Stockpiling Food

[copyright1997reloaded]

I built shelves in the basement with leftover lumber and plywood. Roughly 18" deep by 6' wide by 7' high. Plus the kitchen has a pantry 18" deep by 8' high by 6' wide. Flour, rice, etc., are stored in plastic bins.

A couple we know use the closet in a spare bedroom as pantry overflow.

And some people use the entire spare bedroom as pantry overflow.

 

[bobbyr]

We barely have enough food to get through the day.

we have 1.5 days, just to be safe

 

[Marita40]

Single here, and I eat a lot of fresh foods (veggies, fruit, yogurt, eggs etc) that can't be stockpiled. I typically have 3-4 weeks of meat/fish in the freezer, as well as 3-4 weeks of oatmeal, beans, and condiments. Maybe 2-3 months' worth of paper towels, tissues, TP, cat food and litter, shampoo, soap etc. I stock up on these things when they are on sale.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

Single here, and I eat a lot of fresh foods (veggies, fruit, yogurt, eggs etc) that can't be stockpiled. I typically have 3-4 weeks of meat/fish in the freezer, as well as 3-4 weeks of oatmeal, beans, and condiments. Maybe 2-3 months' worth of paper towels, tissues, TP, cat food and litter, shampoo, soap etc. I stock up on these things when they are on sale.

Problem solved in case of TEOTWAIKI: Feed the cat the stockpile of cat food, then ....

Just need more cats?

p.s. My cat doesn't find this funny at all.

 

[Music Lover]

How much room must you have for storage of that much non-perishable food? We have a fair sized closet we use for canned goods. It doubles as our overflow (mostly DW's seasonal stuff) closet. Her stuff goes on top and canned goods go on the shelves below. I'm guessing we could store about 2 months in there. YMMV

We also have 2.5 fridges and 2 freezers. We bought a new fridge to replace my 20-year old one that was starting to make funny noises. I put it in the garage and it's used for beer, pop, water, etc., plus overflow from the house fridge. We also have a mini-fridge in the basement that isn't used much in summer but becomes the drink fridge in winter.

When my wife's mother went to assisted living we ended up with her upright freezer, that's in addition to a medium size chest freezer. So with that much freezer space we can store a lot of frozen food. My wife is pretty good at labeling and rotating food so there's very little waste. We're currently using up stuff to make room for the half side of beef we'll be getting in fall.

 

[TheWizard]

Why stock pile food?
Just go to the grocery store twice a week.
Cripes...

 

[folivier]

TheWizard, you've obviously never been through a natural disaster where the food supply line was destroyed and had to stand in line for hours just to get an MRE. And do this every few days for a week or longer. I have and having a supply of food kept us from having to use precious gasoline to drive to a distribution center. And not wanting to leave our home because of looters.
And not wanting to open the fridge or freezer so that your cold food lasts longer. It's not uncommon to be without power for weeks following a strong hurricane.

 

[pjigar]

We live out in the country so we always have a backup for everything including food. We can last few months without shopping. We can’t afford to drive unnecessarily.

Once our garden is going, we may have too much food on our hands

 

[pjigar]

I built shelves in the basement with leftover lumber and plywood. Roughly 18" deep by 6' wide by 7' high. Plus the kitchen has a pantry 18" deep by 8' high by 6' wide. Flour, rice, etc., are stored in plastic bins.

A couple we know use the closet in a spare bedroom as pantry overflow.

We built an accessory building! Just kidding, building is multi-purpose but we allocated enough storage space including a cold room (for wine, root veggies, etc)

 

[Music Lover]

Why stock pile food?
Just go to the grocery store twice a week.
Cripes...

We go to the grocery store about twice a week for fresh stuff. We also stockpile items that are sold in bulk or are on clearance. However, you can pay full price as much as you want. For the rest of us, buying several weeks supply of an item that's 50% off is just good business.

 

[charais]

I recently saw a reenactment from colonial days and they were grating whole spices. I asked and they said whole spices last much longer than ground and the settlers had no good way to keep them. Spices were stored whole in pottery jars with lids, and ground or grated as needed. So I vacuum sealed a collection of whole spices and a small grater in mason jars just in case we can’t get them since many are from overseas sources

 

[GravitySucks]

Turns out there will be cheese in the post apocalypse.
There are 1.5B pounds of stored cheese!

https://modernfarmer.com/2022/05/cheese-caves-missouri/

Looking for something in the kitchen and notice there's a couple months worth of canned food and pasta here too. Time to check the expiration dates.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Why stock pile food?
Just go to the grocery store twice a week.
Cripes...

Some of us like the 50% or more return on our money.

ETA - And live in areas with natural disasters and power outages.

 

[SecondAttempt]

Why stock pile food?
Just go to the grocery store twice a week.
Cripes...

