Several Months

Once you have at least two to four weeks of emergency food, water, heating and cooking fuel, and any other emergency items stored that you feel are warranted, you may find yourself thinking farther into the future. Often being prepared in such a small way is empowering and makes you feel more secure about your life and the world in general.

Storing several months’ worth of food and everyday household items is a tactic some people use to protect themselves against either unexpected natural disasters or personal household emergencies such as losing a primary source of income.

By storing three to six months’ worth of food and other household essentials, you protect yourself from price fluctuations at the grocery store and you can take full advantage of sales cycles, buying everyday items when they're priced the lowest instead of buying them when you run out.

Some people feel that having enough food, water and other household items on hand to last for several months is excessive. It's a personal opinion, and those who have lived through any major disaster or life altering event such as being unemployed for six months to a year might disagree.

Once you have your initial two week to one month supply of emergency items, you can begin expanding your larder so that it contains the essential ingredients to help you and your family through three to six months of hard times.

Storing three to six months of household essentials is fairly easy. You just do a bit of math, make a list, and then start purchasing items as the budget allows. If your household uses one 6-roll pack of toilet paper each week for example, then you know you need four packages to supply you for one month. If you want a three month supply you'll purchase 12 packages, and for a six month supply you'll need 24 packages. Take the same approach to other items you need and use regularly such as feminine supplies, shampoo and soap, and household cleaning materials. If you don't know how long it takes you to use a bottle of shampoo or a box of dishwashing powder, make a list and start keeping track. Start by buying one extra of each item; then as you gain knowledge about how quickly each thing is used, extrapolate it out to the number of months you want to have stored.

Here's a list of common items to help you start planning:

         Toilet Paper
         Paper Towels
         Shampoo
         Soap, sanitizer, lotions and creams
         Dishwashing liquid
         Bleach, vinegar or lemon juice for sterilizing and cleaning
         Wet Wipes
         Cotton Swabs
         Toothpaste
         Over the Counter medications such as Tylenol or Advil
         Isopropyl alcohol and peroxide
         Band-Aids, sterile bandages, gauze and other basic first aid items

Depending upon how you and your family currently eat, food storage can be a bit more complicated for a three to six month period. Stop and think about your life today: If you suddenly couldn't go to the store or the local fast food joint whenever you wanted, what would you do to feed yourself and your family for the next three months? What about the next six months? Do you know how to cook anything from scratch? Do you habitually pick up ready-made food or pop something in the microwave?

Many people find themselves learning new skills and changing old habits when they decide they want to have the security of stored extra food in their home.

Stocking up on three to six months’ worth of food means you will definitely have canned and dried goods. There is very little in the way of fresh food that can be stored that long. Many root vegetables can, mind you -- potatoes, carrots, and onions just to name a few -- if you have a cool, dark area to store them in such as a root cellar or a basement. Many foods can be stored in a freezer as well, but you run the risk of losing a lot of time and money investment if you lose electricity to the freezer for more than three days.

For a safe three to six month outlook on food, the simplest approach is to purchase more of the storable items you've already been buying. More canned goods, more dried goods, and more staples.

If you are so inclined -- and if your budget allows -- the easiest way to get a lot of emergency food stored fast and make the cooking learning curve easier on yourself in the future is to simply stock up on freeze dried ready-to-mix meals. As mentioned previously, this option has its good points and bad. The freeze dried options are generally very expensive, and depending on where you purchase them they might not actually contain as much food as you'd like. An emergency grab and go style bucket from Costco might advertise that it contains a three month supply of food for a family of four, but if each day's ration is a mere 500 calories you might be severely disappointed if you planned to use it as a fallback when a job layoff happens.

For extreme emergencies, any food is better than no food at all. For prudent preparation that can take care of you during emergencies or hard times, you'll be much happier without adding the stress of strange, unfulfilling foods.

With that said, freeze dried foods are an excellent choice for your emergency vehicle kit and bug out bags because they are lightweight and can be stored for a long time. Buy in small, individual meal packets if you can afford them, particularly to help lighten the load in your emergency bags.

