How much to have in stores for family of 4?

[DENALI]

We are starting to get a bit worried about the "situation" coming about. We are a family of 4, 2 adults and a 3 and 7 year old. Does anyone have a rule of thumb for how much we should have in stores for at least 6 months? Also what would you include in those stores. We do have chickens so we get eggs daily and a small 20x40 garden that we will be planting for the first time this year starting this weekend. Any input or point of reference would be greatly appreciated.

[Tracy Rimmer]

The book "Making the Best of Basics" has a chart to calculate how much of each thing you need. There is also an online calculator on the LDS website.

http://lds.about.com/library/bl/faq/blcalculator.htm

[COSunflower]

Keep track of everything you use in ONE month and then multiply it by 6...You don't want to store anything that you wouldn't normally use just for the sake of "stocking up". Don't forget Children's Tylenol etc. also or any kind of vitamin or over the counter medication that you would use during the month. Pet food also!!!

[Callieslamb]

Are you thinking of storing everything you eat, or just some basic items that you can use in a variety of ways?

If you want to store everything you eat - make up menus that your family will enjoy, hopefully from many easily to grow yourself items. I think I did 10 of each meal - then multiplied it by the number of months I wanted to store.

I also store a LOT of the basics -beans, sugar, powdered milk, oatmeal, wheat, rice, etc. And I put up produce from the garden. The basic supplies are cheap ( usually, they are getting more expensive every day) and they will store for a long amount of time without needing rotation.

The LDS site is a good one for how much of each of the basic food items to store per person. It doesn't cover the extras or and "everything you eat" type storage plan.

[Shrek]

My parents taught me to always plant enough garden to provide my daily vegetable needs for about 14 to 16 months and to restock my seed vault.

Folks often forget that farm produce is a renewable resource and providing for your needs for 14 to 16 months is adequate.

With a family of 4 and a 20 by 40 plot, you may want to consider using the square foot gardening BISF approach explained at www.squarefootgardening.com to maximize your yields.

[ET1 SS]

We stock a few things. If push came to shove, we only have maybe four months worth of food, before the menu became real limited. Though over all we could go a year.

What I like the most is that each year we are producing more and more of our diet.

To us the 'homesteading' is about producing what we consume, and marketing the extra.

Veggies, meats, fish, honey,

Dw has been doing a lot by substituting powdered beans in place of flour. Granted we have 100# of wheat, plus all the oats, barley and corn. But a lot can be done with bean powder.

And now we have started producing red wine vinegar, white wine vinegar, malt vinegar and distilled white vinegar. So soon we will be producing a full line of organic condiments too.

[Common Tator]

Pop on over to the Survival and Preparesness forum. Lots of good advice there from folks who are preparing.

[sgl42]

for me, I found myself going back and forth between what's easy to store, and what I eat. For example, beans are easy to store dried, altho I didn't historically eat them. So, I bought a little bit of beans, tried a few recipes, liked them, then rotated rice and bean recipes into my diet.

--sgl

[FarmerGreen]

For dry food storage, I read a figure of 300 pounds per person, per year. We store rice, beans, corn, and wheat. We also put back canned goods. Rotate your stores, first in- first out.