Stockpiling

Amy at http://www.momadvice.com/blog/ is doing a series on stockpiling. Today she is talking about where to store the extra food. You may ask why to stockpile. Well, instead of buying food each week for the things you are going to make, you buy the sales each week and get your pantry stocked with the items you usually need for your meals. You keep your pantry stocked with sale items and get the best price you can. Then, you cook from what you have in your pantry. It really lowers the amount you spend on food.

I have a problem. I am able to find good deals. I buy lots of those items. I line it all up, take photos of it, then... my family goes on a spree to see how fast they can eat it. The more I buy the more they eat. Anyone else having this problem? I have two teenagers and three 8-11 year olds. We always have extra kids in the house. Every week my daughter has about 6-12 friends over. I try to monitor what they eat but it just disappears. I actually have to hide things.

I am trying to store food that would last us two to three weeks during any emergency. Stuff that we can heat on the grill or campstove or dry. I guess I need to put it all in a box and put it on a high shelf in the laundry room. Have you ever been without electricity for a long period? We lived through Hurricane Fredrick in Mobile and did not have electricity for three weeks. I was young so don't really remember much except when each neighbor took turns opening their freezer and grilling all the food and the neighbors came to eat it. Next meal, next neighbor. Now we live where there are a lot of Tornados. I would like to be prepared. We also just went through over a year of two house payments after we moved. We were scraping the barrell to find money for food. I am glad that I had food put up that we could pull from. You get really creative when you get hungry enough.

I have a lot of kitchen cabinets so I can put food in them. I have a walk in pantry under the landing of the stairs ( the door is in the kitchen) It has a low ceiling, like 5 foot, but it is lined with floor to ceiling wire shelves. I am able to put a lot in there. We have 9 foot ceilings in the laundry room so I have shelves over the washer and dryer and the opposite wall where I can put things. I am going to add shelves on the two side walls and over the door for extra space. We have a coat closet at the garage entrance and I use the shelf above the coats for storage. Right outside the door in the garage I have a bookshelf and cabinet side by side. I keep non food items there. We kept our old side by side refrigerator and I keep the freezer full. We only use the refrigerator for extra space right after shopping or for parties. I plan on buying flour and storing it there - that way bugs won't get into it. I could use the space under our bed(king size) if I needed to find more space. I store toiletries under the bath cabinets.