Sensible long term food storage is the least expensive and most flexible when it's built around basic staples such as flour, sugar, honey, salt, pasta or rice, beans, and everyday boxed and dried goods your family enjoys.

If you don't know how to cook foods from scratch -- or at least cook boxed and pre-packaged meals -- it's time to start learning. Most microwave meals are not made to be stored for very long and that's an expensive way to feed multiple people. Canned soups, stews and pasta meals are an option but the lack of variety can quickly cause problems, particularly when you're trying to coax young children to eat.

How you choose to cook is a personal preference that you should not let anyone chide you for. It doesn't matter if you prefer to bake cookies from a boxed mix or from scratch, the end result is still a batch of tasty cookies and the ingredients for each approach can be stored on a shelf without needing refrigeration. In both cases, baking your own cookies is still much cheaper than buying them already made, and the base ingredients can be stored much longer than the pre-made cookies can too.

The same applies to many common types of food.

Basic spaghetti consists of dried pasta and either a can or a jar of pre-made spaghetti sauce -- both of which can be stored on a shelf for a year or more in the right conditions.

In most cases, the more you cook from complete scratch the longer you can store the items you use for cooking. White rice and dry beans last for 20 to 30 years when stored in the right conditions, as does sugar, vanilla extract and baking soda. Several of these items are the base ingredients for making a cake or cookies. That means that as long as you have some basic staples on hand, and a little bit of know-how for cooking them, you can always feed yourself and your family.

If you purchase a cookie or cake mix in a box at the store, manufacturers claim it only keeps well for one to two years. Most dry goods of this sort are still useable past the "use by" or "best by" dates stamped on the package. They may go stale or clump up if they weren't stored well, but that doesn't make them unusable. So if you prefer cooking from a ready-made mix then buy those to stock up your home. Don't feel that you have to purchase basic staples just because they last longer or just because that's what everyone seems to think you should be storing.

One very important thing to know however, is that the healthier a basic staple is the shorter its shelf life is. White rice can be stored for 20 to 30 years for example, but brown rice can only be stored three to six months. White flour can be stored for ten years or more, but wheat flour is also only good for about three to six months.

Since brown rice and wheat flour are both whole grains, they have not had their fiber, oil and other nutrition stripped from them. The natural oils tend to go rancid in a relatively short period of time. The life of whole grains can be extended by storing them in their whole form. Instead of storing wheat flour for example, store unground wheat berries. Whole wheat and other unground grains can be stored for 30 years or more in the proper conditions.

You can extend the life of ground wheat flour or brown rice by putting it into the freezer, but this only helps it keep an additional one to three months.

Here's a few basic food lists to help you start stocking your pantry with three to six months or more of food:

         Basic Staples...
o         Flour
o         Sugar
o         Salt
o         Honey
o         Baking Soda
o         Vanilla Extract
o         White Rice
o         Dried Beans
o         White pasta
o         Shortening or Oil
o         Bullion powder or cubes
o         Dry Yeast
o         Dry milk
o         Spices and seasonings such as black pepper, chili powder, garlic powder, dried onion flakes, oregano, basil, etc.
         Basic Canned Goods...
o         Canned tuna, mackerel, sardines, etc.
o         Corned Beef
o         Roast Beef
o         Spam luncheon meat
o         Canned Ham
o         Soups, stews and pasta
o         Cream of soups (Cream of mushroom, celery, chicken, etc.)
o         Chicken, beef and vegetable broth
o         Canned sauces and gravies
o         Canned beans (Seasoned chili beans, bean soup, plain beans)
o         Canned vegetables
o         Canned fruit
o         Evaporated Milk
o         Canned pie filling and other treats such as canned chocolate
         Other everyday items...
o         Dry cereal
o         Instant or rolled oats
o         Nuts and trail mix
o         Pretzels and crackers
o         Peanut butter, jelly and jam
o         Granola bars
o         Jerky or other dried and seasoned meats
o         Dried fruits
o         Boxed cake, cookie and bread mixes
o         Boxed flavored pasta or rice side meals
o         Boxed flavored potato meals
o         Hard candy, chocolate pieces and other comfort foods