Simply Prepared ecourse, Chapter 1: How Much Food? 1
Welcome Welcome to the written lesson from Module Seven! There is only one lesson in this module and it is short! The reason for that is that we are talking about deciding and calculating how much food to store for your family. This part of preparedness can take a little time (though hopefully less than you might think with the calculators I have for you), so I wanted to make sure your lesson material was quick and easy this week. There are only three sections in this lesson. First, we will discuss how much food you should store for your family, next we will discuss various methods for purchasing your food. Last, I will give you a quick overview of the calculators you have to choose from. Two Parts There are two parts to the How much food should I store? equation. The first part is the length of time you want to be able to feed your family without relying on the grocery store or how long you want your shelf stable food supply to last. This is usually expressed in a supply of a number of weeks or months. For example, a one week supply, or a 6 month supply. The second part of the How much food should I store? equation is the exact amount of each ingredient or food item you need. What actual food items create a one week or six month supply? First, let s discuss how to determine the size of supply you want. 2
Then, in the last section, we will discuss how to calculate the exact amounts of each food you need to store (based on the method you chose in module six). Overall Supply First Consideration First, the amount of food that you store will depend on what you are preparing for. Refer back to the list of possible disasters that you created and prioritized in module one. Would having food stored in your home be helpful for the top disasters on your list? If so, how much food? If your number one possible disaster is being too sick to get to the grocery store for a few days, then a week of food should be plenty. But if your number one possible disaster is a long term job loss, you are going to want to store a lot more food. Obviously, you can never know for certain exactly how much food a specific disaster will require of you. However, you can compare disaster and get a feel for if those at the top of your list will require more or less food than those at the bottom of your list. Second Consideration Second, the amount of food you work toward storing right now will depend on where you are with your other preparedness priorities. For example, I do not suggest that you stock up on a full year s supply of food before you begin to think about learning how to cook without power and buying supplies to do so. 3
If you did that and disaster struck, you d have food, but no way to cook it! Even if your eventual goal is to have a year s worth of food (or more) in your home, that should not be your initial goal. I highly suggest you break your overall main goal into smaller do-able steps. Your First Food Storage Goal Just like I gave you a simple, do-able goal to reach in module four with your water storage, I would like to do something similar here with your food storage. I suggest that you set a goal to get at least three days of extra food in your home by the end of this week. Regardless of the food storage method you have chosen for your longer term food storage, this first three day goal can be done quite easily at the grocery store. Simply buy an extra box of cereal or an extra can of oats for breakfast. Add a couple of cans of soup for lunch. Throw in a jar of spaghetti sauce and some noodles for dinner. Keep it simple. Only buy items you eat regularly. Do it this week. Meeting this goal (if you haven t already) will give you a quick win (I like those) and help you stay motivated to keep moving forward. Once you ve completed it, everyday life will be less stressful. You will know that even if you can t get to the store (for whatever reason, even just a busy day), you can feed your family. If a true disaster actually occurs, you ve got the first three, most critical days covered. 4
You will find some quick, initial peace of mind. Other Suggested Goals: I m going to provide you with a general list of the preparedness goals (including food storage) I suggest most people work on and in what order. Please keep in mind this is just a suggestion. Please tweak it to fit your own needs, goals, financial and other restrictions. The number one thing I hope you take away from this list is that while food storage is important, it is not the only thing to consider with emergency preparedness. There are other things that should come before getting a HUGE supply of food. Step #1 A Family Emergency Plan (for during and immediately following a disaster) Step #2 A basic three day supply of water Step #3 A three day supply of food Step #4 A one week supply of food Step #5 A basic one week supply of water and a way to clean at least a two week supply of water. Step #6 A solid evacuation plan (and 72 hour kits) if evacuation is a high possibility on your list. Step #7 A first aid kit and the skills to use it. Step #8 A one month supply of food Step #9 Learn (and purchase supplies) to cook without power 5
