Mini Challenges: Determine Your Food Storage Needs

Food storage (or Home Storage) is often a tricky subject. The LDS Church guidelines recommend a year's supply of food for you and your family. Some resources suggest less. Space is often an issue, and depending on where you live, laws may prohibit you from storing very much. If you live or work in the military community, you know hauling all that food to different duty stations can be difficult. So what is one to do? The answer is: Do what you can.

Well, since you generally can't rush out and get a year's supply tomorrow, we're going to start small...baby steps. Our December 15th Mini-Challenge is to calculate your family's food storage needs and make a food storage plan.

This exercise will involve a few steps.

1. Determine your family size...don't forget pets!
2. Pick a time frame. I would suggest starting with 72 hours. Then you can also calculate needs for 1 month, then 3 months, then 6 months, and then a year. This will help give you an idea of the different goals you can set, and the amount of food each period would require. If space is a concern, this could help you gauge for what time period you could store food.
3. Using some guidelines or calculators (Long Term Food Storage Calculator or General Food Storage Calculator), determine what the recommended amount (and types) of food are for your family. Don't be afraid to find a subsitution that works for your family. Food storage won't help if you won't eat it. ...just make sure you are covering all the essential categories.
4. Determine what types of special needs your family would have. You'll need to keep in mind items such as pet food, diapers, wipes, formula, baby food, medicines, vitamins, and personal sanitary items. Try to figure out how much you use during your selected time period and make sure you include those things in your list.
5. Make a list of all the items you would need, including quantities.
6. Make a trip to your local grocery or discount store and "shop" your list. This doesn't mean you have to buy anything...in fact DON'T buy anything yet. Just look for the items you've identified, and get an idea of what they cost. Add up the total cost (cost of each item x quantity needed) of each item and then the complete total for your entire list.
7. Make a goal of when you would like to have your food storage in place. Keep in mind the longer the time period you have chosen, the longer it will take you to aquire.
8. Take your total cost and divide it into increments based on your pay schedule or shopping schedule, to determine how much money you will need to spend each week/pay period to reach your goal. Say you have decided you want to have your food storage goal complete in three months. You shop every week. Your total is $300. That means that you would be spending roughly $25 a week on food storage in order to meet your goal.
9. Determine how you will finance this goal. Do you have a budgetary category for food storage? Will it come out of your normal grocery budget? Do you have a chunk of funds set aside in savings you want to use? It doesn't have to be complicated, but you should know how you will finance it, since food storage shouldn't put you into debt.
10. Share your plan with your family and ask for ideas on completing the goal together. You never know, you may find a co-worker or friend that is giving away an item on your list. Your children might want to "donate" to the goal from their allowance. You may be able to can some items yourself (if you have the resources and know how). Get creative.
11. And finally, don't despair or become discouraged. It will take time and effort, but it WILL be worth it.

It is hard to reach a goal, when you don't know what that goal will entail. That is why it is so important to do the planning. Take some time out to assess your food storage needs and set some goals. This is a very important part of Provident Living, and in these uncertain economic times, Food and Home Storage can be a great comfort.