We’ve been doing this blog for almost 5 years. The other day I was doing a big Food Storage room clean-up and reorganization. It made me somewhat nostalgic. This week I have pondered a lot where I started, where I am, and where I’d like to go. While cleaning the room I realized there were some things I wish I would have known when I started this all. Today I figured I would share them with you. Maybe they might help YOU out a little.
1. Don’t buy things you don’t eat
So when I first started building my food storage, I got really into couponing. It was a great way to buy things for great prices and build up a food storage. I would buy things I didn’t necessarily eat because they were such good prices. I thought to myself, in a real emergency I would probably eat that stuff. I didn’t buy a lot of it, and it was the kinds of foods you could open and eat right out of a can, so I thought I was being practical at the time. Well, those things are STILL sitting in my room 5 years later … and I need to figure out what to do with it all.
2. Despite your best intentions you won’t remember when you bought stuff
Back when I was a little girl, my favorite job was when I had to go down to the food storage room and write the date on each can of food. I pretended I was a cashier at a grocery store, and would pull each can through, one by one, putting the dates on them. Well nowadays a lot of foods come with expiration dates, but not all of them. So I haven’t been diligent in marking when I bought my foods, and they get mixed up on shelves. Looks like my 5 year old is about to be recruited to the family cashier job next time I do a big shop.
3. Don’t trust your kids to tell you when they take things out of your food storage
When we started the blog, I only had 1 little toddler who never went into the food storage room. Now I have a few boys who raid it regularly. I keep sending them downstairs to get me things when I’m cooking. What I’m learning is that they also go down there and help themselves as well. Between sending them down all the time, and them raiding the room, I don’t keep as good of track. I’m working on a solution for this one.
4. Your diet may change or evolve
This one is tricky! Since starting my food storage, I have switched to pretty much all whole grain everything. I also refrain from most pre-packaged, pre-made meals as well. When I started I was doing half and half. Well now I have quite a bit of white spaghetti noodles, some white rice, white sugar, and white flour. I had no way of knowing back then, what I would be eating now, or what I’ll be eating in 5 years. I’m not sure how to get around this dilemma. People who develop allergies probably face the same types of problems. Perhaps I could do some food storage trading with people. For the unopened and unexpired things I could donate it to the food bank.
5. Plan for expansion
I did this in my first house. I put shelves up in a way that I could keep adding to them because I KNEW I would be growing it. Well considering I started with nothing, of course I would grow it. Well silly me moved into this house and thought I had it all figured out. Since then I decided I wanted to store ALL my foods in #10 cans except wheat (I talked about this in my New Year’s resolutions post). Well that means I need another rotating shelf. Well now I need to explain to my husband that he was right and I should have put the food storage in the other area of the basement that would have accommodated this. I HATE doing that!
The older I get, the more I realize the only constant is CHANGE. It would have been nice to know all these things 5 years ago, but the fact of the matter is that is not how life goes. You learn, grow, try new things, and adapt all the time with EVERYTHING. So while it would have been nice to know those things… It’s ok. I’ve had fun learning!
Let’s be honest – we’re all busy! Sometimes it’s hard enough just to get dinner on the table, let alone to build up a year supply of food while we’re at it. Not to mention learning how to actually COOK with these new foods too! The best way to overcome a weakness is to try and turn it into a strength. As you learn more and more about using your food storage, come up with ways to make the most of your time WHILE using your food storage.
One of the things that makes starting a food storage feel like a daunting task is thinking of all of the expenses associated with it: 
It never fails that every 6 months or so one or the other of us has a complete meltdown and has to reorganize our entire food storage. It’s HARD to keep up with it, we know! If you need some AMAZING tips on staying organized, Julie shared some of her strategies in her 
People have many reasons why they need/want to eat a certain diet. It could be anything from taste preferences, to healthy eating, to severe allergies. We have covered a few of these topics on our blog quite in depth. Hopefully this will help you get started as you go through this journey. We know it can be difficult when your situation doesn’t fit the normal food storage “mold”.
Back to the answer always ends up being: “Well…it depends”. The reason it depends is because not everyone has the same diets, lifestyles, monthly budgets for Food Storage, and ability or desire to rotate their Food Storage. If you are in the habit of replenishing and using your three month supply, then maybe splurging on an appliance you’ve been waiting for is a good idea. If your budget is super tight, and you haven’t been able to put enough food away for your three month supply – perhaps the appliance can wait and it would be a good idea to stock up on your three month supply foods all at once. If you have no real intention of rotating your Food Storage, and you want to have “just in case” foods, then spending money on some “Just Add Water Meals” would be a good idea. We all have different styles and philosophies, so that’s why: “Well… it depends”.