Step #10 A more personalized 2 week supply of water Step #11 A three month food supply Step #12 - A robust 2-4 week supply of water Step #13 Learn other skills (and purchases supplies) needed for living without power Step 14 A 6 month food supply Step #15 A solid evacuation plan (and 72 hour kits) if evacuation is a possibility anywhere on your list. Step #16 A solution for long term water contamination (store more water and / or have means to purify and clean large amounts of water) Step #17 A 12+ month food supply Options for Purchasing Food Storage: Once you know what your goals are for the amount of food you want to store, you need to decide how you will go about purchasing your food. Here are a few ideas: A few extra items each week If money is tight and your food storage budget is small, a great way to get started is by picking up just a few extra cans, boxes or items each time you 6
are at the grocery store. You will be surprised at just how quickly it adds up! Use a program like Deals to Meals (linked to in Module 6, Chapter 2) to know which items are on sale for their lowest price each month. Choose to add a few extra of those items to your cart and you won t feel the financial sting as much that way. Or, commit to using $2 -$5 worth of coupons each week (that you aren t currently using) and spend that extra few dollars on extra food you don t need that week. On a monthly budget Designate a specific amount of your overall monthly preparedness budget to go toward food storage. Then, buy that amount of food each and every month until you have reached your goals. If you want to purchase foods from an actual food storage company, Thrive Life s Q program allows you to fill a queue full of all the food you want eventually and set a monthly budget. Then, each month, a number of foods from your overall list that fit within your budget are automatically sent to you. Customers on the Q also earn a rebate that can be used as a credit when buying future product and have access to a special monthly discount. You will find a link to the Q in the related products section of this chapter when logged into the ecourse website. But you can do this on your own just at the grocery store too. Once you have an overall list of what you need to buy, simply split it up into amounts that fit within your budget. Once a month, when you are at the store, buy one month s worth of what is on your list. 7
In Chunks Even if you have a monthly budget that you set aside for food storage each month, it may be advantageous to save that money and only purchase when food is on sale for a deep discount. Wait until Black Friday or National Preparedness Month (September) to stock up. Call your favorite food storage (and other preparedness supply companies) and find out when their biggest sale of the year is. Then, save up and purchase then! If you live in Utah, save up for the weeks of the case lots sales at the grocery store. You could also commit to using any extra money that comes your way toward food storage. This could include cash gifts you may get at Christmas or birthday time, or cash back from a credit card. One way to purchase in bigger chunks is to commit to using all employment bonuses and / or tax returns for food storage when you get them. All At Once I do not suggest you ever go into debt for food storage. However, if you have the financial means (or receive a nicely sized bonus or tax return), you may consider buying all your food storage at once. It is easier to plan out that way and brings great peace of mind when you suddenly have a storage space full of food. But this is feasible for many of us (it wasn t for me) and that is okay! Baby steps are great too! 8
Take Action! Choose from one of three calculators to figure out just how much of each food item you need to store. Alrighty, it is time to calculate just how much food you need! While this can take a little time, doing so will relieve so much stress! You will finally know, with certainty, just how much food you need! You have three calculators to choose from: one for each of the three methods mentioned in Module Six. You can find the calculators in the Worksheets section of this chapter when logged into the ecourse website. There are also separate videos there explaining how to use each calculator. Please do watch the videos. There are a few tricks to using each calculator and understanding the information it is giving you. The videos explain each calculator in detail. Please also note that these calculators are excel files. If you have excel on your computer, great! Simply open them up. If you do not have excel, you can still open them in google docs. These calculators are not (yet) inventory systems. What they will do is give you the numbers you want to put in the first column of the inventory sheet provided for you in module two! That s it! Go download a calculator and get started now! 9
Review: Determine the amount of time you want to store food for based on the disasters on your list and your other preparedness goals. Decide if you will purchase some of your food every month, in occasional chunks, or all at once. Calculate out just how much food you actually need and get started with at least a three day supply this week. 10
What s Next: Now that you have started gathering food storage, we need to make sure you know how to use it. In Module 8 I will give you some tips for using your food storage. We will start in chapter one with tips for basic food storage foods like whole grains, beans and powdered milk. 11