February 02, 2010 2 Comments

My married daughters were here this week for a visit and both came to me separately and asked if I thought I had enough food on hand. They were amazed at how much there was, and it is all real food, not “storage”. They were telling me to slow down as times are tough here and money is very tight. I agree and I am now in the replenishing mode and no longer adding, so their point was well taken.

During the week the grandkids became ill and they were very happy that I had a well stocked cupboard with ginger ale, tissues, and kids meds.

If you prepare correctly and get only what your family really needs, not what some author has told you you need, you will never, never, regret your efforts or the money you spent. For those who are new I am about to teach you how to discover what your family really needs. I don’t know, but you do!

This week it’s time to revisit some of the tips we discussed before we began our General Store a year ago.

1) At that time I asked you to get a jar. I would like you to designate that jar as part of your General Store fund. Each night place all your coins and any change you find on the street or in the sofa into the jar. I never spend change at the store anymore, except for my pennies. Be sure to include your spouse in your plan and even get the kids involved in adding money to the jar. Now when there is a great buy or great coupons for an item you need you can raid that jar without dipping into your grocery budget.

2) Set a budget. Now, realistically, decide how much you can afford to add to or steal from you household budget, to build the non food portion of your store. Can you skip a movie rental or a trip to get fast food? During the last year we have discussed many ways to stretch your budget to allow for food storage purchases.Those same tips apply here. When a disaster strikes and the grocery shelves or your bank accounts are empty, you are going to kick yourself over and over if you didn’t give up a few luxuries now for peace of mind later. Personally, I don’t consider toothpaste or TP a luxury!

3) Using a permanent marker date items around the house that are not single use. If the item is already open draw a line at the level of the contents on the outside of the container and date it. Now, when you use up that item you will know how long it took you to finish the bottle and you will know how much you need to purchase to have a three month supply. We marked our food items such as oil and ketchup, in this way when we began stocking food. Now it is time for toiletries; toothpaste, hand lotion, shampoo, cotton balls,etc. To determine how much TP and hand soap you will need simply save the wrappers in a drawer for a month and count them at the end of the month. I have found this to be the best way to determine what you really need.

I have heard some lecture and advise their audience to guesstimate how much they will need. Why guess when you can know? Why waste your money stocking up on too much of an item when that money could have been spent to purchase things you really do need? Can you tell this is a frustration to me? I hate wasting anything, but especially money!

To give you a little time to determine a budget and how much of each items you will need to store for your family, we will begin our purchases next week. For this week, mark items and begin, or continue, saving your change.

Many of these items can be stored in your garage as the heat will not damage them. Use this week to clear room for these items. This will also be a great week to review some of our Money Saving Tips from the blog. We posted these each Wednesday last year so there are plenty for every household to consider. (Money Saving Wednesdays)

Mother Hubbard: What She’s Doing Now… has a list of items to date and also a list of toiletries in the spread sheet. Take a look at those and they will give you a more complete look at things to consider dating.

Preparation is almost always the key to success in any endeavor.This week we prepare and next week we begin stocking. If any of your friends and family can benefit from our help please send them a link to today’s post so they can begin at the beginning and not have the hassle later of trying to catch up.

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Food storage, Our General Store, frugal living

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