Butter in your food storage

Butter is a GREAT thing to have in your food storage and I've found a great tutorial on how to can butter that will last for 3 years!  This doesn't take a pressure cooker or any special tools, just your oven!  Get some butter into your storage today!

Click here for the instructions!

Food Storage Solutions: Part 2

Here are some ideas for storing water:

A woman in my ward shared these pictures of their barrels stored on the side yard of their house.  The barrels should not be stored directly on concrete because of contamination, so they have placed their barrels on top of 2x4s.  The barrels are also covered from protection from the sun and elements.

Storing water in mylar bags, placed in boxes is a more portable and stackable way to store water.  Click here   to see the box options that can be purchased from Emergency Essentials.  They have a pour spout for convenience.  Each box holds 5 gallons of water, and the basic kit comes with 5 boxes for $29.99 per kit.

The Water BOB is also a cool thing to have in your emergency supplies.  Click here  to see more about it.

 Bottled water is cheap, convenient to transport, and easy to rotate.  Store a couple cases in every closet in the house, or wherever you can find room.  Every time we go to Costco, we buy one extra case of water for a few dollars. 



Food Storage Inventory Tactics

•Establish a method

•Plan how you will organize and set up your food storage

•Make sure your family knows the rules of how the inventory is set up.

•Establish a menu

•Create a monthly menu of meals that utilize your food storage in a balanced manner.

•Food Rotation

•Keep oldest food at the front so it gets used first. 

•Put a date on everything you put into your storage.  If no expiration date, then put the purchase date.

•Store like items together when possible

For our inventory, Brad and I created a simple Excel spreadsheet with a tab for each different category of food.  This lets us know exactly what we have, when it was purchased, and when it will expire.  It would also be helpful to add a column that says exactly where that item is stored in your house (since most of us don't just have one area in the home for our food).  The blog is not allowing me to upload a picture or file of our spreadsheet, but I'm happy to share it!  So if you're interested, email me at ventanawardprovidentliving@gmail.com and I will send you a blank file.

There is also this website trackmyfoodstorage.com that I haven't tried, but it may be a great tool for you!


10 tips for emergency preparedness on a budget

1. plan for specific disasters
2. create a personalized list
3. budget for preparedness items
4. save by shopping sales
5. store water in safe containers
6. request prep items as gifts
7. think ahead
8. review insurance policies
9. update contact records
10. trade a night out for prepping

      
10 Rookie Food Storage Mistakes

1. having buckets full of grains, beans or wheat, but have never cooked them before
2. storing food that your family doesn't eat
3. not rotating food storage
4. minimal variety of food for a balanced diet
5. poor choice of storage containers
6. never put all your eggs in one basket
7. forgetting salt, cooking oil, shortening, baking powder, baking soda, yeast, and powdered eggs
8. not storing water to cook the food
9. forgetting to store spices, salt, oil and basic condiments that are needed for your food storage
10. not having an alternative cooking source if the power goes out    

Getting started on your 3 month supply

1. choose 7-9 of your family's favorite recipes
2. choose ONE recipe at a time and purchase the ingredients for three months worth of that meal
3. store the items for each meal together if possible

Here's a great example of how this woman stores her meals.  Each box contains ALL the ingredients for an entire meal.  

  

Food Storage Solutions: Part 1

For the Stake Relief Society activity, I was asked to lead a class about food storage, mainly focusing on ideas of where to put it once we start buying it.  Here you'll find the pictures I used, and the links (if applicable) to where you can find the original source.  If you have any additional ideas, please share your ideas by leaving a comment at the end of the post.


You have some food storage, now where do you put it?  The best way to get started:

• De-clutter, de-clutter, and de-clutter some more!
• Get organized and determine just how much space you really have to work with! (I bet you'll be surprised!) 

Here are a number of ideas that will hopefully give you some ideas for your own home:

Building garage overhead storage is great utilization of what would otherwise be dead space. On these shelves you can store all your non-food items which will free up indoor space for food storage.

My husband built these shelves pretty quickly and inexpensively.  If you're interested in learning more, my email address is at the top of the blog!

 

Our long term food storage is mainly in the large closet under the stairs.

The can rack in our garage hold small canned food that's part of our 3 month supply so it gets rotated regularly.  This can rack holds over 700 cans!

Overhead storage shelves aren't just great in the garage though.  Think creatively and put some over the door shelves in your bedrooms or bathrooms too!

click here for photo source

 Another idea for indoor storage is to convert a coat closet into the food storage closet.  Move all the coats into regular closets.

click here for original source

 Put rotating can racks in any excess closet space as my fellow ward member did in her closets.

This next idea is also from a fellow ward member.  They turned their linen closet into a food storage closet.  Her husband built excess shelves in their master closet for the excess linens to free up this closet for food.

Consider converting any large closet into a storage pantry and build shelves all the way to the top to utilize all your space.

click here for photo source

Unused shower?  A fellow ward member stores some of her food there!

Most of us have lots of kids.  Perhaps we should use this woman's idea and utilize all this bed space!  Plus, we can save money by not having to buy bed frames or box springs!  24 boxes (144 cans) under a twin.  Or 36 boxes (216 cans) under a full or queen.  Multiply those numbers by the beds in our houses and that's a lot of food storage!

click here for photo source

If your beds already have frames and box springs, you can raise the beds to store boxes or buckets under the beds.

click here for photo source

Here's another great idea to hide buckets of food and utilize free space under a cubby shelf.

click here for photo source

Create a "table" in the playroom with food storage covered in cute fabric.

click here for photo source

 

This woman made display shelves in her master bedroom by covering the top of the food storage with plywood and then some fabric.

click here for photo source

Can racks are fairly easy to build and there are a lot of varieties with the plans on how to build them all over online.  Here are some examples I found:

click here for photo source

click here for photo source

click here for photo source

 Click here  for a complete YouTube video of another couple building a great can rack for their pantry (sorry, no picture).
 

Another family turned their kitchen island into a rotating can rack where they could load the cans on one side, and retrieve them from the other.

click here for photo source

Another cheap, easy (and CUTE!) way to make your own small rotating can system:

 This next shelf would take up a lot of space, but it would be amazing to have a few of these!  All the plans are online that explain exactly how to build your own.

click here for photo source and building plans

And here are a few more great ideas, without the pictures:

•Make a stage in the playroom by topping boxes of food with plywood and carpet.  Hang curtains on the wall to make it feel like a real theater

•Wide, shallow plastic bins with wheels for rolling them under the beds

•Create false bottoms in your closets!  Line the floors with cans and top with plywood

•Look for available dead space in the walls to cut out and make shelves.

•You can put adjustable organizers under the sink that can fit around all the pipes.  It’s a great way to have shelves in that awkward space.

•The food storage boxes fit nicely between the wall and the couch

•Stacked boxes of food storage, covered in fabric can make great end tables

•20 six gallon buckets serve as a platform for the bed in the spare bedroom

 


 Click here  for a few videos that show some additional ideas of how others have utilized space for their food storage.  Some of the ideas in these videos that I really liked are:

• using the upper decorative ledges for storing food
• under the bed storage with a map of where each food is located
• extending the shelves in closets so they are wider
• guest bedroom "false" wall (shelves curtained off)

Click here for another great YouTube video of a can storage rack a lady built to put behind her couch.