Stretch Your Food Dollar: Calculating Your Food Storage Needs
In last week’s edition of Stretch Your Food Dollar, I introduced the topic of food storage. Stocking up on canned goods and dried food is a really important piece of the food budgeting puzzle. If you add a little bit at a time, you can slowly build up your reserves for a rainy day. It’s really as simple as buying 2-3 extra cans of green beans when they go on sale, or picking up an extra package of pasta on your weekly shopping trip.
But how do you figure out how much food you need to store? A general rule of thumb is that you should store 25 pounds of wheat, rice, and other grains, and 5 pounds of dried beans an other legumes per person, per month. Let’s use my household as an example. There are two of us, and we need to have 3 months of food storage on hand to get us through the summer. That means we need 150 pounds of grains, and 30 pounds of beans/legumes. Holy crap, that sounds like a lot!
This traditional formula for food storage is missing several items. Notice that fruits and vegetables are not on the list. Neither is sugar, cooking oil, vitamins, salt, or yeast. So my recommendation is that you use this as a general guideline and that you adjust the total amounts to reflect the needs and food preferences of your household. Keep in mind that you want 1 carb, 1 vegetable, and 1 protein at every meal. This, I think, is a more realistic (and simple) way of calculating what you need to have on hand in case of an emergency.
Eating from your food storage can get monotonous. I mean, how many times can you eat beans and rice without wanting to gauge out your eyes? Am I right? This is why I think having a variety of canned fruits and vegetables in your pantry can make a big difference. You have the opportunity to get more creative with your meals if you have more ingredients to choose from.
In the next few weeks, I’ll share some simple recipes that rely on items that you can incorporate into your food storage. If you have a method for determining how much food to buy for your own food storage, I’d love to hear about it in the comments section.
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Serena: Good advice to stock up! Jeanine was the person that taught me the benefits of having a well stocked pantry. Even when I think we have nothing to eat, she can always whip something up!
Trent at The Simple Dollar wrote a post recently about how their pantry rolls. I thought he made some good points as well.
I can’t imagine storing that much food! In part, it’s because my partner and I live in a studio in NYC, but seriously, 150 lbs grain and 25 lbs beans per person? Maybe first I should calculate how much that will add to my moving costs (somehow in NYC I always seem to end up having to move for various reasons every year or so…). Before reading this I felt as if I have a lot of stored food because I bought the 10 lb bag of rice at the coop and have a few cups of different types of dried beans from the bulk bins. sheesh.
Zach, the guideline I provided is a really old-school rule of thumb, and it assumes that you’re going to be living primarily off of your food storage without anything else.
I think you’re doing great to have at least some rice and beans stored away. Everyone has their own living situation, and if you’re in an apartment, you really don’t have a lot of space. Before we moved into our house, my partner and I kept our food storage under the bed.
And yes . . . moving boxes of canned goods = pain in the ass.
Serena: My grandfather had a grocery store. One of the things he taught me is most food items go on sale once every 12 weeks…so ideally you should have 12 weeks worth of whatever in storage. This might be only 3 or 4 cans of something if you only make the dish once a month or say 24 cans of green beans if you have them twice a week.
Zach: As for storage you would be surprised just how small an area will hold 150 lbs of food. Based on average can size just under 48 cans will fit in 1 cubic foot of space…at 15 oz. per can or just say 1 lb. thats 48 lbs of food so for 150 lbs you need only about 3 cubic feet. You can buy what they call a one foot bookcase thats one foot square and 6 or 7 feet tall. Theoretically that would hold around 300 cans or 300 lbs of food (though I’m not sure anything short of metal shelving will hold that weight).
Twenty five lbs of flour roughly fills a 5 gallon bucket…same for around 50 lbs. of dried beans.
Fine and dandy though only if you can eat all of it before it goes out of date or spoils.
Most canned goods have an 18-24 month shelf life so its really important to rotate and use what you’ve bought…as well as being realistic in what you eat and how often…throwing away a badly outdated can is just total waste.
One of my favourite summer staples is made almost entirely from cans: four different types of beans and canned tomatoes, with some fresh carrots, celery and onions make for a delightfully fresh tasting soup when you sprinkle lemon olive oil on the top. It’s even cheaper when you use dried beans.
Elizabeth, that sounds really tasty. Would you mind sharing the exact recipe?
I do know that when I had to be more frugal with food, I’ve found ways to stretch that dollar more. First things first, stop spending w/o control on credit unless you can pay it off that month. Secondly, look at your options for simple, nutritious meal planning. Obviously, to save money don’t buy out. Take your coffee in the car brewed at home vs. going to the coffee shop. Eat a lot of sandwiches. Hey – here in Florida, it’s too hot to cook anyway in the summer! But, variety is important, so, you need to find low cost ways to keep variety in your eating.
For those of us living alone, it’s not always more cost effective to shop for items in bulk if they will go stale or rot!
I hear canned tomato paste and tomato products are excellent for their antioxidant properties. Get them on sale and learn how to cook with tomatoes.
Go to your farmer’s market and dicker. Works!
Variety is important esp. so you don’t feel you are neglecting yourself.