WEEK FOUR

It is strawberry season. I hope everyone got to enjoy the strawberries in your areas. I made jam with mine and the girls had so much fun helping. I like to make cooked jam but a lot of people enjoy freezer jam. It is not a hard thing to make just a lot of stirring! That is why letting the kids help really made it easier. I have always used the recipe that comes with the pectin. So no secret there. It is one of the things I actually enjoy making. There are a lot of different opportunities for us to get fruit. I am looking forward to peaches coming in August. A little side note - why you keep an inventory of your storage - I thought I had lots of sugar from the cannery so did not purchase any. It turns out that I was going by the label color instead of reading and what I had was white flour. I did find 2 cans of sugar but had to stop the process and go back again to the store and purchase more sugar. Good advice: make sure you have everything on hand before you start.

News: Water storage. It is recommended that we should store 1 gallon per person per day for 2 weeks, and another 1/2 gallon per person per day for other limited uses such as hand washing, teeth brushing and dishwashing. (This is a total of 21 gallons per person for 2 weeks.) That is a lot of water when you have a large family. I look at my few gallons and realize that I do not have near enough. We have purchased large plastic drums that are for storing water. Stored water must be clean water. Use the best quality available for water storage. Water must be from a system with a Division of Drinking Water "Approved" rating. Water stored in thoroughly clean plastic or glass containers can be chemically disinfected for long term treating each gallon with 4 to 5 drops of liquid chlorine bleach (Clorox containing 4% to 6% sodium hypochlorite.) One teaspoon of bleach disinfects 5 gallons of water. Allow 20 to 30 minutes before drinking. The level of treatment will prevent growth of microorganisms during storage. Most municipal water storages are already disinfected so no additional treatment is necessary. Fill clean food grade container with tap water and screw on lids. It is not recommended using milk containers. They are generally manufactured with non-durable plastic that promotes biodegradability and is undesirable for long term water storage. The water may become toxic over time from breakdown products from the plastic container. I have been purchasing a couple of gallons of water every week. They will store in those containers for 1 year. My plan is to start to rotate the drinking water and then I don't have to worry about contamination. But water can be disinfected:

1. Boiling

2. Liquid Bleach

3. Iodine Tablets

4. Halazone Tablets

Boiling is the safest. It is preferred over any method of chemical disinfection because most disease causing microorganisms cannot survive the heat of the sterilizing boil. Bring to a boil and hold at a vigorous rolling boil for 5 minutes minimum. Let the water cool before drinking. Pouring the water back in forth between containers will improve the taste because you are putting oxygen back into it.

I bet this is more than you wanted to know about water. Happy storing:)

WEEK FOUR: 1 bottle of multiple vitamins

Week Three

So this week I started my little "store". I do not have lots but it is a start. As I take from the shelf I will add that to next weeks grocery list. Winco this week had bar-b-que sauce on sale for $.78. Then there was a coupon for $1.00 off of three bottles. I bought 12 bottles and paid $5.36 for all 12. That was like $.45 a bottle. Now that was not on my list at all but I could not pass up the bargain. We like this sauce on many things so it was the deal of the week for me. James E Faust said in conference in 1986 "Every father and mother are the family's storekeepers. They should store whatever their own family would like to have in the case of an emergency...some have said, 'We have followed this counsel in the past and have never had need to use our year's supply, so we have difficulty keeping this in mind as a major priority.' Perhaps following this counsel could be the reason why they have not needed to use their reserve. By continued rotation of the supply it can be kept usable with no waste" I love this quote. Especially as I am thinking of my storage as my home store. I have not rotated my food supply correctly and I really think this will help me be more aware of what I have. Buying the bar-b-que sauce this week I added food that my family will eat.

WEEK THREE: 3 cans of mushroom soup, 2 1/2 pound jar of peanut butter

NOTE: A question about storing water in mylar bags has been asked. I have used them in the past but did not move them with me. Everything I read still says to rotate every one to two years. Because no sunlight gets to the water I think two years is the minimum time for rotating the water. I have found lots of good information about storing water and will share more details next week about that. Thank you for the question and please keep asking so we all can learn:)

Week two

Turn your food storage into your own personal store. Wouldn't that be cool to just shop out of your cupboard. I do know of one friend who did this. It was amazing but took her a while to build up the inventory. I used to think I could not do this because money was always tight. Well, I have decided that this is my goal for this year. As I rotate things I am going to be shopping out of my storage but replacing as I go, not waiting until it's all gone to replace it. This also helps you rotate your food on a regular basis. Be sure to date everything as you put it away. I just mark the month and year it was purchased. Next week I will talk about shelf life of foods. As you shop watch the sales and stock up on certain items that you know you will be using on a regular basis. You know paper products, cleaning supplies, condiments, etc. I will be adding these things occasionally on the weekly buy but by buying when things are on sale you build inventory and then shop out of your stash!

In addition to the food purchase each week buy a container of water. I picked up a gallon of water when doing my regular shopping. Date it with a permanent marker. Water in plastic containers stores for one year.

WEEK TWO: 5 boxes of macaroni and cheese, 4 cans tomato soup

correction: last week I said this was for one person, but in reality if you buy everything that is listed you will have a year supply for two people, so if you double it is for four people, and so on. I hope that is not to confusing and sorry for the error.

WEEK ONE

For this first week I want to explain how I will be doing this. I have gathered a lot of different information on what, how much, and how long to store different foods. I want my family to eat what I have stored so I have taken that into consideration as well. I could not figure out how much to let everyone know to buy, not knowing the size of everyones families. So the amounts will be what you would get for one person unless otherwise noted. I plan on budgeting an average of $20 a week to this project. For my family I should have a pretty good supply by the end of the 52 weeks. There will be times if I find something on special or sale that I will get what is not on my list for that week. That is OK. You will find that you will want to do that as well. I like when Jenn lets me know the specials at Safeway. I miss the ads and so those are times that I can stock up on something that will not be specific to my list. - Please leave a comment if there is some information you are specifically looking for. -

WEEK ONE: 2 CANS OF TUNA PER PERSON, 2 CONTAINERS OF SALT, 1 LB. OF YEAST