Food Storage without a Shoe String!

When storing the basic bread baking ingredients you will find it easy to turn those ingredients into other yummy and filling foods like muffins

How can I buy food storage when our family is struggling to have enough food just for today?

This is an oft asked question! I never really understood the answer until we went through a period in our lives where we really didn’t have any money and this became a real life scenario.

Truly! What do you do when you don’t have the funds to purchase food storage?  (let alone groceries for the week!)

This is my real life, been – there – done – that – answer!

If you don’t have money to buy food storage the chances are VERY high that you are actually using any and all of the foods that you have previously stored.  One in this situation has to be mindful of what is happening in order to get a step up.  The sooner you realize that you are not replenishing your food storage the sooner you can start planning for the future.

Below are items in my pantry which I at one time HAD a years supply of which were used completely while struggling financially (for those who do a food storage program, this may help you to prioritize your “want” list verses your “would like to have” list):

First to go:  (you think you have a years supply but because of their convenience you use more while under stress than you have planned for.  These are the first to be used and last to be replenished.)

Pre-packaged rice milk
Canned coconut milk
frozen veggies and fruits
Jams and Jellies
Peanut butter

Quickly followed by:

Maple Syrup
Honey
Organic Raw Agave
Light Olive Oil
Almonds and other nuts and seeds

And before I knew it we even used all our basics:

Organic Cane Juice Crystals (aka: organic sugar) I even opened up one of our #10 tin cans of refined table sugar- ugh!
Sucanat
Olive Oil
Short grain brown rice
Beans (all varieties: black, red, kidney, white, adzuki) But not garbanzos or lentils- found out my family does not like these much and we never went through the years supply. But as with all new foods, give it time and try again. Often it takes a few tries before they gain a liking for a new item.
cocoa powder, chocolate chips, vanilla, and other baking items
baking soda
sea salt
cinnamon
many of my other spices: oregano, basil, chives, etc.

Okay, WOW! this list is getting really long… okay- let’s just say I pretty much used every thing I had minus the lentils.

So, how do we replenish our food storage when there isn’t any money to do so?

Here is my  humble suggestion:  make a short list of priorities. What do you eat the very most of? If you had nothing else, what would you want to eat? What are the ingredients you MUST have to make it?

For my family, our answer was bread.

Nothin' says lovin' better than cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven! When living soley from your food storage, these are sure to be a stress relieving, comfort food!

How ABSOLUTELY GRATEFUL I am now that I knew how to make Traci’s 100% Sprouted Wheat Bread!!! It is a comfort food to the max and with it so many other items can be made!!!  (Dinner rolls, pizza crust, bread sticks, calzones, doughnuts/Navajo tacos, cinnamon rolls (pictured left), french toast, toasty bread, bread crumbs, stuffing, etc. as well as the other recipes which those ingredients can be made into like pancakes and muffins.  It can also be used for sprouted wheat cereal and wheat grass.)

Bread ingredients are relatively inexpensive. For us, the purchasing of bread ingredients are key fundamentals to our food storage!

I already had some key items that I use daily: Wheat grinder and high power blender/mixer.  (I have the K-tech brand as shown in the ad on the right.  It was a key investment.)  These are items that looking back in hindsight, if I didn’t have, I would start saving for right away.  If you have these items then you can produce for your family and others.

Until you have the means you can make the bread using standard equipment, it just ends up a heavier dough.  I’d go for the wheat grinder first.  Grinding wheat with a small hand crank quickly dashed desires for making anything with wheat!

If you don’t have one and don’t have the funds yet to buy one I would ask to borrow a friend’s and send home some baked goods when returning their grinder.  Grind enough wheat to last you for a while.  Yes, the ground wheat may lose some nutritional value, but how much is hard to say.  Certainly better than white flour or even store bought wheat flour (how long has IT been sitting on the shelf?)  If you are not comfortable borrowing then I would see about getting some odd jobs to earn the money for it asap!  The wheat grinder is invaluable!

Traci’s 100% Sprouted Recipe includes the following ingredients.  The optional items are the ones that I have omitted and the bread still turned out edible.

Whole hard white wheat
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (optional)  Though you do need enough oil for kneading and shaping the dough.  The recipe calls for a minimal amount.
Bread Yeast
Sea Salt
Honey  (optional)  Again, the recipe uses a minimal amount but if you didn’t have it you could get by.
Water

In order to earn the money I needed to make new food storage purchases I would sell my bread to friends and neighbors and at the local farmer’s market.  My girls would even set up a “lemonade stand” on the corner; except they sold bread instead.  $20 here and there adds up.  After saving up for several months I could make a bulk purchase.

