Monday, June 2, 2014

A years worth of food storage in 4 months!

 #foodstorage #whatdoesthecoxsay
I've got the food storage/emergency preparedness bug again. Apparently I'm catching all sorts of "bugs". Summer just does something to me. It lights a fire in me and I like to keep busy!


I love all things emergency preparedness. I have a pretty thorough car kit where I went through as many as different car kits online that I could find, and really molded it into what I think is the perfect, most realistic kit.

I have 72 hour kits for my little family that I also went through countless kits and put together kits that fit my family.

And food storage hasn't been an exception. I dunno about you guys, but a years worth of food storage seems SO daunting. But after doing a LOT of research I'm here to tell you, it doesn't have to be!

I'm a BIG fan of what is called a rotating food storage. It's key to the way that my food storage works! If you don't keep it rotating, things will go bad...and well that's not good! :)

Here's what I did: I went into my food storage closet and inventoried what I had as a starting point. From there I wrote down 31 different dinners. Yep, only dinners.

From there, I wrote down the ingredients of what I needed to make those dinners. Then on the same sheet, I wrote down what fruit/veggie and/or side we would have with each dinner. It will make grocery shopping and meal planning substantially easier!

Then I took some cute scrapbook paper and cut it into 3x3 squares. On each of those squares I wrote the meal on the front, and ingredients on the back.

This makes meal planning for the month super easy! For the first month (since I only shop for groceries every 2 weeks) you will choose 15 meals to grocery shop for for the first 2 weeks, and then the additional 16 meals for the second two weeks.

BUT you don't only buy what you need for that ONE dinner. You MULTIPLY the ingredients by THREE. Since you already have 31 different meals and it is all food storage friendly (I have a chest freezer to freeze what I need) you will have three months worth of that dinner. So by the end of four months of grocery shopping and buying 3 times the ingredients for the meal you will have enough for a years worth of food storage dinners! Remember to rotate, so the new stuff goes in the back, so the older stuff gets eaten first.

As far as breakfasts we keep it super simple with oatmeal and occasional pancakes, muffins, etc. And lunches...just eat leftovers (so you may want to take that into account when gauging how much of an ingredient you need for a meal). That's it. You can also have extra soups etc on hand for lunches in case you get sick of leftovers.

Not only does this help you build up your food storage fast, but it also makes meal planning SUPER easy. After the first month, in order to mix things up, shake up the jar and draw out a meal. That's what you'll have for dinner that night. Just make sure you don't repeat a meal until you've drawn out the rest of the months worth. And if you ever want to add another meal or try out a new recipe, go for it! Variety is fun! BUT with 31 different dinners, you'll still have variety and you won't be eating the same thing every single week if you're in a rut!

I hope this post made sense! I just wanted to share with you my fun new system! If you have any questions, please let me know!

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19 comments

  1. Sounds like a great plan! I always want to do more freezer meals, but I have a hard time finding diet friendly recipes. (I'm not a zero carb kind of gal, but I like to keep it a majority of my meals lean protein and veggies) I'd love to hear some recipes if you have them handy one of these days. Thanks for the idea! It is always better to be safe than sorry!

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  2. Love how super organized you are in your planning. I plan my monthly menu and then recyle them through every couple of months, but I like how you added planning your for your food storage. I'm trying to use up my food storage for an impending move, but you've inspired me for after the move.

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  3. I am super impressed that you only go grocery shopping every two weeks! I swear, I am at the grocery store at least every other day for something. I need to get better organized and I love this system you have come up with! I will have to give it a try and see how it works out for me.

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  4. I totally need to do this! Thanks for the reminder, and rotating is a great idea. I always forget about it and let it go bad.

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  5. Now this is a different way to meal plan! I like it! I'd love to have you link this us to Titus 2 Tuesday this week on Cornerstone Confessions.. I hope to see you there.

    Kathy

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  6. I love this idea! Thanks for making it seem so much less overwhelming. Would you mind sharing some meal ideas?

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  7. Thank you! I'd be happy to share some! I'll do a post with some on there soon!

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  8. I do that too! I figure if it's incorporated in the menu, it will be harder to forget about it!

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  9. Lol thanks girl! I try to avoid grocery shopping at all costs...I spend WAY too much money! You'll have to let me know how the system works for you!

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  10. I hope that it works for you after your move! I was really excited when I thought of it!

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  11. I'll definitely be sharing some of my recipes soon! Not all of them are super duper healthy, but they aren't overly fattening either. I'm sure they can be made even leaner, but as food storage type meals they are great.

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  12. I'm super impressed at your organisation!

    Thanks for linking to a Round Tuit!
    Hope you have a fabulous week!
    Jill @ Creating my way to Success
    http://www.jembellish.blogspot.com/

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  13. Love your idea! Seems very easy!
    If I was you all, I would steer clear of freezer type food storage, or using your freezer to storage anything food storage related. Because, you don't know if you are going to have electricity or not. That's something I just wanted to throw out there and let you all think about.
    Good luck to you all who are doing your food storage! :)

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  14. Most of mine aren't freezer type food storage, but thank you for sharing the tip! :) I could see where that would be an issue!

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