Cheap Preparedness Food Storage Without Waste

I had a discussion with someone today that made me think I need to do a post on how to avoid waste with your preparedness food supplies. I have a very simple method that I use and it will probably work for others as well. 


My preparedness food is more of what I eat every day. I type my grocery lists into my computer with the date on them. I can look at the dates I buy a particular food and see how long before I had to get it again. It is not really precise, but it gets me close enough for my purposes. It is not complicated and it is easy to do. It gives me preparedness foods that I am sure to like and already know how to prepare.


I estimate from my grocery lists how much of different foods I need during a month, for example. That way I can buy enough of those foods I need to eat for a month. I do not have the funds to have a long term storage, so that makes things easier. The best I can manage is a year ahead on some things, less on others.


Most foods on the grocery shelves will have a use by date that is at least a year away from the time you take it home. It is not a problem to get ordinary grocery items and store them for a year or less. Just look at the use by date before you buy it and make sure it is as far away as you plan to store that food item.


If you are comparatively rolling in dough and are able to store food for longer than a year, there are many grocery store items that will last for two or more years before their use by date. You can begin with these and start buying bulk foods by mail or online. 


I have not done this much yet, but I do it a little for items that I use a lot like grains, for example. It is cheaper to buy these in paper or plastic sacks and then buy your own plastic storage pails. You can dump your paper or plastic sacks into the storage pails and save a lot of money. You need to make sure the pails that you use are food quality plastic.


If you want to be extra careful, you can buy mylar or plastic bags to put in the storage pails instead of putting the food directly into the pails. There are extra things you can do to make the foods stored in your storage pails last up to 40 years. I think that is a little excessive, but my life expectancy is shorter than that, so what do I know?


I will post more on cheap, non-wasteful food storage. I don't just use it for preparedness. There is not a sharp dividing line between my money saving and my preparedness food supplies.