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This is part 1 of our 3 part REAL FOOD STORAGE series. You may also enjoy:

REAL FOOD STORAGE PART 2 {What & Where}

REAL FOOD STORAGE PART 3 {Old and New Preservation Methods}

My Motives

Food and preparedness are things I take pretty seriously. If you’ve read my background you can probably see why. You might also enjoy our true story about how we narrowly escaped hurricane Katrina in 2005. Watching what people went through woke me up to the need to get prepared and to HELP OTHERS do the same.

I deeply care about what I’m putting into my family’s bodies. I also feel strongly about having an organic food storage system that doesn’t get tossed out after 30 years. This a system that consists of organic real food that actually gets used.

Let’s Skip the Guilt M’kay?

Let’s say you have more mouths to feed and the cost of organic grass-fed everything is prohibitive. Even if you apply these principles to conventional food I’d be willing to bet you could still save a lot of money, and keep the majority of harmful chemicals out of your food.

My Food Storage “System”

Instead of going to the grocery store every few days, I buy 1 month to 1 year supply of several items each month. Expensive? In the short-term, it may feel that way but long-term no! Buying in bulk often lowers the cost of items and cuts gas usage and impulse spending.

Just be sure to check the price of things in bulk vs. smaller quantities. I have seen items much cheaper if purchased individual rather than in multiples on Amazon!

Building the Foundation

Tax returns 🙂 When we know we have “extra” money coming in, I see food storage as a safe investment opportunity. Once it’s all built up, the monthly bulk purchases replace most of the grocery store trips. If times get tight later, we can skip a big food order and build it back up when we recover.

We’re going to eat the food either way! This isn’t low quality “emergency” food. This is good nutrient-dense, wholesome enjoyable food, made from scratch.

3 Easy Steps

In each step, I get a 3 month supply of the more expensive items and a 1 year supply of the cheaper ones.

First, I started stocking up on protein and fats. These are often the most expensive parts of food storage as well as the most necessary for survival. Being able to add some fat to your meal will make all the difference when surviving on beans. I got a years supply of a few different fats and dried beans, and a 3 month supply of meat.
(Notice the 2nd and 3rd steps are progressively less expensive which allows for the replacement of the previous items) The second step was all about building up energy-producing foods such as grains, while restocking what we used up in proteins and fats.
The final step for building the foundation was all about building up salt, fruits, veggies, local raw honey, apple cider vinegar, condiments, and sprouting seeds.

There! A 3 month foundational supply. Now to maintain…

From here on out, it’s all about replenishing what’s being used and increasing the number of items to broaden the nutritional profile.

Monthly Food Expenses {For Our Family of 4}

Bulk items: dry goods, TP, PT, grass-fed meats, grass-fed butter, animal feed, etc. : $450-650 (Less when we do a batch of meat birds and have plenty of milk to make our own cheese)
Milk: the goat kids that we sell offset most, if not all of the costs of our milk.
Eggs: producing our own organic eggs is costing us about $2.30 +/- per dozen so let’s say under $10/month.
Produce: when our garden and trees are “sleeping”- $120 /$0 when our garden and trees are abundant)

Bottom Lines

Buying in bulk can save a little money here and there which adds up over time. But even better than that to me, it is being liberated from the grocery store and having the freedom to make a wide variety of meals with what’s on hand.

Most importantly I appreciate the peace of knowing that if there were an emergency, I would be able to help my loved ones and keep my family fed for a while.

So tell me, what are some of your favorite ways to buy food?