I haven't started due to lack of space. I know I should though. Have you started Teresa, and if so what are you stocking?

Beverly

I've been stocked up for years. I keep a lot of food for earthquake survival, but I could probably keep an army alive after a quake - well, at least the neighbors, and they eat a lot, since they are all 20-something guys.

I have canned food stored in the garage in a bookcase that I bought at a yard sale for $20. I try to use up the cans and replace them, but I seldom eat food from cans, and so this creates a problem. I wish I had a freezer in the garage, but there's really no room, unless I get rid of some surf boards. I buy rice in 10# bags, and it's always economical (to me). I'm not terribly concerned about food prices - except for wild caught salmon, which was $29 a pound the last time I bought it.

I don't like to stock too much, and I really don't like using too much that has been frozen, which is why my freezer is overflowing. If you stock up now, eventually you will still run out and have to buy more, and the price may still be high. Food is a relatively small part of my budget, and so I don't pay that much attention to prices - except for fish. I have lots of dried pasta in stock and several cans of tomatoes. I found the 6 in 1 tomatoes at Sorrento Deli in Culver City and bought three cans, but that's really not that much.

Lars

I may be wrong but I don't think staples are going to get scarce,although they may cost more for a while. I didn't think gas would be four dollars a gallon either. If we keep turning our grain into fuel instead of food I don't think we will be able to stockpile enough Teresa. I'm hoping this is some kind of cycle and it will go away.
James

I've always stockpiled. I just called it "canning", LOL, and I do it every harvest season.

I don't think staples will be scarce either, just more expensive. Of course, my idea of "staples" might not be someone else's idea of staples. My definition would be flour, sugar, beans, various grains, salt, oatmeal, cornmeal, probably eggs and milk. Also local fruits and vegetables, whether canned, frozen, dried or preserved in some form.

My beef is out in the field, so I suppose it's stockpiled, in a way. My egg providers are in the barn, my garden is growing well. So yes, I suppose, just as I have every year since I was a child, I'm stockpiling, LOL.

In addition to turning our grain into fuel, things like beef are a horribly inefficient use of grains. As a beef farmer, that pains me to say, but it's true.

If we ate a lot more beans and cornbread we'd be healthier, have more of our food budget for other items.

I always figured gas would be more than $4 a gallon, the rest of the world has paid it for quite some time now. We use way too much of it, we're wasteful and indulgent. We like our lifestyles far too much to change without a major catalyst and yes, that includes me.

Annie

In a word -- no. I am very odd in that I cannot stand to have "extra" on hand. I like to have enough for my immediate needs but not a lot more. I can walk to the grocery store, so I figure they can store it on their shelves and I'll go get it when I need it.

If there is some sort of catastrophe, I will walk 2.5 miles to my mom's house. She has enough stockpiled to last until the end of time. Freezer-burned steak, anyone??

One day I will sneak some pictures of her stockpile. You won't believe it.

I don't think we will have much shortages, just higher prices.

Pam, I know a lady with five 25 Cu Ft. freezers full in her basement. Talk about freezer burn!

Beverly

Well, I'm thinking about gathering some additional staples to have on hand if I can find a place to put them. Things like dried beans, flour, canned tomatoes, tuna, soup, rice and pasta. If I find the place to store them that means I'll have to remember where I put them, right??????

(standing on the pantry step stool with my fist upraised and in my best "Scaw-let" voice) "As Gawd is my whet-ness I will nevah be without my Campbell's tamatah soup!"

No stockpiling here. No space. I do have a freezer, it has stuff in it. Some of it might be edible!

My pantry is always stocked, maybe not with what we may want to eat today but we are not going to starve. There's only two of us and I cook a lot from scratch. Perishables are what we would run out of but we can make do with what we have if we had to. Have plenty of meat in the freezer, all we need, we don't eat a lot of it. Costs will go up but what the heck, that's life. One thing for sure, if we continue to have water for the yard, I'll never run out of lemons, LOL! I planted tomatoes and zucchini but my crop is really puny, too much shade in our yard.

I always stock up. I follow the food storage method used by many Mormans and have 6-12 months of most foods in storage.