I don't stockpile for survival reasons and not even really to save money. I live 20 minutes each way from a grocery store with one route that can be blocked for hours by fallen trees or car accidents. I like to cook and don't want to make an hour round trip for some item I need for a dish I decide to make on a whim.

For fresh stuff I usually stop at the grocery store on my way home from work about twice a week.

Even in the modern United States, "just go to the grocery store" can be challenging to many based on uncertainties, distance, time of year, weather conditions, etc.

A few years ago there was a hurricane on the other side of my island that left folks without power and the ability to access basic supplies for months because of roads blocked by fallen trees. Also a couple of years ago a nationwide stevadore/longshoreman strike threatened shipping of supplies to Hawaii where we reportedly only have 7 days on the islands.

Floridians are about to endure a major hurricane. I hope the impact is minimal but it could be very disruptive if ports are damaged and major highways/railroads disrupted.

I Don't mean to "jump all over you" for what may have been an innocent or even joking comment. But not all of us live in the same conditions. I live where I live by choice and accept the risks/hardships. I'm not complaining. But I do have my reasons for keeping a full pantry that would not be resolved by hitting teh grocery store twice a week!

 

[Sunset]

Most grocery stores in Hawaii have 50 lb bags of rice. And a 50 lb bag might only cost 4 times what a 5 lb bag costs so it is actually a common size for a family to buy here.

Strong families

 

[Sunset]

.... Anyone remember the Northeast blackout in 2003?

Yes, we were far from home in Ontario, and had to delay returning home until I could fill the gas tank from a gas station that had some power the next day. Lots of other folks had to fill up as well.

We then drove SOUTH to the USA, to get out of the dead zone rather than across Ontario to Detroit as we didn't want to be stuck again unable to fill the tank.

 

[SecondAttempt]

I recently saw a reenactment from colonial days and they were grating whole spices. I asked and they said whole spices last much longer than ground and the settlers had no good way to keep them. Spices were stored whole in pottery jars with lids, and ground or grated as needed. So I vacuum sealed a collection of whole spices and a small grater in mason jars just in case we can’t get them since many are from overseas sources

Ground spices lose their taste after just a few days. Once you start cooking with freshly ground whole spices you will notice the difference!

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

I recently saw a reenactment from colonial days and they were grating whole spices. I asked and they said whole spices last much longer than ground and the settlers had no good way to keep them. Spices were stored whole in pottery jars with lids, and ground or grated as needed. So I vacuum sealed a collection of whole spices and a small grater in mason jars just in case we can’t get them since many are from overseas sources

Other things in this category:
Coffee
Grains for brewing
...

 

[Chuckanut]

Wasn't there a big hurricane that flooded New Orleans a decade or so? Were not people stranded for over a week before they could get any help at all? Is there a lesson to be learned here?

Or is all this a fig-newton of my imagination?

 

[folivier]

Hurricane Katrina. Read about the aftermath and then Hurricane Rita which skirted the Louisiana coast over to Houston.
People in NO were sitting on their roofs waiting for rescue then brought to our town university in Thibodaux for triage then sent to other areas. NO was no different than any 3rd world country during a similar disaster. One bright point is locals from surrounding areas went in boats to rescue people. Our neighborhood hosted doctors and nurses that came in to help with the triage. Heard lots of terrible stories from them. An event like that will change your outlook on life.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Our Uber driver was a retired police officer and he said that many cops couldn’t return to work after Katrina because of all the horror and death that happened. He pointed out that many houses still had the paint marks on front telling rescue people which homes had been searched for bodies.

 

[Breedlove]

Remember last spring they were on UCLA campus interviewing young people . They asked a young girl what she thought of how high fertilizer prices would affect the farmers ….Her answer was ( I get my food from the grocery store I will be OK )

 

[Music Lover]

Why stock pile food?
Just go to the grocery store twice a week.
Cripes...

Here's another way to look at it. We both have a grocery cart with exactly the same items, but you paid $100 and I only paid $75.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Here's another way to look at it. We both have a grocery cart with exactly the same items, but you paid $100 and I only paid $75.

Checkbook.org does a shopping basket comparison here and there is a $3K difference per household in annual grocery cost difference by shopping at the lowest price store vs. the highest price store (identical items). Over a 40 year retirement, with the $3K savings reinvested @ 4%, that comes out to hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra cash.

 

[NW-Bound]

Checkbook.org does a shopping basket comparison here and there is a $3K difference per household in annual grocery cost difference by shopping at the lowest price store vs. the highest price store (identical items). Over a 40 year retirement, with the $3K savings reinvested @ 4%, that comes out to hundreds of thousands of dollars of extra cash.

I believe it.

Even though $3K/year does not make a difference in our budget, we cannot pass it up.

Frugality is an ingrained trait. You cannot get it out of your system.