Thread: What do You Stockpile?

I highly recommend SimplyLivingSmart to learn wonderful lessons about food storage and how to live on it. Part of the site is free the rest you have to pay to use but the beginner lessons that are free are great. Another site is: Family Home Storage
And it's totally free. I'm in process of making 91 planned menu meals and getting everything i need for those meals. We now live on our food storage and just replenish what we use once a month. We thought we had everything we needed but without a menu plan we have found things we run out of. We ran out of soy sauce today and thought we had a 2 year supply but only lasted 6 months! 91 menu meals repeated for a year makes it so you know what to store and don't get tired of what you are eating as you'll only have it every 3 months. I started my food storage with a 3 day supply first and then a 3 month supply and built up from there. Have fun getting prepared.

Hi this is only my first post and I am reading through this amazing web site and wanted to share what, and why I stockpile. In South Western Ontario (Canada) we have Shoppers Drug Mart which used to be a pharmacy and carry personal items.Most of their stores have now expanded to groceries, household items, greeting cards magazines, beauty products, They have a great loyalty program and I have recently in a two week period chalked up enough points by buying in bulk, toilet paper, tissues (cheaper than Costco), to get $25.00 in free merchandise yes free! I have purchased cereal (all brand names) granola bars, crackers, cookies, for a student away a university for a care package! On a recent weekend normally sales run weekly but special incentives are on Sat/Sun if you bought $75.00 minimum, you would receive a FREE $20.00 gas card! It's fun to run around the store with the weekly flyer and stock up in shampoo, soap, toothpaste, even canned soups such a variety t choose from and get great rewards. Thanks for letting me share!

I usually stockpile my freezer with meats, Healthy Choice dinner and vegetables when they go on sale but I have a chest freezer and things get overlooked and I sometimes have to throw some away and that's is not being frugal.

I live where my electricity goes out more than I care to think about! I purposely stockpile for that reason and I don't use my freezer! I can most of our meat, vegetables, ect and dry some of it. We really limit what we put into our freezer. Right now it's nearly empty but we'll be freezing baked goods soon to have on hand for this winter. We love freezing raw cinnamon rolls that we can pull as few as we need let them sit 10 minutes and then pop 'em into the oven for fresh hot cinnamon rolls. Cookie dough is another thing we freeze a lot of. We freeze some of our broccoli but dry most of it. And I really like frozen peaches but we can most of those. Anyway I really don't put into my freezer more than I can handle in a week just because I know as sure as I fill it the electricity will go out for several days and I'll have to deal with it again! We make a master list of what is in our freezer so we can keep track and not lose anything in it! Yes it's easy to lose stuff in a chest freezer! And I quickly turn into a block of ice digging for what I know is in there somewhere!

I like your idea of a master list for my freezer. Than I will know when to restock. Great idea. Thanks for suggesting that.

Just a bit of info for those worried about losing things in your freezer.
Keeping your freezer full is good for a couple of reasons.....1 - it is much more economical to run if it is full because it's like a big block of ice and doesn't warm up as quickly......2 - If you do lose power, stuff stays frozen for MUCH longer because there is no air in there to warm up.
If you don't want to chance losing food to a power failure, fill all the empty space in your freezer with frozen jugs or bottles or even bags of water. If you need space in the freezer, remove some of the water. These are also good to have on hand to use in a cooler. Also, if you use some small containers for the water, you can throw some in a cooler or cooler bag, go to the grocery, and you don't have to worry about hurrying home - just throw the cold stuff in the cooler and keep on going!
So, not only being handy and useful, they will decrease your power bill a little in making the freezer more economical! Win - win.

Carol B