Are you storing a 3 month supply of food for a potential job loss? For a potential natural disaster? For meal planning purposes? Whatever it is that you are doing this for will influence how you go about planning, so first – decide – Why Am I Doing This? Check out our complete series on “Why Food Storage?”, if you haven’t figured this one out yet.

Are you the type that thinks your 3 month plan can only have shelf stable items? Do you think fridge and freezer foods count in your 3 month plan? Do you want to make a plan based on the assumption that you can still buy produce to fill in holes in your recipes? Once you have decided which types of foods you want in your 3 month plan, you’ll be able to filter your recipes to fit that criteria. ***disclaimer*** While it’s always good to have some shelf stable recipes, we think planning strictly shelf stable meals is a hard place to start for beginners-

• Some people find that buying foods they use often in bulk fit their goals for a 3 month plan.
• Some people like to plan their meals on our printable pdf forms with good old fashioned pens and pencils. (found on our BabyStep 3 page)
• If you’re really wanting to get detailed, you can use our 3 month supply excel spreadsheet and go to town including all ingredients for all your recipes and then watch it automatically calculate how many of each item you need.(found on our BabyStep 3 page)

While the end goal is to use foods daily from your pantry, and replace them with your regular grocery shopping, to get your supply kick started you may need to budget a certain amount of money to get your supply going. Figure out what you can spare until you have a supply built up and think of it as an investment.

When you have determined WHAT you need to buy, develop a plan to purchase. For some great info on this – visit our sister site The Food Storage Shopper. She is currently revamping her site, but you can still find some information to help you while it’s under construction. You may decide buying one extra each time works for you, or you might get into coupon and sale shopping and buy things only when on sale. Whatever fits your style, having a game plan in place will surely help.

Good luck, and remember there aren’t RIGHT answers to these questions. If we have learned anything in doing this for the last 2 years its that EVERYONE has a different style, and you need to figure out what works for you!

Anyways, as my little picture story will show, I hadn’t put my food away since I bought it… ahem ahem over a month ago. I finally got around to it this weekend and I also got around to building (or having my husband build) these awesome cardboard rotating racks from Can Organizer. Check Them Out!(I like the shorter ones for my size shelves, but they have different options) My son shoots hockey pucks in our basement and is CONSTANTLY tipping over my neatly organized cans and it drives me crazy! I am just getting started on turning the tipsy stacks into perfectly sound racks and I love it already!

I’m also happy to report that while I was watching the news this weekend, I realized I actually do have a few things going for me! They were saying that the people should evacuate because of the tsumami threats and to take only important documents and GO! In our emergency plan we suggest this and even have a whole plan for creating an emergency binder. I was happy to know in case I needed to evacuate, I would have all my important stuff together – all ready for me to go!

It’s recommended before getting heavily into storing “long term foods” such as grains and legumes, to start with a 3 month supply of foods you typically eat. Ideally you’ll start gradually using your grains and legumes in foods you typically eat, but before getting overwhelmed with that … start with your typical foods:

Planning Sheets

Print out these worksheets to help someone get started on their 3 Month Plan. There is an Instruction Sheet, a Menu Plan Sheet and an Inventory Sheet. You will need to print the Menu Plan Sheet multiple times depending on how many different meals you want to plan. There is also a video tutorial to go along with these printable forms found here. Put the printed worksheets in sheet protects or roll them up and tie a ribbon around them. Don’t forget to attach the Day 4 tag!

2-3 Cans of Common Foods

Buy a few cans of common foods, tie a bow around them and add the Day 4 tag. This gift will help someone get started on storing extra food by giving them a few ideas of things to store.

A Basket of Canned Goods

If you’re feeling really generous, get a cute basket, and fill it with tons of common foods. Tell the person, they have to use this in their Food Storage as a way to get a great jump start. Don’t forget to add the Day 4 tag as a finishing touch.

Back to the 12 Days List

We decided it would be good to revise each BabyStep as part of our Summer Crash Course. So jump in and get started … it’s not too late! This week we are covering BabyStep 3: Three Month Food Supply (click here to view the full step)

• ADDED ADDITIONAL features to the 3 month food supply spreadsheet!
• Common Foods Sheet included on spreadsheet!
• Non-Food Items Sheet included on spreadsheet!
• EXTRA tutorial video for additional features in the excel plan (includes instructions on how to update your spreadsheet if you have already completed the current one.
• Added a link to our sister site who has great tips on buying your 3 month food supply.

Food Storage and Money Savings

Stay tuned for a more advanced post on this topic coming later this week

In light of the current economic situation, we wanted to share with you some ideas on how having your food storage in place can help you financially in both the short term and long term.

