Demand is on the rise at local food pantries:

With the economy in free fall, local food pantries all over the country are experiencing many new patrons. Check out this story, from the New York Times about the new layer of people using food pantries….

As a member of the Mormon (LDS) church, we are taught to be self reliant….One of the things we are taught is the store food for a time of emergency. Job lay-offs is one such example of an emergency…. A scripture in the Bible says, that “If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear”. Having a three months supply of whatever you eat is a good idea… Once you get that first three months worth of food, then you can start putting away items that have a longer shelf life.

Two summers ago, TF had to have Gall Bladder surgery. He was supposed to be out of work for only a week, but unexpected complications kept him out of work for a month… Because we had our food storage and some cash set aside, we did not have to worry too much about going in the hole while he was out of work… It is even more important, with all of the lay offs taking place, to be prepared for anything. It is not that hard to get started.

Think about what you eat on a daily basis… Make a list and figure out how many times you eat certain foods each week, multiply that by 12 and determine how much you need to purchase for your three months supply. Let’s see, for spaghetti, I need 12 cans for tomatoes, 12 packets of spaghetti sauce mix, 12 packages of spaghetti strings, etc. TF eats Maple and Brown sugar oatmeal every morning. I multiply that out and figure out how many boxes of oatmeal I will need….

Once you have figured out what you eat, then you need to shop for it. I watch the sales papers and see what is on sale for that week…..I use coupons, when I have them, and buy things on sale to save money while purchasing my food storage. We eat a lot of chile and a couple of weeks ago, Krogers had Hormel Chile on sale for 50 cents a can if you bought 10 cans. I was able to get 50 cans of Chile for $ 25.00. This will last for almost a year, but I have it when I need it. I didn’t pay a fortune for it and the expiration date was good for two years.

Once you get your food storage in place, make sure you rotate it. Your food storage should be your extended pantry. Don’t let it sit there, use it! Green beans that have been in storage for five years won’t be any good if you don’t rotate it. The idea is to have good food that you normally eat, in a time of emergency.

Another good practice is to have two weeks worth of water on hand. The normal person needs a gallon a day. During Hurricane IKE we were without water for several days and once our water was up and running, we were told not to drink it for several more days…We had water set aside in gallon containers to get us through this time period.

Do you have a financial reserve? It is advised that you have enough money to get you through three months in an emergency… You can start small by saving all of your change at the end of the day… You might take on an extra job for a while until you have some reserves set aside…. Maybe you could sell some of your old stuff on eBay or have a garage sale and put that money aside. There are any number of ways to do this, but it can be done….

All I can say, is start today to be prepared for whatever may come your way.

Have a great week everyone!