Well, we are finally just about settled into our new apartment in Virginia! It was a good move - everything went smoothly and we got here safely. My husband has started his new job as an intern at the local hospital, and we are adjusting well to apartment life.
So, let's talk about food storage (isn't that what we do here?). I was initially concerned that since we were losing about 350 square feet of living space, we would have no space for any of our food. We brought with us about 60 #10 cans of food (a variety of beans, rice, powdered milk, sugar, white flour, oats, wheat, and hot chocolate). Our 3-month supply was pretty minimal since I stopped buying food storage several months ago but I still worried that there would be no space to store anything once I started buying it again.
So, in the weeks leading up to our move, we sold or donated a lot of stuff. We participated in a yard sale, sold several bigger items on Craigslist, and took bags and bags of things to Goodwill. It wasn't solely for our food storage's sake - of course, that was a priority and we wanted to have room in our new place for it, but it was also to keep our sanity as we knew that we didn't want to be living in an apartment with wall-to-wall furniture and clutter. We lost a bedroom and didn't want a bunch of stuff in our front room.
It was surprisingly easy to purge our house of most things because we didn't have anything nice. In fact we determined that only one piece of furniture in our home was actually bought new by us - the rest is a hodgepodge of hand-me-downs and yard sale finds (ah, student life). Nothing matched, and most things were not our style - they just did the job and that was ok for us. This made it really easy to get rid of it, and we'll just do without those items until we can find something that's more in our taste and we can afford it (whether it's new or used).
So, where's the food storage? As we started moving into our apartment, we were pleasantly surprised with the HUGE closets! I remembered them being quite large from when we toured the place initially; however we assumed that much of it would be filled with our junk. So, since we got rid of most of that junk, the food storage actually fits well into our new place and I couldn't be more excited!
All of our #10 cans of food are under my daughter's twin bed (which was previously taken up by.... junk I guess. I can't even remember). The three month supply has started filling up the linen closet (our linens are in our large master closet. I decided I wanted the food closer to the kitchen rather than in a bedroom closet.).
So now I'm working on making a three-month food storage menu. We have a lot of new food storage recipes on our website, so I'm working on deciding which ones I want to include in my food storage plan. Then I'll make a master shopping list and get started! Initially I'd love to make a big trip to Costco to make a big dent in the list, and then work slowly from there, but we'll see. I do have a nice bit of cash saved up for it since my grocery budget over the last few months was smaller than normal (since we were eating through our three-month supply).
So that's where I am now. How is your food storage coming along? Where do you stand as far as how much you have, and what are you working on right now? Is anyone DONE with collecting their food storage, and just in the maintenance stage?
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
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6 comments:
I love your blog and nominated you for a Beautiful Blogger award.http://3girlsandapug.com/2010/06/22/you-love-me-you-really-love-me/
I don't believe anyone is truly "done". Ive got over 400 #10 cans of various food (long term), and cabinets with "can organizer" short term food. I am trying to make a "general store" like operation with other non-food items. I love helping others, because I in turn help myself. Keep up the good work!
Glad to hear your in your new place, safely!!
I put 6 cases of soup in our 3 month supply, mostly cream of mushroom for easy meal preparation!
My long term supply hasn't arrived yet, and since I just had a heart cath yesterday, I'm really fuzzy about what I did order :)
I have a question about the 72 hr kits. I just checked mine and the soap smell is overwhelming. I am worried it is affecting the food (I put each thing in separate mylar bags). I don't want to eat soapy granola bars in an emergency. :(
How does everyone store their stuff together but separate?
Thanks
Leann:
In my 72 hr kits, I have them in sections in plastic bags and then tied up in plastic grocery bags. Foodstuff, clothing, hygiene, paperwork, entertainment, etc. It makes it easy to pull out the particular type of item, such as food and rotate it, leaving the rest intact.
I started food storage in 2009 and am absolutely loving it. We almost have a year supply of long term food storage. Once that is complete, I am going to work on a two year supply. I don't think it is feasible for anything longer than that, at this point. But, then I will add extras, like brownie mixes, more snack foods, more desserts and drink mixes.
Since we are growing a garden every year, and planted 20 fruit trees that will start to bear fruit in the next 2 years, I feel secure in that I will be able to provide our fruits and veggies from our own garden. I am also growing herbs for both flavoring and medicinal use.
I consistently have a year supply of soap, shampoo, toothpaste, lotion, toilet paper, etc. If we needed to stretch it to a year and a half, we could probably do that.
Last of all, I am stocking up on health supplements, detox foot pads, MMS and colloidal silver, that will help me with fighting any diseases or illnesses.
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