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Setting Up Your Food Stockpile Budget
This article originally at http://prepping2survive.com/
Setting Up Your Food Stockpile Budget
A lot of people disregard prepping because, after watching those reality T.V. shows where professional preppers are spending dozens of thousands on preps, they come to the conclusion that it’s simply too expensive.
Can you blame them? Definitely not, since TV shows have other purposes than to educate people and, when it comes to survival, lack of information can cost us a lot more than just our money. That’s why I wrote this article, because I want to prove to you that you can have a food stockpile on a reasonably small budget.
Let’s talk about some of the factors that you need to take into account before spending a single penny:
- the period of time you want to cover;
- your monthly household income;
- the number of family/household members;
- the caloric requirements for each;
- last but not least, possible food allergies, personal preference and the things you normally eat should all be taken into account when selecting your foods.
Let’s start with the first one. Ideally, you want to think in terms of threes (no, it’s not just like the rule of threes, this is something else). You’ll need a 3 day, a 3 week and then a 3-month food stockpile.
The top priority is to get a 72 hour emergency stockpile. Leaving Doomsday-type scenarios aside, most disasters won’t last for more than a few days (think temporary blackouts, hurricanes, tornadoes, riots and so on). A 3-day stockpile will ensure that you and your loved ones are going to make it through the critical phase of any danger.
Make no mistake about it: the more food you have, the better. Ideally, you should have an entire year’s worth of food stashed away because many of SHTF scenarios are going to span this long. Plus, consider that you can use your extra food supplies for bartering purposes to get medical supplies, tools, generators and so on.
The emergency stockpile is necessary to get yourself covered ASAP. This is why I suggest you start off with a higher budget for your 72-hour stockpile and decrease it over time. We’ll get back to it in just a moment.
Who should you include in your stockpile plan (and budget)? Easy. Anyone who shares the house with you is in and anyone who isn’t is out. Don’t forget to include your pets, of course, and even your backyard animals if you have any.
Let’s talk about calories, for a moment. The average adult needs around 2,000 a day but in a SHTF scenario, that needs is going to increase. We’re going to go with 2,500 calories.
Pregnant women need at least 300 extra calories a day. Children between 1 and 3 years need at least 1,000 calories a day and up to 1,800 by the age of 14. Remember, that’s for a normal and somewhat sedentary lifestyle, not for a post-disaster scenario.
Ok, now that you know the daily caloric intakes of everyone, you just need to add them up and multiply by 3. You don’t need to include your pets in this unless you’re planning on making your own dog or cat food.
As far as which foods to stockpile, we don’t want to make things too complicated. Diversity is key but you don’t want to go as far as using freeze-drying or pressure cooking methods for your emergency stockpile… unless you’re all very committed. Keep in mind what you normally eat and whether or not any of you have allergies.
Your shopping list for the 72-hour stockpile can include: canned foods, energy bars, canned soup, instant potatoes, Vienna sausages, spam, peanut butter and many more. I won’t make a full-list as there are plenty of other articles on that. These are all better and cheaper than MREs. Plus, they have the advantage of not making you look crazy when someone sees them in your pantry.
And let’s not forget water. 1.5 gallons of water per person per day. It’s easy to calculate. You need a few water bottles that you can just throw in your bug-out bag and a large 55 gallon barrel kit that you can get on Amazon for under $120 bucks (make sure it’s food-grade and BPA free!).
Now, I don’t know which foods you prefer stockpiling and I certainly don’t want to give you food prices that are going to change in a year’s time. As I said, you should have an increased “emergency” budget for your 72-hour stockpile, depending on the last factor we mentioned in the beginning: your household income.
To give you an example, you can start with $100 for your emergency stockpile and see how close you get to getting the necessary food and water.
If $100 is enough for a 3-day stockpile, the budget for 3 weeks should be no more than 7 times that much. For a 3-month stockpile, you’ll need (at most) 3 times more money than you did for your 3-weeks stockpile (you already have food for 3 weeks, you need 9 more; 3 + 9 = 12 weeks or 3 months).
So, if your 3-day budget is $100, your total budget for 3 months will be $100 + $700 + $2,100 = $2,900. That’s almost 3 grand but keep in mind you don’t have to spend it all at once. We all prep at different speeds so don’t beat yourself up for noting having all the cash right now; what you need right now is your emergency stockpile.
Your three month food & water needs are easy to determine. You know your budget for 3 weeks: $30 per week. We divide it again by 3, giving us $10 weekly spend. We know how many calories we need for 3 weeks so, in order to stockpile for the remaining 9 (3 + 9 = 12 weeks or 3 months), we need to multiply those calories by 3.
To make things clearer, if your 72-hour stockpile required 20,000 calories, your 3-week stockpile will require 7 times more (or 140,000 calories) and your 3-months stockpile will need an extra 420,000 (or 140,000 X 3) calories for your entire household (except for pets and other animals).
To that we need to add water. If at step one you needed 1.5 gallons X 3 people X 3 days = 13.5 gallons, for a 3-week stockpile you’d need 7 times that much (or 94.5 gallons) and for a 3 month stockpile, another 94.5 X 3 = 283.5 gallons.
Now, does this mean you can spend your entire budget on food alone? Not really. You need to think about containers such as water barrels, buckets, mylar bags and so on. Then you need a way to open and consume those foods by means of can openers, forks, knives and so on. These all add up and should not be ignored, particularly since one of those barrels can set you back 50 bucks or more. Don’t forget other things such as oxygen absorbers, bleach and wood pallets (to keep your containers off the ground).
What if you spent all your budget but didn’t meet your caloric needs?
It’s really up to you what you want to do. You want spend less the following week or just ignore it and move on. You should also learn from your mistakes and find ways to save money on the food you purchase.
Getting good food on the cheap means you need to be aware of all the discounts, coupons and sales that most stores make anyway. You have to do your research if you want to find the best deals.
Next, you should keep track of all your expenses. Each purchase should be written down in a spreadsheet to easily see the totals and notice when you’re overspending. Spreadsheets are great because they allow you to enter the amount of food and the amount of calories per serving so you always have an accurate and up-to-date figure of how many total calories you’ve stockpiled so far.
Should you buy in bulk?
Definitely. You’ll need at least a one-year stockpile, anyway. The only thing with buying larger quantities is that, although you save money per pound, you may spend more than your budget allows you.
What if you can afford a bigger budget?
If you have more money they you definitely shouldn’t spend on expensive food. The whole point of a stockpile is to have foods that last you at least a few years. Things like beans, white rice and canned veggies have some of the longest shelf lives. If anything, you should invest in things like mylar bags and oxygen absorbers to increase it even more.
Last but not least, I wish you good luck with your stockpile. There’re plenty of resources you can read on emergency food – I suggest you start off with FEMA’s storage tips (PDF link), they’re pretty
The post Setting Up Your Food Stockpile Budget appeared first on Preparing 2 Survive.
Source: http://prepping2survive.com/setting-food-stockpile-budget/
