola Bars, Beef Jerky, Hard Candy, Check Batteries for Light and Radio

Nov
Storage Goal: Wheat, Juice with Vitamin C, Light Bulbs, At least one month prescription ahead for all dr. prescribed meds.

72 Hour Kit: Toothbrushes and Toothpaste, Shaving Supplies, Infant needs, Feminine Needs, Disinfectant, Aluminum Foil

December
Storage Goal: Dried Beans, Matches, Candles, Batteries

72 Hour Kit: Garbage bags, Candles, Matches, Can Opener, Cash

 

[kdonnel]

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/emergency-preparedness?lang=eng
https://thesurvivalmom.com/lds-preparedness-manual/
https://thesurvivalmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/LDSPrep-V8.pdf

 

[Imzadi]

Since you are building up a long-term stockpile and not just stockpiling for the hurricane coming up the Atlantic coast, buy what's on sale. If you eat oatmeal and it's on sale this week get that instead of the canned veggies that aren't on sale.

Maximize savings by using coupons whenever you can COMBINED with a sale. Say, Quaker Oatmeal is on sale this week for $2 a canister. There may be a coupon online to print out or in Sunday's newspaper coupon inserts for $0.50 off. Now, the oatmeal is down to $1.50.

If your street or neighborhood or office recycles their newspapers, check to see if you can nab some of your neighbors' or co-workers' Sunday coupon inserts that they are tossing. Lots of people don't use their coupons. So, now you have 4 inserts with 4 coupons for Quaker Oatmeal. So, you can buy 4 on sale and use 1 coupon for each canister. (Some supermarkets limit how many total coupons per product that they accept, so check on that. This is so people don't do "extreme couponing" and walk off with 25 packages of a product and leave the shelves empty so others don't get any. )

If your store doubles the value of a coupon, that Quaker Oatmeal coupon went up from $0.50 to $1 off. So now the oatmeal on sale only costs you $1 per canister and you now have 4 as you have 4 coupons.

Next week or the week after, when the canned veggies are on sale, then you can get those. Coupons usually are good for abut 4-6 weeks or more before they expire. And supermarkets DO try to coordinate sales to go with what coupons have come out during that time. For instance, they wouldn't have a sale for Libbys canned veggies when the coupon that came out recently was for Del Monte canned veggies. The sale would be for Del Monte. So save the weekly inserts you get for several weeks. The canned veggies may not be on sale until a couple weeks from now, but the coupon for that brand was in the Sunday insert two weeks ago.

There is also a difference between a manufacturer's coupon and a store's coupon. The two different types of coupons can often be combined and used at the same time. Rite Aid is famous for having a sale. Then offering their own store's coupon for extra saving that you clip out and scan. AND they will combine both of those with a manufacturer's coupon in the Sunday paper insert that week. They even list all three discounts in their Sunday ad flyer. So an item is on sale for $2.99. Their store coupon is for $1 off and a manufacturer's coupon is another $1 off. The item ends up being only $1. And they allow you to be able to buy 3 of this same item.

After several weeks, you will actually see your stockpile grow into something usable, whereas, it won't be in the beginning. Like weeks ago, you bought 5 jars of peanut butter on sale, but the jam wasn't on sale so you didn't get it. It seemed counter-intuitive to not buy them together, as you don't eat peanut butter by itself. Remember, you are stockpiling for long-term, not immediate use. (Buy only one jar of jam if you need some immediately.) Finally the jam went on sale 2 weeks later. The bread you usually buy went on sale the week after that. And now several loaves are in your freezer. NOW you have all the ingredients you need for one sandwich, and you got to save money on ALL the products.

As you grow your stockpile, you will be able to mix and match items that go together and not be missing a lot of items. You might only need to buy perishable food to complete the meal.

BTW, the same products tend to go on sale and have coupons every 6-8 weeks. Once you figure out how often the sales are for your items, then you can figure out how many of each item to get to last from one sale to the next. Try not to be brand loyal though, for best savings.

