3-4 months is about right where I am counting the freezer, regular food and about 10 cases of MREs. It is steadily growing though. Also working on cooking with basic foods. Grain and a mill are on the list.
I've got about 1 ton of dry goods, and I am working on another 2.
Don't worry, it wont go to waste, if it starts too get to old, I'll break out the Still.
We can call it E-85 if you would like, I just call it medical supplies
Now we are getting somewhere!
As to the main question, I have a proverbial boomerang, son, who would affect the time my main supplies would last, if he happened to be with us for "the event,"
Generally around 6 months.
I lost alot of my food supply when I sold off my beef stock. I am replacing with canned goods and am keeping my eyes open looking for a freeby steer,,, Wonder how LLama tastes? There seems to be a glut of those here bouts.
I say "over 6 months" but, i have conditions and skills to make this period unlimited.
But i have plans to setup an underground facility, who will include also "make food" capacities (i hope in a few years to solve this issue )
Besides the freezer which is kept stocked, there is a years supply of dry storage to cover my family as well as both of our adult children's families. After a life of living in third-world countries and living through Hurricane Hugo in Puerto Rico (no electricity for 43 days, no running water for over 30 days) and having grown up in a predominantly LDS town where it is a way of life, I can't even imagine not being prepared.
I used to keep 6 months+/- for the family. Now, all but one of my kids is out on their own, DH passed away, last kid will likely be moved out within a year and I'm going to put my place up for sale and downsize. I've tossed a ton of older foods (two of us can't eat it fast enough) and am trying to use up as much as possible before moving. The dogs and chickens are eating well.
We used to store a year's worth, but I ended up throwing out of date stuff that didn't taste good away because it either didn't get rotated or we didn't want to eat it ( whatever made me think we would eat SPAM I have no idea...) but now we live on a farm, so it's kind of hard to say. Do you count live chickens , goats and sheeps as "stored food" ? Seeds to grow vegetables? So not sure
I have about a year's worth of rice and beans, we do eat that, and it doesn't go bad.
3-4 MONTHS FULL RATIONS 6-8 AT 1/2 RATIONS That has always been my plan has soon as The SHTF/WROL happens go to 1/2 rations. Feel pretty good about where I am but there is always room for Improvement. JMHO and S/FI!
My question is how much is ideal per person, I have almost 100 lbs. of rice and about another 50 of different kinds of beans, I am adding canned goods in but I have to hide those because my wife tries to use them when she runs out of stuff.
The last Hurricane we had come through, I had plenty of charcoal and a nice grill but I wanted one cup of coffee and decided not to use the charcoal just for one cup, so I did without.
I have since gotten a propane camp stove and can do smaller quantities of food items without wasting. (I have about 25 lbs. of coffee right now and since I am the only one who drinks it, well I guess you can figure how long that will last).
I have about 30 boxes of salt and about 5 boxes of pepper and I am growing a garden so that I can learn to can my own food.
Good. Your food stores should be the same as the food you already eat. She is just helping you rotate. If she is running out of stuff then that is the stuff you should be stocking.
Every time we run out of something we buy twice as much the next time and keep doing that until we get so far ahead we never run out.
One of the ways we started out is that anytime we found something with a shelf life of a least a year, we would buy as much of it as we expected to use in a year. Six month shelf life? We buy six months worth, etc.
Good. Your food stores should be the same as the food you already eat. She is just helping you rotate. If she is running out of stuff then that is the stuff you should be stocking.
We try to keep at least a years worth of food in the house all the time, its not going to be what we normally eat every day, but its going to be something to put in your mouth when you get hungry, I raise a garden every year and put up as much as we can to use through the winter months, couple that with the Mountain House stuff I keep it evens out with the large amounts rice and beans that I store, it really don't take long to build a few months of canned and dried foods when buying a few extra every month, case in point we got a big mess of greens from the garden yesterday and managed to put 2 quart bags in the freezer for future use.
We have 2 pantries. A short term and a long term. The short term pantry, although its for daily use also, normally will have enough food for at least a month, maybe 6 weeks. Food there is used and rotated frequently, so it is not packaged for long term storage.
The long term pantry holds foods that are packaged in a manner that will keep them good for years and it holds 6-9 months of food. Long term rotates to short term when the need arises.
Quite a bit in the house, more at another location and gardens we are expanding and rotating yearly. We all built brick rocket stoves at our places one year and we all have extra freezers and frigs and canners if the power goes off long-term. Most of us have stone half basements, good for storing metal drums and insulated. A place in Dayton sold off a bunch of scrap viaduct piping from a state job a couple years ago so we got it, cut it to size and made several buried caches over the last couple mild winters. Rustbelt cities are great for that, useful scrap. Out here, houses are generally small, ppl are frugal and ppl quietly prepare for bad years here, or job loss. A body wears out but still needs feeding. I drink beer alot but haven't bought any in a store or bar in years and years. If necessary, we could grow and process the components for that too.
with 3 bass ponds, 19 acres of grapes, 20 apple trees and plenty of seeds stored, i have quit a bit. quail, deer, ducks and geese help also. frog legs if necessary.
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