stockpiling interest....

**lauraashley2006** · 07-09-2009, 01:05 PM

ok, so i was looking at some of the stockpiling pics through the website, an i would really like to start stockpiling again. i use to have quite a collection going on but i stopped bc of other life issues. i want to know how you manage to stockpile without breaking the bank when you go grocery shopping. is it a slow progressive thing, or what? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

**jlaporte** · 07-09-2009, 01:14 PM

to me i think it is a slow process. u dont have to go running to store for a cart of canned goodes. u shope as u normally would but when u hit a sale and u have coupoins and u can manage u get a few extra. eventually ur shopping trips become less n less and then u get only what need at that time..there r many threads on it to help u out. i love my stockpile. i know my family is set

**freebs** · 07-09-2009, 01:14 PM

Mine was kinda both..lol. When i used coupons and got good stuff cheap or free i bought as many as i had coupons for. Now if it was just onsale i would only get enough to get me to the next sale. i never dedicated so much money per week/month towards stockpile it just started happening with just a few dollars a week. Just start with what you are comfortable with and get items that are onsale and that you use. Good luck!

**Contrary Housewife** · 07-09-2009, 01:17 PM

It's a slow progressive thing. I look for sales and buy 1 or 2 extra, or sometimes more depending on what it is and how frequently it goes on sale. I also take into account how much we eat, and how much storage we have.

Boxes of Rice Crispies will be on sale next week and I will get 3 because it's all I can store. Sirloin steaks are going to be cheap too, so I will get a couple, depending on how big they are, I have room for 6 or 8 packages, but beef has been cheap here lately and I have a lot in the freezer already and I don't want these to get burned by the time we eat them. Tuna is on sale, too, but I already have 5 cans and we don't eat it that often, so I won't get any this time. I bought some bean and rice dinner kits a couple weeks ago, got 2 of them because we don't eat them very often, but I like to have them in the pantry for those times when there's no other options. I won't buy more of those until we use them up.

**MaryCarney** · 07-09-2009, 02:50 PM

I think stockpiling success starts with record-keeping!!
Keep track of everything you use for the course of two to four weeks, you'll have a much better idea of what would be useful to stock up on and what's not!
I try to keep a notebook in the pantry, and at least a piece of paper to record on in each of the bathrooms, got to make it easy for folks!!!
Plan where you'll keep stuff, too, before you get it all home and have no where to put it!!
As soon as we get our home sold, I'm going to get back into serious stockpile mode, for sure.

**mamamia** · 07-09-2009, 03:16 PM

You've gotten some great suggestions already!

I'm not one to stockpile for a year. I keep it at anywhere from 4-12 weeks because I find that the sales and coupons repeat themselves at least once during that time frame.

My success at it without breaking the bank, came from combining sales and coupons. For instance, last nite I ran up to Publix and grabbed 4 jars of Krafy Mayo on a BOGO sale. I used four $1 coupons, so I got them at $1.29 each. With this I was also able to use $1 off any bread when you buy a jar of Kraft mayo. So the Pepperidge Farms WW bread were on BOGO also, and I got 4 loaves at $.49 each.

So total for 4 jars of Kraft and 4 loaves of bread was $7.20.

I got other things, but just wanted to give you an idea of how coupons are a TREMENDOUS help to get that stockpile building up much faster than w/o using coupons. I am so happy to be at the point of only needing to buy loss leaders and sale items every week. I average $40-$60 a week for 6, and that includes hba and paper goods.

HTHs

Theresa

**mauimagic** · 07-09-2009, 03:21 PM

Good advice....I'm still shaking my head over that mayo price - ours is now $5.79 a jar - on sale $4.79 - when you're lucky!!

I found that I need to keep track of what I have stockpiles and where it all is. Good luck - am sure you'll do really well with this!!

