Starting over with food storage

The thing about having cancer is that it's usually quite unexpected.  The amount of time my husband needed off work just to get me to and from doctor appointments was enough to put a dent in the budget.  That doesn't include my deductibles, out of pocket maximums, and emergency surgeries for other members of our little family.  It was also followed by 5 years of strenuous follow up care.  

So we ate a lot of our food storage. It was difficult to do that. It shocked me just how difficult.  Now every day I am grateful for it.  The difficult thing in starting over this time is that now I have a lot of food allergies.  I needed a plan that would allow me to really customize our food storage to our specific needs.  I found a great way to keep track of everything at FoodStorageMadeEasy.com

First thing I did was get a copy of the items for sale at the local dry pack cannery.  Some of the items are ready for pick up while other items need to be put in the individual cans.  I prefer the cans because we live in the middle of an alfalfa field and when the hay gets cut there are mice and voles everywhere! So far, not one metal can has been chewed open. 

I also used the food storage calculator to see how much I would need of the basic long term food storage items for a family of 4, all over the age of 7.  I then spent the day inside my icy cold fruit room inventorying what I had still.

I downloaded the free Long Term Food Storage Inventory Tracker.Then I decided instead of lbs that the items I will be buying in #10 cans would stay in #10 cans.  I even gave myself a reminder at the end of the row IN RED so that I would remember.  It was just easier for me to see how many cans I need to buy instead of lbs for those items.

Then I also needed to start entering in the items for my 3 Month short term food storage tracker.  The difference between long term and short term storage is that the short term storage is full of items we regularly eat. The long term storage is full of items that will store for 20 years or more.  Rice stores for 30+ years at 75 degrees - my fruit room is perfect.

 So as you can see I am still working on the short term items and I have a lot to add to the long term storage.

 Here is a print out of the long term items, how much is required, how much I need, and what I have on hand.  Super simple and oh so needed.

They even have a page for items you need to store but don't eat like toothpaste, laundry detergent, and pet food. Maybe I should add mouse/vole bait to the list!