 

[Frozen Canuck]

One of the things you can do to track how much you need of each non-food item (toothpaste and tooth brushes, soap, cleaning supplies, toilet paper, paper towels, shampoo, laundry detergent etc.) is to write the date when you open a new bottle, package, or whatever on the item and then note when you use the last of it. You can then multiply that amount to cover whether you want to store a one-,three-, six-, or 12-month supply. Keep in mind that many items like detergents, bleach, sanitizing wipes, etc. lose efficacy after a year or so. (See "Do Cleaning Products Expire?" from Good Housekeeping.) For this reason, you will want to be sure to rotate your supplies, replacing what you use while using up the oldest items first.

The same process can be used for food items. For salad dressing, mayo, ketchup, cereal, etc. you can write on the package when you open it. Other items, like boxes of pasta, cans of soup, and jars of pasta sauce may have to be tracked by placing an X on a piece of paper every time you use it. At the end of the month, you can see how many of each item your household uses overall. It is much easier to track the use of these kinds of foods if you have a menu plan and can just note each item that way. I menu plan on the fly, so for our family, I find it easiest to just stock the main ingredients that I need to make the meals we enjoy, so I can make what I want without running to the store.

I found the site Totally Ready helpful a number of years ago. The one thing that I remember her saying is that it is important to not only store food for meals, but to be sure you have things on hand for making treats as well, to get through the tough times. She would stock up on chocolate post-holidays, keep ingredients like sugar and chocolate chips on hand for cookies, pudding mixes, etc.

Food storage is all about food rotation. Definitely follow the store what you eat, eat what you store, and you should do okay. If your family doesn't eat beans, don't buy any. Nobody is going to want them any more during a crisis. They are going to want that which is familiar and comforting.

Oh yes, one more thing...

I posted this on a different thread awhile back, but this snippet explain how I build "layers" into our home food supply with certain items.

I have tried to build in "levels" to our food supplies. For example:

milk: fresh jugs of milk in the refrigerator; milk frozen in jugs in the chest freezer; shelf stable milk; evaporated and powdered milk (good for baking, especially Saco Cultured Buttermilk Blend)

bread: fresh bread items; frozen bread items or frozen bread dough; ingredients on hand for making no-knead bread or quick bread items as necessary. Yeast will store for years past its expiration date if kept in the freezer.

potatoes: fresh potatoes; frozen potato items (I have successfully frozen home-made creamy mashed potatoes and twice-baked potatoes); dried potato flakes

You get the idea. Fresh, frozen, shelf-stable, repeat.

It even works for items like...

lemons: fresh; fresh juiced and frozen in ice cube trays; True Lemon powder (real dehydrated lemon...just add water. They have lime and orange as well.)

basil, garlic, and other herbs: fresh, preferably as plants, but I notoriously end up killing them; Dorot frozen basil (they also have ginger, garlic, cilantro) or freezing fresh herbs yourself; and then dried (which is usually my last resort)

I hope this helps. It can seem overwhelming, but just take it a step at a time. Maybe just start by keeping the ingredients for a few pantry meals on hand and go from there. What you stockpile is determined by how much storage space you have so find the most important items for your family and build from there. Nobody is going to be happy if you store cases of beans and rice and pasta sauce, but you run out of toothpaste, or feminine products, or ibuprofen when you need it most.

 

[HeatherC]

I buy a little extra each week. If we are having pasta, I may buy two boxes instead of one. I have been stocking up,slowly on cleaning supplies along with toilet paper and paper towels as well as meat for a new freezer. A little each week doesn’t hurt as much .

 

[karen4546]

Only buy shelf-stable foods that your family will eat as a normal part of your diet, remember preparedness is about helping you get through an emergency/job loss/etc. and not about who has the most 5-gallon buckets of freeze dried salisbury steak.

Start small with a 1-3 month supply of food and once you get good at rotating that you can expand.

Since I have a small family (just 3 of us) I prefer to buy a large quantity of normal size containers. So I will buy six 1-pound boxes of pasta vs. buying one 6-poud box. Or five 14-ounce cans of baked beans instead of one large Sam's Club can that would feed 20 people. Smaller packages of food are easier to rotate regularly, easier to store, you will have the packaging on hand in case of a product recall and if you store each package separately from the others then you won't lose the whole lot if one box gets infested with pantry bugs or gets wet, etc.

Dried beans, rice, and pasta are cheap and lightweight but make sure you store them correctly because they are prone to insect infestation, mold, etc. So if you are planning to buy large quantities you should also invest in airtight, moisture and bug-proof containers and possibly oxygen absorbers, depending on how much you have and how long you want to store them.