After 37 years of marriage, food in storage has always been there during a personal emergency or to share with others during their emergencies. Emergencies such as loss of income, that 10 days without electricity during the ice storm, or when the grocery money was better used for unexpected medical expenses, have all been covered by food in storage at one time or another.

The weekly food budget is mostly spent on bargains and clearance items that go into storage and I shop-at-home for menu planning and meal preparation, rotating foods in and out of storage. I have a well-fitted room in the basement that has been planned specifically for food storage.

I keep hundreds of pounds of dried beans, a large variety of grains, and seeds (including nuts and seeds for sprouting) in storage. I mill all my flour at home. I've used a powdered, whey-based milk substitute for over 30-years and presently have 2-years of it in storage. I keep powdered whole eggs in storage, and when fresh eggs get higher in price per egg than powdered whole eggs, I'll use powdered eggs. I make my own mixes and convenience foods. Add to that preserved garden produce and local grass-fed beef, pork, and chicken in the freezer and foods found in most well-stocked pantries. I freeze or dehydrate a lot of the garden produce. I don't do home canning anymore because it's more expensive to can foods than it is to purchase commercially canned foods on sale.

Many of the things in storage are purchased once or twice a year in large quantities, as I accumulate money in the food budget for them - whey-based milk substitute, agave nectar, coconut oil, grains...

Right now I suspect the foods I have in storage are earning more in their value than my IRA account (LOL). I'm using wheat now that was a pretty good bargain and it takes 10 cents worth of wheat to make a loaf of 100% whole wheat bread.

-Grainlady

I hate to grocery shop. So I tend to do a "major" shop once every 2-3 months. DH does little shops during the week for milk & bread things like that. So I tend to be well stocked for a month and then let it dwindle down until I can't stand it anymore. Next month I'll be due for a shop.

I'm a canner, so there is oodles of jams, pickles and relishes in the basement. I also garden, so right now I have broccoli, pea pods & Swiss chard in the freezer. When my tomatoes get rolling, I'll be up to my elbows canning tomato sauce. I also have dried parsley, oregano & basil from the garden.

I love fresh vegetables, but don't want to spend the gas to make special trips to get them. I'm stocking up on seeds, decomposted leaves, and fertilizer.

grainlady, I wish I was a neighbor of yours to watch and learn from.

I always have a pretty good amount of food on hand. When things we use regularly are on sale/marked down I buy a lot. It only makes sense, particularly with meat. I almost never go to the store specifically to get a certain meat I want to cook. I just stop in at the store several times a week and check out the meat counter. The store manager is pretty aggressive about marking down meats as they get close to their "sell by" date, and my garage freezer pays for itself in those savings alone. An example is that right after St.Patricks day, he marked down the corned beef to 99 cents a pound. I've still got6 or 7 chunks of it in the freezer.

I also keep quite a bit on hand in terms of a variety of grains, legumes, dried fruit & canned goods both store bought and home made. I figure if something horrible happened, and we had to live off what I have on hand, we'd eat fairly well for at least a month and could probably survive for two as long as we could get water to cook with. I'm not as good as I would like to be about keeping jugs of water on hand...they just take up so much room. I usually have several gallon containers frozen to use in coolers etc and a couple more in jugs, but that wouldn't last too long.

I checked with Elery, he says he doesn't believe there will be a shortage of staples and he only uses about one box a year at the office anyway. :-)

I could easily feed my entire family for 6 months on what I currently have on hand. As farmers have for centuries, we stock up in the fall and make sure we have enough to keep us fed until the next harvest.

Annie

Too funny Annie. You tell Elery he's a Smart A _ _!! :+)
(I love sarcasm...)

I, too, preserve the harvest.
My brother has cattle, a neighbor has goats (meat, milk, cheese if necessary), friends have pigs, I have chickens and a garden.

I'll miss the flour (although I do have 20 lbs. on hand). Grains are the only thing I don't have an immediate, local source for. But I'd sure plant some if I needed to.

I have a Bug Out box in the closet and we're working on an emergency bag for the car.
That covers immediate, temporary inconvenience of being away from home at the time of an emergency.

I think the 3 adults at our house could easily eat very well for 6 months or more.

I am however changing some of my buying habits. Larger package sizes (more economical), refusing to pay exorbant prices for certain items ($2.50 for ONE avocado.......NOT!!)

