How's the food storage coming?

I had thought today I would write out my Mom's life history... but just like that memory book, I'm struggling with pulling my thoughts together out of the chaos inside my head so I'm going to set it aside for awhile longer and just talk about one of her passions:  food storage.

"How's the food storage coming?" she would ask me.  It was a near daily question for the past several years.  Honestly sometimes it made me just a little bit crazy!  And even more honestly, the past six months off work to be home and take care of her was hard on the food storage I did have scraped together.  I knew it kind of in the back of my mind but realized it even more vividly yesterday looking for spaghetti.  And not finding any.

Every time my mom would think to ask about the money in her bank account she'd always try to coax me into doing one of two things:  spend some on the house or get something for food storage.  Being bull-headedly self-sufficient, or maybe it's just bull-headed, I usually pushed the suggestion aside saying something like "let's get a plan together first rather than just blindly storing stuff."  We both made good points in that discussion.  She had a sense of urgency and I wanted to go about it in an organized manner rather than buying things that wouldn't get eaten in normal times.

I was kind of haphazard about it, but I did do some research to learn what to store to sustain life for a year and how much  was needed for each person.  I even put it into a handy-dandy spreadsheet that does the math for you.  And then I started adding other things that we would want to have if it ever came down to having to live off food storage for any period of time. If you are interested you can download a copy for your own use.

Food Storage Calculator (EXCEL DOCUMENT - click Download from the top of the next screen and then open the workbook in MS Excel)

It's also on the Crafts and Other Downloadables page.

As I'm filling out the forms for life insurance claims this evening, I've been thinking that spending part of that money to fill up my food storage would be a fitting way to honor my Mom.