I hesitate to talk a lot about food preservation and storage on here for several reasons. Because I’m getting lots of questions, I’m going to do this post but please realize that what’s right for me isn’t necessarily right for you. My mom has a pretty well stocked pantry, though she seems to go to the grocery store every day. My niece with four kids probably never cooks a meal that she doesn’t have to go to the store at least once before she starts cooking. Who cares? The way I do it would make some people crazy. Having to go to the store more than once every 2 or 3 weeks would make me crazy! (no comments please!) There’s no right for everyone way to prepare and store food for your family. As I’ve said before, in the fairly recent past, either myself or my immediate family have lived through weeks without power due to ice storms, tornadoes or hurricanes. For us, no matter how prepared I think we are, there are things I wish we had when the lights go out. I just try to do the best I can with no guarantees! 
We are very lucky to have the storage areas in this house that we have. If you’re living in a small place or don’t have storage room, obviously my method isn’t going to work for you. If you’re living on a tight budget and barely have $$ to buy this week’s groceries, it may be hard to build up a supply of food. We all have to make it work in a way that fits our lifestyle so please don’t think that what I’m doing is what I’m telling you to do. Just because I mention food prep so much on the blog, I understand the interest in knowing what I do.
This method of keeping food actually saves $$ on my grocery bill because once I have a stockpile, I hardly buy anything that isn’t on sale. And, its very rare that I find a recipe I want to make that I don’t have everything I need to make the recipe. That saves not only on gas but I seem to be one of those people who can’t go to the store for just one thing. I always come out with several bags, if not more.
This blog post provided more pictures and info on my pantry.
This photo may give you a better idea of the room. It’s all concrete except for the ceiling and it is about 6′ wide and 40′ long, then there’s about a 12′ x 12′ room at the end (see where there are some batting rolls), and then the room comes back towards the opening and that part is about 6′ x 30′ but it’s a dead-end. You have to walk back out past the food shelves, stacked packages of batting and filing cabinet that you see above. The “out” door is right past that filing cabinet.
Around the corner and what you can’t see because I don’t like going back there, are 5 gallon sealed buckets of flour, sugar, wheat, and beans.
I try to keep at least 20 jars of homemade, home canned chili, beef stew, Cincinnati Chili, spaghetti sauce, cooked pinto beans and baked beans on hand. That supply is very low now because I’ve used every available jar for tomatoes, green beans and such. Each week, I empty 12 – 15 jars and within the next month or so, I’ll start restocking these items. If the power goes out, it’s so easy to heat up something that’s ready to serve!
I don’t necessarily think there’s going to be a time when groceries are in short supply, though I’m not saying I feel 100% confident with our food supply either! But . . if we ever need our own supply of food, I’m ready. If we don’t . . no problem. We use it all anyway.
Also, we have solar panels set up so we can charge cell phones, laptops, batteries for flashlights, and small fans. I’m working on getting Vince to build me a solar oven and a brick wood fired oven, both outside of course. I would love to bake bread and pizza in a wood fired oven every day but it would be very useful if we didn’t have power for a while.
In my opinion, there’s nothing like being prepared. We all have to decide what level of preparedness we’re comfortable with and then work to get to that point.
