Jun172009
INSTANT SURVIVAL TIP: Your Food Pantry as a Library
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PDFLast week my kids were craving ravioli for breakfast and stole two cans of the stuff from my food storage!! Yesterday it was grape jelly, and I know they have their eye on those boxes of Capri Sun for the swim meet tomorrow afternoon!
Sooner or later, you’ll be using some of the food you have in your food storage. This is actually a good thing if you use items that have the oldest expiration dates first and add new, fresher items as you go.
Keeping track of this in-and-out can make you crazy. If you think of your food storage as a library, though, it’s easier to track what needs to be replaced. Keep a pad of paper with a pen near your pantry. As you, or anyone else in the family, removes an item, jot it down. This creates a handy shopping list the next time you’re headed to the grocery store.
As you’re replacing those items, try to add a few more, as your budget allows. It’s amazing how quickly those “extras” add up.
© 2009, thesurvivalmom. All rights reserved.
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A Review of the Diva Cup: Not for the faint of heart. (Men, avert your eyes.)
I did the same thing! LOL
A Review of the Diva Cup: Not for the faint of heart. (Men, avert your eyes.)
Here, Here! Made the switch a few months ago and never looking back.
Advice for new Survival Moms from those who have been around a while
RE: TP storing enough toilet paper for a short term emergency makes s
Luda
Each shelf in our pantry has a year best by date sticker. So we have a 2011 shelf, 2012 shelf and so on. That gives you an instant eye on what to use first.
TheSurvivalMom
That's a great idea. I hadn't heard of that organization system before.
Vic
I keep everything on an excel spread sheet, since I have items that are either #10 can, #2 can, reg cans, jars, and vacuumed packed I neede a way to organize them. So everything got logged onto an “Excel spreadsheet”.
Keeping certain things in different boxes. All #10 cans are in #10 -6pk boxes, all others are in separated into banker boxes. (#2 cans, spices, drinks are all in their own boxes, as for Reg. Cans/bottles and Vacuumed packed bags – they are in boxes by their expiration date. 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, as of today.). The things in my pantry are 2010, 2011, some 2012. Most things, there expiration date is ONLY a suggestive use by date. I have eaten things that were 5 yrs old in cans and were fine. But all Storage items should be kept “Dry, no light, and under 70* temp”, to help keep them longer.
I have over 150 boxes now, and to help in my excel logging, I have colums set up as:
Box #, Group type name, Item name, Manufature name, weight, how many, FD/DH/Vacuumed or Dry/Wet, Date Bought, Date Canned (if I canned or FD/DH food should also have a Canned Date on them), then Expiration date.
As for Group type name?
Grains (which covers all Dry beans, wheat, rice, lentils, ect)
When in the Item name, I will separate by type:
Beans, black beans,
Legumes, green peas,
Grain, wheat, hard white, or Grain, wheat, hard red
– so that when I sort the whole spread sheet – I can sort by box#, Group type, item type, or by canning type, or expiration date.
– But with meat, since I have so many items I want all to be under Meat – but breaking it down a little further. Like:
Group type:
Meat – B (for Beef items),
Meat – C (for Chicken items,
Meat – P (for all port type items),
Meat – S (for all Seafood type times)
The sort would be sub sorting (using colum 2 which is Group type, and using colum 3 which is Item type, you would be specific on the – Item type:
Meat – P (example)
Pork, bacon bits
Pork, bacon pieces
Pork, chunks, in broth
Pork, chunks, in gravy
Pork, chunks, in water
Pork, ground, in broth
Pork, sausage, in broth
Pork, TVP, bacon bits
Pork, TVP, sausage bit
So, with all columns it would look something like this:
Box# Group Item Manf. weight how many bought canned expire
23 Meat – P Pork, chunk, in broth Weiling 8 oz can 4 9/15/12 7/28/12 8/1/16
23 Condiment Ketchup, natural Hunts 32 oz bot 2 9/16/12 4/12/16
23 Condiment Relish, sweet Hunts 6 oz bot 1 9/16/12 7/30/16
23 Veg Corn, sweet Dole 15 oz can 6 9/16/12 3/1/16
23 Veg Corn, cream style Dole 15 oz can 4 9/16/12 1/1/16
23 Fruit Peaches, light syrup Dole 14.5 oz can 2 9/16/12 6/15/16
23 Bean Kidney Winco 15 oz can 3 9/16/12 4/3/16
23 Bean Chili, beans, hot Dennison 15 oz can 2 9/17/12 1/4/16
23 Desert Jello, strawberry Jello 6 oz 2 Vacuum 9/17/12 4/1/16
23 Desert Cake, chocolate Betty Crocker 12 oz 1 Vacuum 9/17/12 4/23/16
23 Desert Frosting, choco. Betty Crocker 4 oz can 1 Vacuum 9/17/12 1/2/16
23 Desert Filling, strawberry Oregon 14 oz can 1 9/17/12 9/1/16
This would only be a Partially filled box, but – you can get an idea of what Box#23 would look like. “And all items to expire in 2016″. But you can sort by many different ways to see what you have, what you need to buy, and checking for expiration dates. Then you can print it out.
It helps to know where everything is, which box, and what you still need to buy….
I only keep out on my pantry shelfs what needs to be eaton now. By keeping the boxes in a separate room, I can keep them Dry, No light, and stacked by (expiration and box date). Each box is marked with it’s:
Cans “16″ (means: Cans/Jars/Vacuumed bags items, with expiration dates expiring on 2016)
Box# -F23 (F -for food),
Logged (just letting me know it was logged and on the spread sheet)
Victoria
Vic
Sorry – when I saved onto the reply – it took all the Columns and merged together, even though it’s not as clear as it was, you should be able to get the just of it.
–I hope that the Survival Mom will post the Spread sheet that I sent her, to give you a better idea, and you can use it from there. – Happy Holidays, Vic