Please welcome my guest blogger, Anne Marie of Survival Homesteading

While I have been so busy in the garden this summer, and busy putting things up in the kitchen, I wanted to still keep my Prepared Household prepared.  So, please give a Prepared Household welcome to Anne Marie of Survival Homesteading.  Anne Marie is very knowledgeable in survival skills and homesteading, so I will turn it over to Anne Marie.

Thanks MJ.  Today's timely topic is food storage.  I know in the past that MJ of Prepared Household has blogged about how important it is to have a fully stocked pantry.  Who can afford a fully stocked pantry?  Where in the world do you store all that stuff?  Let me show you a couple of photos of my fully stocked pantry.

First of all, I stock my freezer sparingly, because I know that when the storms hit and my power goes out, it might not be in the winter when my food can stay frozen.  But if my local grocery has a clearance on orange juice that is about to go bad, buy it up and throw it in the freezer.  You can get 1/2 gallons of milk or juice for as low as .25 cents this way.  At Easter and Christmas, you will find hams and turkeys on sale cheap.  What doesn't get put in jars, gets put in the freezer.  The bag with the white things in it is onions.  Don't ever let an onion go bad.  Chop it up and put it in the freezer for later use.  Freezers can be a great way to store food if you don't rely on it only.

As you can see by this freezer, we buy meats when they go on sale or clearance.  Great way to get good prices on meat.  Also, the corn was grown on the homestead this year and we have one other freezer full of it.  Under the corn are bags of strawberries we purchased cheaply and froze to eat or make jams with this coming winter.  When the house is cold, that is the perfect time to make jams.  You warm the house up with your efforts, instead of overloading your air conditioner this summer.

Before prices got so high at the grocery store, we stocked up on can foods.  I purchased these when they were .39 cents a can.  According to "Kendra and New Life on a Homestead", these are now .59 cents a can.  Always stock up on the cheaper canned veggies like corn, peas and green beans.  Not only can they feed you, but they are full of water and can supply some of your water needs.

The bottles of All detergent that you see, were purchased for .99 cents a bottle.  A local store had them $2.99 each and there were coupons for $2.00 off a bottle.  I would love to have had tons more of those.  A great deal.  The lamp oil shown, I purchased for our oil lamps, two bottles at a time.  At a local hardware store, they were priced $12.00, at Walmart, $3.97 and by the end of the season, they had clearanced them to $2.00 a bottle.  The sleeping bag is a zero degree weather bag, that will keep you warm.  These were about 1/3rd the price they normally are and were clearanced even cheaper ($19). 

Just stocking up when things are on sale will help build your supply.  The large #10 cans are from the LDS Home Cannery Center.  You can check with members of the LDS or Mormon church about where a cannery is near you.  They will allow you to go in and purchase and can food for yourself.  You don't have to be a member of the LDS church.  They sell basics such as flour, sugar, wheat, oats, macaroni, spaghetti, beans and other things, in bulk, most of the time cheaper than you buy in the store.

Here are my bulk items in plastic buckets.  They are sealed to keep rodents out.

I also store home canned goods that I grew in my garden, in my storage room. 

So, now that you have taken a tour of my pantry, let me assure you that we do eat.  So, this food is on a rotational basis.  You buy your food a little at a time, here and there.  When ketchup is on sale buy 10 bottles.  When eggs are on sale, buy 10 dozen.  When peanut butter is on sale...you get the idea.  If it is only to pick up one extra item each grocery trip and designate it as "food storage", just begin.  You have heard the old saying, "How do you eat an elephant?  One bite at a time."

Where to store it?  Convert a bedroom, store it under your bed, stash it in corners under tables, in closets, just do what you do.  Get creative.  You can do it and it is important, so get prepared.  Thanks for having me at the Prepared Household.  Come over to see my blog sometime:  http://survivalhomesteading.wordpress.com/  and be sure to check out my Facebook page: