I am finally getting caught up on the midrange planning and supply situation, that had been languishing due to work demands and other things. As you recall I had gone through the old stocks from 2005/6, and pitched anything that was not a classic “dry goods” item or known to have a very long shelf life. I focused on basic staples like flour, corn meal, salt, spices and extracts, oil, sugar, etc. I determined that these all keep fairly well if kept in Ziploc bags and plastic tubs, and at a reasonable temp. 5-6 years is about it, most of it passed the smell test but the cost just isn’t a factor. I filled a grocery cart for $220, if you had to do it from scratch (I had a few things on hand) maybe $300. I’m pleasantly surprised by the total volume of the supplies, they fit in a fairly small area and will last about 3 months or more depending on how lean I can go. The day to day stuff I have on hand (non-prep)  will last at least a month, then there’s a month or two of freeze dried. I’ll add a month of MREs, and the long-term grains which will put it past 6 months easy.

I’m looking around at it, and thinking how tough it would be to store a year’s worth. You could, but it gets expensive and takes up a lot of room. My idea is to have enough on hand to weather any immediate emergency, then start growing things if the situation seems like it will go longer than a few months.  6 months allows me time to get past winter and get plants going. Yeah it’d be nice to have more but I’m just not doing that.