**Grainlady** · 07-09-2009, 04:44 PM

Lots of great advice already shared. I did my stockpiling on a fixed food budget ($50/week for 2 adults) over a period of time. I made some mistakes when I first got started, but I guess that's because I didn't study the subject enough to know better. I thought it was about buying extra and keeping some ahead.

Now that I focus on INGREDIENTS and WHOLE FOODS, rather than prepared and highly-processed foods, I'm much happier with what I store. It's also cheaper to purchase, and it generally has a longer shelf-life than highly-processed foods. You always pay more for commercial foods that are highly processed than whole foods, and you usually get less fiber and lower nutrition. For each pair of hands that has to be paid to process your food, you'll end up paying more. That's why I choose foods as close to what you find them in nature with the least amount of processing possible.

One of my new-found favorite "ingredients" is dried tomato powder. It's inexpensive, will keep indefinitely, and has a lot of uses. Since I've switched to tomato powder I no longer have cans/jars of tomato paste, tomato sauce, pizza sauce and spaghetti sauce in storage. I can make all of them from dried tomato powder/water/spices/and sometimes a sweetener of some kind. Once again - from ingredients.

I keep wheat (as well as a plethora of other grains/seeds/beans) in storage, not flour or cans of pre-cooked beans. Wheat keeps for decades, while flour has a 6-12-month shelf-life. Commercial flour (bleached/unbleached OR whole wheat) has little redeeming food value. You can only get all the nutrition from wheat if you use it whole or freshly-milled. I don't use valuable storage space for "fake" food. Our bodies are nourished with nutrients, not empty calories.

With wheat I can make flour and all the things made with flour - breads, pasta, as well as Cream of Wheat cereal, bulgar and cracked wheat and can take whole grains like wheat and oats and mill them into rolled flakes, and I mill whole dried corn into cornmeal. And how about cooked wheat, wheat "nuts" and wheat sprouts.

I make my own "convenience" foods from ingredients in my stockpile. I make a multi-grain baking mix (similar to Bisquick), as well as a multi-grain pancake mix, soup mixes made from home-dehydrated ingredients, chocolate and vanilla pudding mixes.... All these things cost only a fraction what commercial foods cost. With many of those same ingredients I make my "convenience" foods from, I make tortillas and use them for baked tortilla chips. The same few ingredients can quickly become a cake, pastry, muffins and other quick breads, yeast or sourdough breads..... No boxed mixes necessary.... I can even use whole grains and a blender to make cornbread and batter used for pancakes or waffles following Sue Greggs recipes (http://www.suegregg.com/).

After you accumulate 2-3 months of general-use pantry items, you'll find you "shop" at home for food preparation so you can rotate those foods. Your grocery list is filled with items that need restocked, based on sale/loss leaders, and things you can stack savings with coupons and or rebates for the most savings.

With today's economic outlook, everything we have in storage is earning more than our money in a savings account in the bank, and would potentially get us through a time of lost income or if we had unexpected expenses and those food dollars would have to be used elsewhere, a natural or man-made disaster, interrupted food supplies, power outages.....

I have 3 layers of foods in storage:

1. 72-hour Emergency Foods. These are foods we can consume without heating or refrigeration.

(http://lds.about.com/od/preparedness...72hour_kit.htm).

Most are ready-to-eat foods. We've used this a few times during ice storms when we were without electricity. I generally re-stock this kit once a year when individual servings of "lunch-box" foods are on sale just before school starts.

2. Pantry/Freezer Foods (3-12-months worth). These are foods/spices/mixes/baking supplies/flavorings I store in the kitchen and use daily. It includes a lot of dehydrated and frozen produce from the garden and free-for-the-picking fruit I also freeze or dehydrate. Dried apple slices are our #1 snack food and can be used in a lot of baked goods. I also use a lot of dehydrated sweet potato powder, as well as using dehydrated zucchini instead of potato chips.