For the most part we are just trying to stay aware of what's going on and be prepared to take advantage of a bargain or avoid a catastrophe.

Deanna

LOL Elery!

My shopping habits are as they always have been. I "stock up" on anything that is on sale for a really good price. For example Glad Wrap and Alcan Foil were on sale this week for .99 cents (25' rolls) so I bought 15 of each.

I tend to have quite the stockpile at the cottage. I love to think I can make just about anything without a trip to town!

Other than that I don't stockpile items for the sake of having enough on hand in case of a shortage.

Nope. Ain't gonna do it. Have you ever been to the grocery store when there's a hurricane out in the gulf that has any chance at all of hitting your town? I have and it isn't pretty! I run out screaming!

I guess that I've been scarred by that and that's why I'm downright not gonna panic. At least about something like having enough food in the house. Now I have been known to panic about important stuff like if the outfit I wanted to wear today is clean, you know, REAL life threatening stuff!

Ok, sorry I'm taking this all too lightly. Baby you shoulda seen the grocery stores in Houston pretty much the whole week before Rita hit. There were lines outside the door by Thursday. Me? I just went home and "hunkered down" with whatever food was already in my pantry. Back when Alicia hit (1983) we lost our power for a few days and had to BBQ all our meat. That debunks the idea of overstocking the freezer I guess.

Recently a friend visiting from out of town looked in my pantry and said, OH! Now I see why you don't NEED to stock up before a storm! LOL. I guess that implies that I'm pretty much stocked up anyway. Hey I have two growing boys! Ummm.... except that they are both now away in college and only home for about a week or two here & there. I guess old habits die hard.

Yes, May, old habits do die hard! That's why I find it hard not to keep a full pantry and fridge-top freezer. And after the pantry remodel it is much easier to keep it organized.

I looked at my Pantry Inventory word.doc and made a new Stocking Up word.doc from there. I am trying to cut way back on frequent trips for errands/shopping to save gas for the car. I try to buy gas one week and groceries the next week if at all possible. And I love to plan dinner from what I have on hand!

Yesterday I received a notice that my natural gas EPP monthly bill would be almost $2 less next year - so every little bit helps!

BUYER BEWARE - large packages aren't always bargains - be sure to check unit price. I shop with a calculator and a price book that logs the prices I've been paying at different stores, as well as inventory numbers of the items in storage at home.

As an example this week, 12-oz. Kroger peanut butter (a size I've never purchased before because it's so small) was 3 cents per oz. cheaper than the large size of the same brand, which was also on sale. In fact, it's the lowest price I've seen peanut butter in about a year. My best bargain for peanut butter has normally been the 18-oz. size.

Be sure to "stack" your purchasing power. Wait for an advertised sale or a manager's special and use a double- or triple-off coupon. Occasionally you may even find a rebate you can send in.

-Grainlady

Here is a link that might be useful: Price Book

I've always kept "stocked up" in freezers & pantries-- kids & their families always kid about"if there's a disaster head to Mom's-- she can feed us all for at least a year"-- I use & rotate but always find a few things that need to be tossed.

So I guess I'm not really doing any stocking because of present economical scare-- except complaining bitterly about the bigger dent in our fixed income. Am cutting back on non-necessary driving, have extra cords of wood split, doing Curves 3 x a week instead of 5.

Well in an effort to reduce trash waste..I try and buy larger sizes simply for the fact that I may have one less plastic jug to recycle or one less cardboard box or cereal bag...

I buy some things in bulk, and yes I do check unit price..did you know that sometimes buying 2 bags of 5lb sugar is cheaper than buying a 10lb bag..and sometimes not..
Actually right now at Albertsons it's 3 cents per pound cheaper to buy sugar in the 10lb bag then the 25lb bag.

I think once you've had your freezer accidently left open or die on you with a large supply of "storage" you are a bit more careful in stocking it!

I can get by a few weeks probably without going to the store for anything..but I usually don't.

I like Annie, freeze and can "harvest" because I like to have seasonal things more than the season they are available in.

My pantry is always stocked and so is my freezer. Actually I thought Teresa was asking are we stocking up on things that are going to go way up in price because of the corn shortage due to ethanol production. Things like beef and I don't know what else. We don't eat much beef so we won't buy much. I am freezing some corn. I usually do that though so it's nothing new. Anyone else know what will go up drastically in price because of corn?

