Food Storage Shopping List December 2012

December is a busy month for most of us, so my food storage focus includes some inexpensive baking ingredients you can buy in one shopping trip, or a couple each week during your weekly shopping trips. You may already have a 3-month supply of them sitting on your shelf. Except for the mixes, it’s inexpensive to stock up on a year’s supply of most of these ingredients as well.

My emergency focus is emergency cooking. If the power is out, the roads and stores are closed, and you have to camp out at home, how will you cook? Do you have something to cook on? Do you have propane, charcoal or other fuel for your outdoor cooking needs? How will you make baby food? Ponder these questions, and come up with a plan. You may have several cooking options already at home.

Even though it’s winter, now is the best time to practice your emergency cooking skills. Put together a simple recipe book by looking at what’s on your shelves. I will share some recipes later this month.

Here is the printable list with food storage and emergency preparation suggestions.

The chart below breaks down just the food into a 3-month and 12-month supply, and then I included some everyday prices. With current baking sales, you probably can buy items for less. This list gives you a good starting place. I have no idea how much you bake, or if you bake. But if you were unemployed, you will probably need to bake more and eat out less.

Don’t get hung up on perfect amounts. If the math for your family of 5 works out to be 20 oz. of baking soda and you only want to store a 16 oz. box, then store that. And you may not have space to store a year’s supply of cake mixes. My hope is that you will figure out some amount to store so you become accustomed to keeping extra food on your shelf.