A good way to rotate your dried beans is to re-hydrate a whole package at once in a big stock pot and then portion them out into baggies with about the same amount as you would find in a standard can and keep them in the freezer and they are ready to go in your favorite recipe.

Ask a Mormon friend for advice on keeping food storage and rotating your pantry; we attend classes on it at church so we are a little more knowledgable about it.

Everything posted by @MrsCobraBubbles above is spot on. My husband is a prepper and so I have some experience in it also. We made our 5th bedroom a "pantry" with shelves and we rotate out our canned goods, dry beans, rice, flour etc. We have a large garden, orchard, chickens, goats, pigs, ducks also. We were well stocked on tissue, paper towels, cleaning supplies, food, water etc. when CV-19 had people scrambling. We have only recently started back replenishing our pantry.

We have four adult married children and six grandchildren. They all know they are welcome anytime to come get what they need. I make bread and give it to them. My son fishes and splits the fish with us. My son in law hunts and splits venison with us. We give them all fresh produce which rotates according to season.

We live only 30 minutes from town (both husband and I work). We love the area we live in. My son lives on the corner of our property. Our daughters live about 30 minutes away.

If you don't have a lot of space to store your goods (I like to keep my flour in the freezer). I like the screw top buckets but if I have freezer space, I keep the flour, rice, and beans in there.

my advice would be the same as above poster.

If you are really going to be a prepper-Water source, water source, water source. We have town water, well water, and bottled water -the river is only a mile away , and there are several streams nearby.

 

[FigmentSpark]

Make sure you have a dedicated storage area where no one has to look at it all the time. First, they might raid it. Second, they might want to clean it out.

Make sure you have a storage system that will allow you to easily keep track of expiry dates. Sure, many things last longer than their dates, but a lot don't. As you buy new items, recirculate from your stockpile, putting the new stuff at the back of your "stash" and using up the oldest first. Nothing like needing something in an emergency and finding out it expired 5 years ago.

 

[barkley]

Advice? Pics of your stash? What do you buy?

here's how i started doing it several years ago-

i think first figure out how long a period you want to stockpile for and how much you use of the items you want to stockpile, for example-

toilet paper-count how many rolls are in your bathrooms right now, tell everyone not to restock from any backup supply without your approval. count in one week how much is left then you've got an idea of weekly usage (did this in my household and found out-1/2 regular size roll per day between multiple bathrooms and 3-4 people, so for me it works out to about 3 1/2 rolls per week. i did the same with papertowels and (when they were readily available) disinfecting wipes

non perishibles-

if you shop at krogers or walmart and have a kroger's reward card or an online walmart account they both keep records for a few years of purchases online, curbside (though walmart tracks it separatly) and in store. you can see how much you've purchased and get an idea of how much you use. otherwise just keep track of how much you use of what you have on hand/have to purchase for the next month to get an idea. i know that some items i use seasonally so recently i've been purchasing dried beans, soups and 'comfort foods' (instant potatos, stuffing...) for this fall and winter.


i'm to a point where unless i'm replenishing an item i'm pretty much only buying produce and dairy month to month. i buy meat on sale and vacuum seal it in individual packages for the freezer. i've also taken this year to buying some canned meats just b/c we've had meat shortages in our area (corned beef hash, canned white meat chicken and good old tuna). i have a traditional pantry in the house where my day to day stuff is, all the canned meats and all the dry goods b/c the rest of the stuff in on large racks in our (insulated) garage (amazon, heavy duty and well priced-about $50 each) and i just don't want to chance bugs in the dry goods or the odd temperature variance on the meats.

 

[JM23457]

Delete

 

[MrsPete]

Here's a website I like and have been reading for some time. It has a distinctly Mormon slant, but anyone can benefit from the information. Several of their recipes have become favorites -- try Catalina Chicken.

Got this from my sis-in-law years ago. You can update it any way you want. (For example, I'd leave out the coins to use a pay phone.)

This is more than I want to do, but this is an excellent list.

One of the things you can do to track how much you need of each non-food item

Consider, too, that your needs change through the years. A family with toddlers, a family with teens, and a retired couple won't go through products at the same time.

Last thought: We've been quite lucky in this quarantine that -- while we have had shortages of a few things -- we've had access to most of the things we're used to having. In a different crisis, this could be different.