Food Storage to the Rescue

So the last couple days have proved the importance of food storage to me. As a Mormon I was raised with food storage and taught the benefits of always having a little extra on hand. Even in AmeriCorps where all my meals were provided my roommate and I kept a few snacks, microwave meals, and drinks in our room. So of course the older and more space I've had the more food storage I've tried to keep.

A few months back while trying to buy the high calorie snacks for Squeaker I started really getting into couponing. Squeaker really preferred the name brand items and would eat more of them. So with coupons and sales I was able to keep the foods she liked in the house. Once I got a handle on it I started saving 30%-50% on our grocery bill. So I started putting money into our food storage building.  We acquired a couple of shelving units from Lowes. Then we spray painted them some wonderfully bright colors since I don't have a closet or basement to hid them in. Once they were painted, and built I filled them with food.

This picture is actually a few months old but it gives you an idea of how much you can store on these shelves. Recently I've even put more food on there. I would take a new picture but today one shelf and it's contents were moved to the new house. I also have a small freezer as part of our food storage system. It's a major part of what I can store. I can store meat, pizza, frozen juice. All sorts of fun things.

Now how it has saved us recently. Firstly was yesterday our water was unexpectedly shut off. Our complex didn't realize our building was on the water line that was being fixed so they we didn't get a notice. Because we had food storage and water storage we did just fine. Plenty of food that didn't need water and what we did need water for we had a about 4 gallons on hand. So no water from 9-4 was not a big deal.

Then today hit. ACK!!!! There was a mess up in payroll and our gross pay was a little less than half. So once you took out taxes, insurance, FSA, and other things we ended up with one tenth of our normal take home deposited into our account. Someone made a big boo boo, but even by notifying them today it will be next week at the earliest before we get the rest of our check. But guess what I don't have to buy food. :) YAY!!!

What about milk you ask? Well we had 1/2 a gallon of whole milk (that what we drink). And no that won't last a week. So I took my Dry Nonfat Milk and reconstituted half a gallon and mixed it with my whole milk. Now it's like 2% milk WAHOO! Much better than skim in my opinion. Then when that runs out I'll make more Nonfat Milk and add the Half and Half I keep on hand for ice cream making. So I have enough to make nearly two gallons on milk.

I have pizza already in the freezer for pizza night, everything I need for my fabulous tuna casserole, and Lasagna. Plus I have salmon, chicken, ground beef, hamburger helpers, other skillet meals. Lots of pasta, soup, mac and cheese and hot dogs. Oh and lets not forget frozen/canned veggies and fruits. I will need eggs and bread soon but there is a store in town where I can get each of those items for about $1 each. I have a few dollars in change just for situations like this.

So with a little planning and keeping things on hand that we eat I don't have to worry about food. Bills maybe late but my family wont starve and in the grand scheme of things that's far more important.