Until I could make a bulk purchase I would simply buy a little at a time- and not always the best quality.  But as I always say, “We do the best we can, where we can, with what we have available.”  No matter what we are facing we can remain in an attitude of gratitude with hopeful expectations that all these things are for our good and in the end, it all works out perfectly.  God knows all things and if this is what he desires for me then so be it.  I will trust in Him!

If a positive attitude could be stored on my pantry shelves I would stalk up on that first and never let it run out and I’d share it every chance I could get!  Staying in a positive mindset can get us through many tough times!  Just remember that with God, we can do hard things!

Another thing that really helped was to use money given to us for Christmas and Birthdays.  I will say that in this area we have been greatly blessed!  One year my mom sent us some money and we were able to refuel our entire years supply of wheat!  Saving up these larger windfalls can really help.

One of the things to remember in purchasing our food storage, no matter whether or not we are going through good or tough times, is that FOOD STORAGE IS NOT AN EVENT.  It is an ongoing process.  That means we don’t have to buy all of our wheat, oil, salt, and honey at the same time (Nor if we could, to realize it wouldn’t be the last time!)  Decide what is the most important and work on that.

Wheat is good to start with.  I can buy one 50# bag right now for just under $20.  I am in a network of people who send out information on being prepared and they had a group buy for even less!  Keep your ears open for these opportunities. When money is tight I do not worry about buying the best.  It is not organic or anything special.  Just wheat.  And very edible!

I figured out that if I am making bread for just my family of 8 we use 400-500# per year divided by 50# per bag= 8-10 bags x $20 = $160-$200.  Again, you don’t have to buy it all at once.  I do keep it stored in 6 gallon buckets.  I would imagine that without buckets rodents could become a problem.  I keep my buckets and refill them from the bagged wheat.

At one point I had saved up to buy salt in bulk and a good deal came along for olive oil- good quality and good price, so I bought between a 6 months and a years supply of that instead (about 6 gallons for our family of 8 and I think I paid around $150 for it.), and continued to buy salt in smaller quantities until I had saved up again.

I am still working on getting my honey.  Until I do, I buy what I can- even if it is the cheap from who knows where honey from wal-mart.  It is obviously of a lesser quality- and I’m always thinking about the “ideal”, but those who are experiencing these financial hard times (I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t been affected by it in some way or another- just so you know- it isn’t just you, or just me- it is part of life and living at this time!) well, those going through this know that we can keep our sights set on “ideal” while being grateful for what we do have.

Sometimes all you will be able to do is buy a small bag of something. A small amount is better than no amount and eventually it will start to make a difference. The fact that you are striving to work on it is a sign that you have resilience against the hard times. It would be easy to throw your hands in the air and turn your brain off. By thinking and working on it continually you can know that things will improve for you. Those who throw their hands up never will accomplish their goals! My kudos for working on what you can, where you can!

After getting your basic staples for bread I would add the other basics: beans, rice, and other grains.  Because we use almonds so much, when an opportunity came to get some I stocked up.  It brings peace of mind to know there is food in the pantry.  Another peace of mind comes in knowing that the foods we are storing are packed with nutrients and goodness and can be eaten in simple, basic forms.  Whole forms of food also store longer- like wheat- it has a very long shelf life so if times to get better right away and you find you don’t use as much as you planned, it will still be good even years from now!

There are many other items we’d like to add to our storage; like I said, it is a process.   We take it one step at a time.  We save up and get what we can, when we can.  Your family may prefer to store other items as a staple.  Set your priorities, know what you want, and do the best you can in the moment.

When eating whole foods and using Traci’s Cookbook, we use what we store and it needs to be continually replenished.  I love knowing that we are eating what I store!  I love knowing that my kids and husband actually do like all of the items I can make from these few simple ingredients.  I encourage you to look at your family’s needs and decide what is the best thing for you to store and start working on it today.  Having gone through it I have discovered that FOOD STORAGE IS POSSIBLE, EVEN WITHOUT A SHOESTRING!

May we keep an attitude of gratitude and hopeful expectation through all of life’s challenges.  With the Lord, all things are possible!  =) Linda