How to store what you eat.

Okay, I really hate to beat a dead horse but these last 4 months have been so freaking nuts! Jacob has worked probably the equivalent of a month (hours wise) out of the last 4. We had to make some big changes to our lifestyle and thankfully not too much in our diet. This experience has taught me what to keep in my cupboard when something like this happens again and also little tricks to stretch the things you have. I thought I'd share my new found knowledge in hopes of easing your burdens at some later time or perhaps right now.

During this time of financial hardship I have learned the importance of storing what you eat. We have a weekly grocery budget of $70/week when times aren't tough. That's a lot of money to spend on 3 people in one week. BUT, half of the money I allotted for the weekly groceries was used in buying duplicate non-perishable ingredients of the recipes I was making that week. I would then put those items in the pantry for another time. Now I did this subconsciously. I had no clue that I was storing away for some future date (blonde moment I know). The only reason why we had odds and ends ingredients these last 4 months was because I had created a surplus of them.

What exactly did we store? Well, we really love pizza so I would store pineapple, tomato sauce, Italian seasoning to mix with the tomato sauce to make pizza sauce, olives, hamburger and Canadian bacon. I also froze shredded cheese. So we were able to make pizza almost every week instead of buying it. It didn't really feel like a sacrifice because we still had the luxury of pizza.

I make a lot of chili too so I would store canned kidney beans, diced tomatoes, cumin, chili powder (costco is an excellent place to get these spices), and again hamburger. I also stored the boxes of corn bread mix.

We really like Mexican food too. So I would store refried beans, stewed tomatoes to make Spanish rice and of course rice, taco seasoning (from costco) and HAMBURGER. We then would make Navajo Fry bread to eat with our rice and beans and to make a kind of taco with.

We also had boxes of jello, pudding, popcorn, and mac and cheese (for Emma). I also kept on hand in the freezer hot dogs, pedialyte pop sickles (in case one of us got sick), frozen veggies, and frozen juice concentrates.

For breakfasts I had stored lots of oatmeal, Zoom, malt o meal, Cheerios (from costco) and some frozen bacon.

We also had diaper wipes and diaper rash ointment for Emma.


Things I wish I had more of stored before this happened to us:

Boxed desserts that don't require the use of eggs
Powdered milk
Canned fruit
Cereal
Diapers
Diaper wipes
Shampoo and Conditioner
Hair gel
hand soap
cleaning products
laundry soap
dishwasher soap
garbage bags

Tricks to stretch what you already have:
Use powdered milk when you cook or bake. You can't taste the difference.

Make up rice as a side dish for casseroles. It will stretch it farther.

One egg sized mound of mayo is a good substitute for an egg in baking. I used it to make corn bread and you can't taste the difference.

Either learn to make your own bread or buy a bread machine.

Whole wheat is more filling.


If Jacob and I didn't have food storage, there is no way we would've made it through this rough time. Having a savings account is a must too. We are recommended to have 6 months of our income stored away. Jacob and I had 3.

Right when this slow period started Jacob and I realized that we were behind on our tithing. How it happened? I'm not really sure. But we caught up with our tithing despite not having any money. It was hard for me to do. Jacob has never had a problem paying tithing and I learned about the great blessings of being a full tithe payer no matter what. We are just now having to pull out of our savings account. What's even more amazing is that the amount we have to pull out is only $500.

We were certain that our savings would be drained after all of this. The lord keeps his promises! There is no way we should've made it through this hard time without taking tons of money out of savings. It is strictly the Lord's blessing that we have only had to take out a little money and it's because we strived to do the right things. We aren't perfect. We still have a lot of work to do on saving money and building food storage and other aspects of our lives, but we tried our hardest and by the grace of God we have made it.