How to Start a Food Stockpile on a Budget

Creating a food stockpile is an exercise in preparedness. Making sure you have extra on hand for an emergency is simple and can be done on even the tightest of budgets.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• storage space for your stockpile
• purchase plan and budget

1. The most important step in creating your stockpile is to figure out what you want to store. Three days worth? Three months worth? Dry goods? Canned goods? The variables can be daunting but look at how your family eats and make a plan based on that.

2. Look at your budget. How tight is it? Can you splurge on one bulk dry good a week for storage or can you barely squeeze in an extra can of tomato sauce? The tighter the budget the longer it will take to build but don't let that deter you. If your budget is that tight now, any cut in it later could be disaster to you and your family.

3. Cut something out once in while to accommodate your stockpile building. Go without a bag of chips once a month so you can buy the giant bag of pasta.

Tips & Warnings

• Rotate stock and keep track of what you have. It will help keep your budget in line
• Once you build up a decent stock don't let yourself deplete it just because you have it