Food storage follow up

Alright... I was little "Miss Responsible" this morning and drug myself down to the storage room to take an inventory.  No, I'm not going to to spill my guts and tell you exactly what all I actually have.  For once I'm going to heed my Mom's advice:  "Don't tell anybody what you have down there.  If things get bad they'll just come steal it!"  But I will tell you a few things about the experience.

When I came upstairs, plugged it all into my Food Storage Calculator and saw how very much I need to buy, I cried.  But for how little is there I was surprised that it still took just more than 4 notebook pages to list.  I need to put a significant effort (and chunk of money) toward re-stocking the essentials.  Essential food items like Grains, Sugar, Fats, Legumes and Dairy are the things you need just to sustain life.  They also form the backbone of a good food storage plan.

But sliced olives, mushrooms, diced green chiles and artichoke hearts are essentials.  No?  Ok... but they do help the essentials taste good!  That's important if I'm going to have to eat it.  So are things like enchilada sauce, Nutella, teriyaki and BBQ sauce good for making those life sustaining essentials edible. And they are all going to be part of MY storage plan!

Now that the room is organized and all the shelves are straightened up I am even more motivated to make a working storage plan.  I think I will even take it a step further and type up my inventory, slip it into a vinyl sheet protector and tape to the door with an dry erase marker to keep track of what's added or taken out as I go.

First on my priority list is going to be water storage.  I only want one of these units. There's a place where I think it will fit perfectly by the side of a freezer that I also have yet to obtain.  I have the 2 big blue storage drums... but they are not in the basement yet or filled.  What materials and tools do I need to make the unit to hold them?  Who can I con into spending a couple of evenings helping me build it?  If they are tipped on the side like this will I still need a pump to get the water out?