Short Term Food Storage
Your short term food storage consists of getting a 3 month supply of foods that you eat on a day to day basis. Once you have this in place you can start to grocery shop from your food storage and only replenish those items when they go on sale and/or you have coupons. This will actually reduce your grocery budget as you will only buy things that are deeply discounted. But those few dollars a month will not mean as much to you as the food will if you have a short term emergency. For example, my husband took a pay cut for several months and we were able to spend less than HALF of our usual grocery budget for those months because we had stockpiled so much of our every day foods.

Long Term Food Storage
Your long term food storage consists of getting a year’s supply worth of life-sustaining foods that have a long shelf-life. These are items such as wheat, white rice, dried beans, powdered milk, etc. Since the shelf life is so long you can gradually purchase the items when they are on sale and work up to a year’s supply. If you get brave enough to start using your long term food storage items in your everyday cooking, you can also save some money in the short term. Homemade bread is significantly cheaper than store-bought, especially if you grind your own wheat. Making other items from scratch such as muffins, pancakes, etc. can also save you money over buying packaged items.

In times of economic trouble you can rely on your food storage for long periods of time while other people are begrudging the high prices of rice and wheat. Prices will most likely come down before you deplete your stores. Lastly, if a major disaster, economic melt-down, or other long-term emergency were to occur, you can feel confident that your family will be able to survive with basic food and water for quite some time.

Up until now we have had this intense and “awesome” spreadsheet. However we’re excited to announce two new ways to plan your three month supply – a new and improved excel spreadsheet, and printable forms. The new excel spreadsheet is a lot more intuitive and easy to fill out with the same end results of the old one. We also created printable forms you can use to fill in with good old fashion pens and pencils for those of you who may not have access to excel.

The NEW Excel

To download the new excel form, click here. This form will automatically calculate the number of ingredients you need to purchase for three months. You can also use this spreadsheet to keep track of prices, and as an inventory tracker.

Here is a little tutorial on how to use the new excel (we STRONGLY suggest watching it – there are many ways you can interpret how to enter the info and it needs to be a certain way):

The Printable Forms

To download the printable forms, click here. There is an Instruction Sheet, a Menu Plan Sheet and an Inventory Sheet. You will need to print the Menu Plan Sheet multiple times depending on how many different meals you want to plan.

Here is a little tutorial on how to use the print out forms:

Planning Tools

We have added these spreadsheets to the BabySteps 3 page and to the Tools page. REMEMBER, check out all our tools on the tools page. We make sure to add any of our most helpful posts in there.

Another approach we have come across recently is a subscription site called My Food Storage Deals. Each method has the same goal: save you money on groceries, but there are a few key difference between the two systems. We thought we would share this option with you as you may find that it suits you better. The following information is from their website:

It’s easy! With a membership to My Food Storage Deals, you will have access to all five of the major grocery stores’ weekly deals. We will compare grocery store prices to “warehouse” prices and help you know which items are Great, Good & Okay Deals. We will tell you when to stock up on items, which items to add to your food storage, give you helpful food storage ideas, weekly recipes, coupon helps and other fun tips.

Upgrade your membership to a Meal Planner Membership and we will send you a complete meal planner and grocery list EACH week to make meal planning easy! Your weekly meals will be created around the items on sale each week. This guarantees you are feeding your family at the best prices possible.

Bonus Gift for Food Storage Made Easy readers: The My Food Storage Deals basic membership is normally $6.95 per month and advanced membership is $9.95 but we have a deal for you! Enter the promo code FREE TRIAL and receive 2 weeks free as well as a discounted price of $4.95 & $7.95 a month after the trial. They also offer gift certificates for the memberships. It’s not too late to add that to your Wish List!

So to sum up, for those of you who HATE coupons, this is a pretty good option. If you like to have your meals planned out for you then the advanced membership could be a great option. If you aren’t intimidated by coupons however, we feel like The Obsessive Shopper’s method using GrocerySmarts can really maximize your savings. So, whatever works for you go with it. With just a little planning you can really save a lot of money on your weekly grocery bill, become more on top of your meal planning, and free up more money to go towards purchasing long term food storage items.

Please leave us a comment if you try out this service or if you are already using it. We’d love to know how it is working for you.

5 lbs C&H sugar
3 Stouffers frozen dinners
1 tube colgate toothpaste
2 lbs Land O Lakes butter
1 bottle Krogers syrup
2 cans evaporative milk

The regular prices of these items would have been $27.94 … BUT … using the fresh values sales prices I saved $9.44 and I printed some coupons and clipped old coupons I’ve been saving and saved another $8.85. Including tax, the total I paid was only $10.26! That is WAY cheaper than it would have been even at Walmart with all generic brands.

I am only beginning to skim the surface on how great this system is. Within a few months I hope to have a lot of food stockpiled, do most of my monthly “shopping” from my pantry, and only hit Walmart for things I’ve run out of before I have a chance to restock. View the video below for tips on how to use this great resource.

How to Use GrocerySmarts.com

For more tips on saving money on your groceries and food storage items visit The Obsessive Shopper. She also includes some general couponing tips for people outside of Utah.

