Building your pantry

Now you're ready to get started, but where do you start? 

You see all those people using mylar bags and vacuum sealing jars. But you just want to know how to keep enough extras so that you can go grocery shopping less often or enough for an unexpected job loss. Or even just those long days that nothing goes as planned and you just need to feed the family something quick that doesn’t cost a bunch of money (like going out to eat). 

The best way to get started is to forget all those long term food storing methods and just focus on what you really eat in a week or a month and buy extras of those. Don’t try buying everything at once but just a few extras at a time. If you always buy 2 cans of green beans then buy 4 instead. Then the next time buy 4 again, over time you will gain extras and it won’t cost a lot more. 

Don’t buy too much at a time of items that will go bad or you won’t eat before the expiration date. Which is why I wanted you to start with writing down the dates on your items. When items go bad then that's a waste of money and storage space. 

One thing that I like to do is to plan certain meals a week that we eat every week. Every Tuesday we have tacos and every Friday it's homemade pizza. I know to keep enough pizza sauce for several months at least and because tortillas don’t last as long I only keep enough for a month at a time. When it comes to canning tomatoes I try to can about 50 pints of salsa for taco nights.  

Having an idea of just two meals a week for a year helps me to not only have a plan for my long term storage but also makes it easier on me each week as well. That's two less meals that I have to decide on in a week. You can even do a monthly meal you like. Once a month you fix spaghetti then you know that if you have 12 pounds of spaghetti noodles and 12 jars of sauce you have enough for a year. 

You may like to eat rice once a week or noodles or even a can of tuna. Then you know to start adding more of those in your pantry. 

Think ahead too, it's been hard to find our favorite BBQ sauce especially in the summer. So anytime I went to Walmart and saw our BBQ sauce I would buy 2-3 bottles instead of just one. Now we have enough extras for a couple months in the summer and we shouldn’t run out again. Plus as soon as we have nice enough days to cook outside we already have everything we need. 

Always start small, and only buy what you already eat and you know everyone enjoys eating. 

Next we’ll talk about keeping foods on hand that will help you avoid going out to eat.