12 Week Strategy to a Year’s Worth of Food
NOTE: This is one way to approach food storage. It’s helpful explanation but not an exhaustive. You can ALWAYS start small by building up non-perishables from the grocery store. Think about buying double every time you make a trip to the store for canned and packaged items.
Week 1: Pre-food step, concentrate on storing up a starter amount of 50 gallons of water. The easiest is to buy the one, two-and-a-half, or three gallon containers offered at most grocery stores. (Camping stores often have 5 gallon ones). A more forward thinking approach is to buy a water barrel and prepare your water for up to 5 years in storage.
Week 2: Grab your food Really Ready Approved Food Storage Staples List (shop.preparetheway.com) and concentrate on buying a quarter of what you’ll need in the first staple block, grains. TIP: When buying grains it’s best to buy in bulk, at one time, so your dollar goes further. Storing these properly is a MUST else you’ll waste your money.
Week 3: Concentrate on buying quarter of what you’ll need in the second through fourth block of staples, including rice, pasta, and beans. (See Really Ready Approved Food Storage Staples List.)
Week 4: Focus on buying ¼ of the total amount specified in the fruits and vegetables section of the food storage pyramid.
Week 5: Move to collecting a quarter of your year’s supply in the proteins and sweeteners section of your shopping list.
Week 6: Work on gathering a fourth of what you need in the dairy section including butters and oils. Then work to get a small amount of comfort foods at this time, more like a month’s supply.
Week 7: This week create your shelving system, organize your foods and create an inventory. This will make sure you’re staring at how long certain foods will last, given what they are, what you’ve stored them in, and where you’ve put them. Also go back to your fruits and vegetables section and purchase the next quarter of your yearly installment. You should be at half your year’s supply here.
Buy 50 gallons of water again. Also purchase all of your baking essentials section. The spices are critical to avoid food fatigue!
Now return to the head of your list and buy the next 2 installments of grains. You should now be at ¾ of your year’s supply. This week also locate a grinder (buy one or schedule an appointment to use a friend’s). Practice grinding your whole grains into flour.
Week 8: Buy your next 2 installments of pastas, rice, and beans. It will cheer you to know that ¾’s of a year is secure in your home. Remember that 1 serving of legumes to 3 servings of grains often creates a whole protein.
Week 9: Finish supply the last quarter of your fruits and vegetables. If you have budget to spare, complete your dairy section too.
Week 10: This week you’re focusing on completing your dairy needs for the year, gathering the remainder ¾ of your meat and proteins for the year, and securing all the sweeteners you’ll need.
Week 11: Revisit how you’ve stored things and re-calculate your inventory. Also finish buying your butters and oils and the fun stuff—comfort food!
Week 12: Congratulations! You’ve acquired a year’s worth of well-balanced supplies for your family and stored them properly. Now it’s time to focus on working at least 1 meal a week into your diet from your stored foods. You should have no worries finding things you like to eat, however, you may need to develop some new skills sets. Check out our cookbook (online in March @ shop.prepareheway.com) to help you love eating what you’ve stored!
