When we did our 100th Post Giveaway, someone commented about food storage, and it got me thinking. I grew up in a home where my dad was a huge food storage guy. We drank powdered milk, made wheat bread from canned wheat, and froze large quantities of fruit from the trees in our garden. But growing up this way isn't the only reason I'm an advocate of food storage; here are a few other reasons:
1. Having food storage can decrease your weekly purchases at the store. Food storage doesn't have to be, and shouldn't be, only lentil beans and potato pearls -- it should be things that you want to eat and will eat. It's the "overbuyer" concept. When I make up my weekly menu, I go through my list of ingredients and see what I need and what I already have. If I purchased extra canned tomatoes or cream of chicken soup when they were on sale a few weeks back, that is one less thing I have to buy this week. Or if my budget is tight on a particular week, I can look in my pantry and build my menu around pasta or canned green chilies that I already have. If you're a couponer, use those coupons or wait for the big sales, and stock up on items you know you will use. Then when you go to make your grocery list, you will already have half of the ingredients.
2. In this economy with frequent layoffs and salary decreases, it's nice to have a food cushion. I know several people who have lost their jobs and have been able to live very cheaply because they can live off their food storage for a few weeks or months.
3. With all of the earthquakes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters that have hit so many people recently, there is no doubt in my mind that a little extra food in your pantry is a good thing, just in case you can't get to the grocery store for a few days.
Now obviously the nature of this blog is saving money, and building food storage costs money. But as I mentioned above, wait for the sales (especially caselot sales), use coupons, or just buy two cans of beans instead of one each week, and soon you'll be on your way to a nice supply of food without breaking the bank.
5 comments:
Great ideas. Like you said, it costs money to build a good food pantry, but in the long run, it really saves, especially when you don't need to run to the store for two ingredients (and end up coming home with two bags of stuff that you just "had to have").
thats so true! we LIVED on our food storage last summer ($ was tight while Ryan switched jobs and I wasn't workling) and we are big fans of finding food on sale and saving it- and planning around what we have- a large portion of our food storage is Velveeta because well we love it- haha! eat from your food storage and replenish- it's awesome!
I just wanted to notify you all of an article at CNNMoney.com. It talks about 8 ways to save money. I would say that most of them are already covered on your blog, but it's got a few ideas that I thought were great. http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/moneymag/1007/gallery.super_savers.moneymag/index.html
I think I've mentioned before that I keep a fully stocked pantry and deep freeze. Saves time, money, and my sanity.
Good storage makes everything so much easier for me.
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