Beyond Know How

Have you been putting off your emergency plans? Do you even have one? I read an emergency preparedness blog that recommended at least a month worth of food, supplies to live without power and water and an evacuation plan. Ideally, you’ll want to have at least 3 weeks of water for each person. As a rule, I put back a gallon of water per person, per day. This gallon of water per person includes water for drinking, washing and cooking. I also stock up both canned foods as well as freeze dried foods. These generally have the longest shelf life of any food. Just remember to rotate out your canned goods. Most have a shelf life of a year to three years, so choose wisely. Running out of food is no fun during an emergency.

If you’re just beginning to stockpile food, make sure you buy food that you actually eat. If you’ve never tried green beans and rice, don’t buy them! When you facing an emergency that could last a month or more, that’s not the time to find out you can’t stand green beans with rice, or any other strange food.

To make the most of your food stockpile, just continue to buy the foods you would normally. Just more of it. I normally budget an extra $10 to $20 per week to buy food for my emergency stash. You’ll be amazed at how fast you can put food back at this rate. You’ll even catch yourself doing without food you really don’t need in order to get some food for your stockpiles!