Beverly

Anything made with corn. LOL

You're probably right Beverly..that's what she meant..and well the answer is no. If something gets to expensive, I'll just limit it's consumption or remove it from our diet.

We've always got a pretty good supply - I hit the commissary about once a month and refresh my "staples" (funny one, Annie, about Elery!). I know I watch my freezer daily - it's getting on in years, but a chest freezer does live longer than an upright, my appliance man tells me. But it's full, too, which also helps a lot.

I'm not sure that we could live for more than a couple of months on what we have - unless the bread machine can run on all-purpose flour (which for some reason, I have 3 bags of that and only a partial bag of bread flour???).

DonnaR/CA

I'm not stocking up on staples like flour and rice because I expect costs to rise. I "stock up" because I grew up that way in a farming family and haven't figured out how to move from the "harvest crew" mentality. I always have lots of stuff around.

Plus I live in a small town, so when I go to the "big city" I tend to buy and stash all the oddball stuff I could never find here.

So if there's a disaster and I need curry leaves or galangal or red curry paste, I'm set for the next year!

Carol

LOL, readinglady.... When I heard about the rice shortage on tv awhile back, the next day I bought eight bags at .79 cents each and stored them in the freezer. PROUD I WAS!!! I showed "em"! Next week it was on sale for 2 for a dollar... and has been a couple times since then...

BTW There is a gas station about 20 miles from me that is selling gas for 3.69. Any one want to stock up?

Here is a link that might be useful: Gas

Over here there is no need to stock up as there is local produce year round and I wouldn't have a place to put anything that wasn't going to be used in the next days. I do have a shelf of tinned and bottled goods, a couple of bags of rice and flour but they often get bugs or weevils (even after the deep freeze treatment) before I get around to using them. I don't buy sugar but do use a little fructose now and then.

My deep freeze has a few edible things in it (lol barnmom) and like Lars I don't care much for anything from a tin....with exception of tuna, sometimes salmon, peas or tomato paste. I originally bought a lot of tinned goods for Wolfram when I was last away on holiday when he wanted to stay home, but he didn't use them, so I guess in a catastrophe we could eat those. But first need would be water and electricity and without them in an emergency we couldn't cook much. And without electricity the food in the freezer would be lost too.

I guess we could always resort to eating GOFIO which is what the aboriginal Canary Islanders lived on for years in times of food scarcity, and still use it today. It can be ordered in some Canary restaurants as well.
Guess I'd better go buy some of that! I have 500 liters of water in my rain barrel if needed.

SharonCb

Donna, I never buy bread flour, I use all purpose for nearly all my bread recipes and I exclusively use my bread machine to mix and knead the dough. I like King Arthur but I use others because my small town grocery only stocks Gold Medal, Pillsbury and Robin Hood. I buy KA when I go to Grand Rapids to shop but if I run out, it's one of the others.

Grandma never used bread flour, I think it's a relatively recent development (maybe in the last 30 years or so?). I don't buy bread machine yeast either, I buy the bulk stuff from Sam's Club and keep it in the freezer until I need it.

As for shortages, the fact that we're making fuel from the corn doesn't really create shortages on anything except corn. It will drive up the price of eggs and things like beef and pork because corn is the primary food source for those when raised by commercial agribusiness.

The fuel prices are driving the corn for fuel industry, and fuel prices are driving up the cost of everything because we are so mobile. It was strawberry season here a couple of weeks ago but the berries in the store were from California. Sweet corn is nearly ready, but the store stuff is from Texas. If we ship stuff across the country by truck we're going to have to pay for the fuel to get it here, and that fuel is getting more expensive all the time.

Hey, maybe the price of beef will create more business for my grass fed stuff! I'd better rush out and buy a couple of heifers.....

Annie

I was stunned when I stopped by the ammo store. I've been practicing my shooting and depleted my stock of ammunition. Looking at price tags what had been $16 per box is now $30! Guy behind the counter says the military is buying up all the manufacturing capacity for ammunition.

As for food I always stock as town in a few miles away. I've never been awash in money or time so needless trips to town have always been avoided. Just me and the cats so I often shop without a list and just buy what is available. If something I like is on sale I'll get a quantity. Sort of bummed because two last day beef roasts for $2.39/lb had to be passed on for lack of freezer space. I already have about 8lbs of eye of round in the freezer. My sister just gifted me with tounges, liver, hearts, and kidney's from the bulk meat she buys. LOL!... I should buy a sausage machine. Rice which I eat fairly often is kept in fair quantities. Some herbs like rosemary and cilantro dry well so I have a growing stock of those.

Most food won't store well. Vitamins are lost so even if it remain edible it is not nutritious. I have some land so I'm working on things that grow back every year like fruits, berries, asparagus, and rhubarb. If I get the time I should do a full orchard. The way things are going it could be one of the few winning investments.

: )
lyra

I have a large freezer & keep a large enough pantry to feed us for 6-8 months. During my 18+ months of not eating much I allowed the pantry/freezer to run down figuring it was good to rotate the entire thing every once in a while. I've been restocking for about a month now & will continue thru harvest season. We used to maintain a Morman-style one year storage program when the kids were home but not anymore. I do still keep dry milk, powdered cheese/eggs/peanut butter, lots of oats, tricale, cornmeal, sunflower seeds/pumpkin seeds, brown rice, WW dry pasta, half a dozen types of nuts, & many pounds of either dried or frozen fruits. We've always got beef jerky & I recently made about 20 lbs. of granola. I've got 40 lbs. of AP flour. Soon, we'll spend an afternoon shucking corn & cutting it off the cob for the freezer.

I also always keep some canned tomato products in the pantry but rely mostly on dehydrated tomatoes for the storage program. Canned foods are just too heavy & bulky to fit in a food storage program easily, IMO.

The freezer's full of at least 8 months meat. My kids say our pantry is better stocked than their local grocery store & they are, probably, correct.

We don't have a basement in this house so I don't store grains anymore nor do we eat enough to justify the expense & rotation hassles.

I also keep a commodity storage program. DH has to wear white dress shirts every day so I buy them on sale & keep about a dozen new ones in storage along with various kinds of socks, t-shirts, undies for me, a couple pairs of new jeans for each of us, & we've always got new never worn sneakers in storage. First-aid items, TP, paper towels, various soaps, cleaners, vinegar, that kind of stuff I still keep a year's supply.

The worst that happens is that we use products that were purchased at last year's prices. And, it's easy when DH needs a new shirt...don't have to spend half a day running to Macy's or Nordstrums for a single shirt. I've done it for so long...it's habit. I wouldn't feel 'right' if we didn't have life's necessities in storage but it's waaayyy less than it was, say, five years ago.

/tricia

I have lots of flours, grains, home-canned goods, two freezers full of baking and cooking staples, meats, home-grown veggies and fruits.

Like /tricia if I find a shirt my DH likes, when they come on sale I buy a dozen or so. So our buying patterns are very similar.

Ironically, my DH in the past two years has also had major jaw surgery and bone grafts, so now that he can eat again, my mission is to use up what's been accumulated. I'm also finding, now that we're moving to the "senior side" of life, that our eating habits have changed. With just the two of us, once what we have is consumed, I'm sure I'll be buying less and in smaller amounts.

Food storage requires good management skills - of money, of time, of space, of equipment. It's easy to "buy in bulk" but making the most of what you've accumulated and minimizing waste is a skill.

Having a freezer is beneficial, but it is an expense. Not just the initial purchase but also the cost of operation, storage containers, bags etc. I venture to guess there's many a freezer out there filled with unidentifiable dessicated "former food."

I've known people who order a butchered beef but discard cuts like tongue or heart rather than learning how to prepare them.

Buying is only the beginning. It's all too easy to save money by buying and storing then spend all we've saved in waste.

I purchase few canned foods, though there are times I find things like commercial canned tomatoes, sauce, paste, etc. are cheaper than what I can make myself and excellent quality. The last two garden years here have been poor and it's been a struggle to obtain produce of the quality I'd want to can, so I have bought to "fill in."

One thing I do is when the Post Office runs its canned food drive I go through my shelves. I'd never donate out-of-date items, but if I see I have canned goods nearing the "use-by" date I do donate them.

Carol