Provident Living-Three Month Supply

All right. We've talked about shelves, location, and how to inventory. Now we just need to discuss what to store! This is broken down into two parts-short term (three month supply), and long term (ultimately one year). We'll discuss the Three Month Supply first:

 

 

The Three Month Supply

Provident Living's website encourages us to "build a small supply of food that is part of your normal, daily diet."

Many believe in having a three-month supply of non-perishable food.  This ensures that you will not lose your food storage if your power goes out for an extended period of time, which is probable in any natural disaster (goodbye, freezer food!).  Also, if you have planned your three-month supply to only include non-perishables, you can truly live off of your food storage alone without ever visiting the store for anything.  Of course, this can make getting a three-month supply a bit more challenging, but it's definitely doable.  You'll have to decide what your plan is-will you include your freezer or not.

How do I do it?  You don't have to plan out 13 weeks of different dinners, breakfasts, and lunches!  You only need some favorite meals, and you just stock up on three-months' worth of those meals.  

What do I store?  Think of the meals that you and your family like to eat.  Most of these meals can probably be turned into "food storage friendly" meals - i.e.,  using only non-perishables.  Canned chicken can be used for fresh; canned veggies/fruits for fresh.  Cream can be replaced (in some cases) with evaporated milk.

How can I afford it?  Many people are on a very tight budget.  Getting your three-month supply isn't something that most people can do in one day, or even a week.  Buy a few extra canned items every time you visit the store.  Watch for sales, and stock up when the items you need hit rock bottom prices. Do not go into debt to collect your food storage. The church strongly suggests that you start small, with a goal of one week, then one month, then two, and ultimately three.

Why three months?  Three months is a good amount to food to (hopefully) keep your family afloat during a time of crisis.  If the main breadwinner in your home loses their job, you could live off of your food storage for three months and use your grocery budget for bills.  For a natural disaster, quarantine, etc., three months of food can be lifesaving.

Won't all that food go bad?  Rotate, rotate, rotate!  I know, it's easier said than done.  Organizing and rotating food storage is actually the hardest part for many people.  Refer to the previous post on tips for rotating. I'll also include one more here, and it's my favorite if you're short on pantry or food storage room space.

Does my longer-term supply count towards the three-month supply too?  For me it does!  I purchase my beans, spaghetti, etc in bulk in my long term supply. I'd utilize these items for my three month supply if they were the ingredients I needed.

I'm going to issue a set of challenges, to help you work on your three month supply. You might have time to tackle them all at once, or maybe you'll need to spread them out over the course of a week. That's up to you. The point is to do SOMETHING!

Today's Challenge:

Make a list of all breakfast, lunch and dinners that you eat regularly. At first, you might think that this will take way too long. Fear not! It's amazing but most families don't have more than 30 different dinners that they routinely eat (especially if you have picky kids!). So grab a pad of paper and start writing while you're sitting in the carpool line today! 

I'm going to show you how to do this, the pen and paper way. If you're into spreadsheets, and want to make something that you will use for your inventory also, please visit:

http://foodstoragemadeeasy.net/babysteps/step-3-three-months-of-normal-food/

They have a spreadsheet, and multiple videos to walk you through the process of making your 3 month supply menu, shopping list, and inventory. I started mine using their spreadsheet, but I found that I can do it a lot faster on paper, and I wasn't going to use it for inventory so I didn't see that spending more time on theirs would be of any benefit to me.

If you'd like to do it the "pen and paper" way, you can use these worksheets from The Ready Store:
Download Ready Steps Worksheets

Wendy DeWitt is a name you'll eventually hear about, if you do food storage long enough. She has a similar system to this one. I have a post on her system a little later on that you can look up.