3. Long-term storage (1-3 years worth). These foods are also used in our pantry foods (because you have to rotate EVERYTHING and use it). I focus on "the Seven Survival Foods" in this area. Grains, legumes, sprouting seeds, sweetener/s of choice -honey/sugar/agave nectar, etc., salt, oil (for me that's coconut oil because it has a much longer shelf-life than other types of cooking oils), and powdered milk (I use a powdered whey-based milk substitute, and have for 28 years). The whey-based milk substitute comes in #10 cans so has an extremely long shelf-life compared to store-bought powdered milk in a box.

Everything else after that is just a bonus: powdered whole eggs (which I use when fresh eggs are more expensive per egg than powdered eggs), powdered peanut butter, powdered butter, freeze-dried meats/cheese/fruits/vegetables....

**MommyBliss** · 07-09-2009, 04:46 PM

I tend to just grab more when there is a sale. It's a slow progression for me.

**Michelle** · 07-09-2009, 04:55 PM

I stock up on loss leaders and portion out a bit of my grocery budget every week to dedicate to that cost.

**lauraashley2006** · 07-09-2009, 06:50 PM

wow!!! i didnt expect to get sooo many great suggestions!! thanks everyone. i think mine will definately hve to be a slow progress bc i just think itll work better for me and my family. i did get a great start on it today though. i went on a feild trip with my 3 year old to aldi to get can stuff....wow!! i love that store. so many great items at such good prices. i was so stoked after i left there.......and then i went to walmart

i did soo well at aldis and then after i left walmart i was soo mad.. that place is so expensive. things i thought would be cheaper at walmart were definately cheaper at aldi. now i know though.

**mamamia** · 07-11-2009, 11:16 PM

Originally Posted by lauraashley2006

wow!!! i didnt expect to get sooo many great suggestions!! thanks everyone. i think mine will definately hve to be a slow progress bc i just think itll work better for me and my family. i did get a great start on it today though. i went on a feild trip with my 3 year old to aldi to get can stuff....wow!! i love that store. so many great items at such good prices. i was so stoked after i left there.......and then i went to walmart

i did soo well at aldis and then after i left walmart i was soo mad.. that place is so expensive. things i thought would be cheaper at walmart were definately cheaper at aldi. now i know though.

Well good for you! Glad you found a way/place that's gonna help you achieve your goal! ....it didn't take very long either, did it?

Glad to hear you sounding so happy!

Theresa

**MomToTwoBoys** · 07-12-2009, 12:32 AM

Originally Posted by lauraashley2006

ok, so i was looking at some of the stockpiling pics through the website, an i would really like to start stockpiling again. i use to have quite a collection going on but i stopped bc of other life issues. i want to know how you manage to stockpile without breaking the bank when you go grocery shopping. is it a slow progressive thing, or what? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

I find that just by contributing $10 each time you go, you're able to get quite a bit. Sometimes it's slower than others, depending on the sales. However, it's all in how you go at it. If you take advantage of getting free things and put that to your stockpile, it goes faster.

It really depends on where you live and what kind of deals your area has to offer. For me, I don't get any huge sales but when they do happen, I do make room in my budget for it.

**LastDragonfly** · 07-14-2009, 12:45 AM

Remember you want to store what you eat; and eat what you store...

When I first started, I bought lots of stuff we NEVER eat....

Pretty soon you will shop out of your pantry...and it will dawn on you...and you will be SO HAPPY...it's like one of the best ah ha moments.

Our food prices here continue to incresase weekly and I am glad that some of my stuff was purchased for much LESS.

**dianeeileen** · 07-31-2009, 07:50 PM

One of my new-found favorite "ingredients" is dried tomato powder.

I keep wheat (as well as a plethora of other grains/seeds/beans) in storage, not flour or cans of pre-cooked beans.

powdered peanut butter, powdered butter, [/QUOTE]

Grain lady I am very impressed with your way of doing things. You have some wonderful ideas that I would like to try. But I have to ask where can I buy this stuff. I have never heard of powdered peanut butter or powdered butter, powdered tomatos etc. Also where do you buy wheat and how do I mill it ? Thanks Diane