Food Storage Friday - How Are You Doing?

With rising prices, bad weather, unstable job environments, one of the best things we as women (or men) in charge of our homes can do, is work on our food storage to ensure our family will continue to eat well no matter what the circumstance is. It doesn't take a lot to organize your pantry and make a little room for extras, and with the help of coupons and sales, can be done very cheaply. Every Friday, I'd like to encourage you to join in with me to do one or two little things to add to or work with your food storage.

The key to food storage is only store items your family will eat on a day to day basis. Never buy a bunch of canned or boxed goods just because the price is a great deal, unless you are willing to donate all those cans to your local food bank after your family tries it once and hates it. You want to be saving money with your food storage, not spending more than you need to. When trying a new product for the first time, stick to what your family would use just for one meal. Even brand to brand can differ, so just because your family is willing to eat one brand of canned chili, doesn't mean they'll enjoy brand B. (Better safe than sorry!)

So how did you do coming up with 3 meals you make often? What were the ingredients you use a lot that are shelf stable? Did you buy anything extra on your last shopping trip?

For us, we do use a lot of tomato paste, pasta, and rice. These are items I can easily stock up on for several months at a time since we use so much! I stocked up on some extra baking supplies since I had to toss away some of it after our Halloween mess last Saturday. Fred Meyer had brown sugar on sale for 99 cents with a limit of 3, so I grabbed 3 of them!

Continue stocking up on shelf stable goods this week by purchasing an extra one or two items. If there's a really good sale going on, purchase as many as you can use in a decent time from (I usually say 2-3 months, unless you are positive about your storage area staying a decent temperature) and your budget allows.

Remember to store all your items safely, and place the items that expire later at the back of your cabinets. Doing this as soon as you bring your groceries in will help cut down on your shelves being out of control and wasting food that's past the Use By date.