Food Storage Ideas

I'm sure I'm not the only one that finds food storage a little intimidating & overwelming. It's not supposed to be that way but I really want my food storage to serve a purpose & not be items wasted in the future....I'm sure we've seen some people that have items in food storage for 30+ years that in the end having to throw it all in the garbage...my goal is to not have this happen but to have an organized food storage that I use, keep track of, & know exactly how often I should be using it.

So...I came up with an idea that works for me, isn't overwelming, & won't break the bank. It's starting out small.

Every week I'll create a menu that only requires items from future storage. I'll make sure I have the supplies for 6 meals made from this menu. For example, this week is mexican casserole. There are two items (cheese & sour cream) that in an emergency I may not have so I put these on a seperate line since I'm NOT going to make sure I have enough of these for 6 meals:) If needed, I can omit these items & still have a very healthy & good meal. The 2nd part of my plan is to go through my food storage, subtract what I already have, & determine what I need to buy this week (each week I'll buy what I need for my 6 meals). I've put this on a spreadsheet and my meal I put together will add to this to determine total what my storage needs.

Are you following me so far???? I plan to create 30 meal plans. So in essence when I'm done I'll have a 6 month supply of food we already eat...food I can rotate into our nightly meals so we keep it fresh & in use. When I pull the item out of storage my spreadsheet will tell me I need to buy more:) There's more....the mexican casserole will last my family for 3 meals so with leftovers we actually have much more then 6 months worth of dinners. After I'm done with dinners I'll begin to focus on breakfast & lunch (so far, in an emergency we'll be eating bread & oatmeal for those meals w/ peanut butter & Jelly).

I hope this is the magic trick to finally get my food storage to where it needs to be!!!