Some of you have asked if there was a way to add additional ingredients on the 3 Month Food Supply to both the meal section, and the master ingredients list of our spreadsheet. Well we updated the sheet. Click here for the newest sheet. Since we didn’t use it to make our own 3 month sheets it hasn’t been thoroughly tested (it’s impossible to throughly test it without doing a whole new plan). If anyone finds an error in it please comment and let us know.

If you are new to the site, see the original post to find out the scoop and video tutorial on our awesome spreadsheet! (the post also has the newer sheet)

Here is what my food storage looks like after stocking up on a couple things each time I went grocery shopping, and after taking advantage of the case lot sales that are going on in local grocery stores around Utah.

TO PREPARE for the Case Lot Sales, this is what I did:

-Took my three month supply excel file, and figured out what I still needed to buy.

-Bought everything that was on sale that was on my list.

THAT’S IT! However I did already have my excel file all complete.

My next steps are to buy another shelf, wait for a cereal, pasta, and toiletries sale and then STOCK UP on those items. After that I will have my 3 months supply of normal foods and be ready to start buying the Long Term stuff. How exciting!

p.s – I know I know if there were an earthquake then I would probably have problems keeping all these rows of stacked cans all cute, but I’ll work on that plan later. We promised ourselves we would tackle this bit by bit so we wouldn’t get overwhelmed- Our research has officially surpassed our actions but we’re catching up!

SO- I printed out my little sheet that tells me how much I usually spend for things at Walmart. Since I had the sizes and price per oz, it was so easy for me to decide which items to buy at COSTCO vs. WALMART. Anyways, I was really excited it was so useful.

Make sure you take a closer look at the spreadsheet and the tutorial and get yours started today.

Step 1 – Wrote out my meal plan for the month and wrote down all the ingredients I needed to buy plus anything that was on the “To Buy” list on my fridge

Step 2 – Went to the GrocerySmarts.com website and following the Obsessive Shopper’s instructions I highlighted only the 4 and 5 star deals and printed out the list. (I figure anything less than a 4 star is probably safe to assume is cheaper at Walmart.)

Step 3 – Circled any items I planned to buy including:
a. Items on my current shopping list
b. Items that end up being FREE
c. Items that are on my 3-month food supply plan or long-term food storage list

Step 4 – Clipped my coupons for the items that listed coupons on my GrocerySmarts.com print-out. This included printing out the “printable coupons” (there were a few really good ones!) and also clipping coupons from my newspaper. I was so happy I had read the post about organizing your coupons on The Obsessive Shopper’s website. It was so easy to find exactly what I was looking for.

Step 5 – Headed to Smiths and was pleasantly surprised at just how little money I spent. I spent $37.04 and saved $21.60 in manufacturer’s coupons and $33.28 in fresh value’s savings. If that doesn’t blow your mind wait until you hear about all the food I got!!!

• 5 lbs of ground hamburger (85% lean)
• 2 boxes of Eggo waffles
• 8 bags of Malt-o-Meal cereal
• 4 boxes of granola bars (Fiber 1, ChexMix, Nature’s Valley)
• 4 boxes of Pop Tarts
• 2 boxes of Cheezit crackers
• 2 boxes of Keebler graham crackers
• 5 packages Hamburger Helper
• 5 packages of Tuna Helper
• 1 box of Pilsbury brownie mix
• 1 can of Pilsbury cake frosting

For $37.04 can you even believe it! Thank you thank you thank you to the Obsessive Shopper and her amazing GrocerySmarts website. If you haven’t used it yet, you are really missing out. I’d recommend subscribing to her blog because she summarizes the best of the deals each week in case you don’t have time to go through the whole process on your own. I obviously will still need to go to Walmart to fill in the gaps in my monthly shopping, but I can handle one quick trip to Smiths per month to get such great deals and to build up my Food Storage. This was a great way to really kick-start my 3-month inventory.

How do you decide what to include in your 3 Month Food Supply?
How do you determine how MUCH of each item to buy?
How do you keep track of your current inventory and what you still need to buy?
How do you make sure you are stocking up when items are ON SALE?

We couldn’t find a solution for these questions, so we created one!

We have developed a 3 Month Food Supply Worksheet that will help you outline meal plans, convert them into the number of items you need to buy AUTOMATICALLY, and then track your inventory including current prices for each product.

View our instructional video before you get started!

Let us know what you think of the 3 Month Food Supply Worksheet and how it is working for you. How is your step 3 coming along?

Shauna from the Obsessive Shopper blog has found some great sales on toiletry items at Smiths this week. If you are on step 3, you might consider stocking up on some of these things. Check out the blog post for details. Make sure to scroll down to view the post.

We have updated the Step 3 page with this new information.

View our blog posts NEXT WEEK to view our progress on accomplishing step 3.