3 Month Supply

In the LDS church we are told to have a three month supply of food and other household necessities. This is to help us in times of need. Times of need could be large catastrophes like tornadoes and earthquakes and more personal needs such as a job loss or health problems. I also think there is a certain level of self discipline that one learns from building a supply. 

That being said, I don't have a three month supply. I have been thinking a lot about it and I need to get one. I can't really use the excuse of lack of space anymore. I have friends with small amounts of space who make it work and so can I. The other excuse I use is that we don't eat the same things twice all that often. We love to try new recipes and I can think of 5 recipes we repeat in a 3 month time. To fix this I asked Jason which meals he could eat once a week for three months. Thankfully we came up with a good variety. And, as Jason pointed out if we HAVE to use our food storage as our only food, we'll be pretty happy to eat just about anything.

To get myself started I found this amazing Excel spreadsheet from Food Storage Made Easy. I decided what we would eat every week for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Multiplied that by 4 to get a monthly total and the spreadsheet does the rest. I love it! I now know how much peanut butter I need for a 3 month supply. I feel like this is huge for me. 

My plan for building my supply is buy one or two extra things per week. I am not a good couponer but I will watch for sales and knowing tuna is on my list I will stock up when I see it is on sale. 

Once I have built up my supply I intend to use it. I chose recipes we eat so it should be easy to work them in to our regular meal plan. 

I am happy to share my recipes and spreadsheet if anyone is interested. Our dinners include Black Bean Soup, Greek Orzo, Thai Peanut Pork and Heart Beans & Sausage.