I bought big cans of peas not thinking I was the only one who ate them.
I bought batteries without realizing none of our items used "D"s.
I bought a portable heater that I didn't know couldn't be used inside the house.
I bought tons of boxes of pasta. Not bad by itself, but I didn't buy sauce items.
I bought boxes of Hamburger Helper not connecting that it would need meat, then I found out my daughter and I can no longer eat it.
I wasted money and time I couldn't afford to waste. I gave away the batteries to my daughter whose son had toys that used them. I had to take the heater back to the store. I still have some of the peas, but I buy smaller cans as I restock them.
Why did I do this?
I panicked because of not having food to cook when our power went out. Instead of planning everything, keeping an eye out for sales or used items, I flat out went off the deep end a bit.
No matter if you use canned food, MREs, freeze-dried or dehydrated foods - you need to plan your meals and quantities. It really doesn't do much good to have 10 boxes of pasta, but nothing else to go with it. It requires a bit of planning, but it isn't hard.
Let's say you have spaghetti once a week planned for your emergency storage, and you're planning to store for one year. It might looks something like this:
I use 1lb because of sales and coupons. You can insert whatever you use.
2- 1 lb. boxes of pasta x 52 = 104 boxes of pasta.
1 jar of premade organic "safe for us to eat" spaghetti sauce (or homemade sauce) x 52 = 52 jars
2 quarts of water to cook with (can take from each person's daily supply or a separate "cooking" stash) = 26 gallons of water
You can keep left over water to use in garden, flushing purposes or treat and filter for reuse for self or animals.
You want canned corn twice a week. Your family will eat one can per meal.
1 x 2 = 2; 2 x 52 = 104 cans of corn needed
You have three children. You are planning for cold cereal 4 times a week. This one is a bit tricky because of how people pour cereal. Pour some into your child's bowl, measure it to see how much s/he normally eats, then calculate how much you need.
I will go by the actual servings on the side of the cereal one son loves.
Each box contains 17 servings of 3/4 cup each (I'd have to double that for my son, but anyhow...)
For three kids: 17/3 = 5.66666. One box will last you about 5 days. Given that most people eat more than 3/4 cups, we'll call it 4 days. One box a week means you'll need 52 boxes of cereal if they all say it will serve 17. Check the box for servings.
Don't forget the freeze-dried or powdered milk. This amount will depend on how you handle it. Will you make 1 serving and split it between 3 bowls or make each child a serving, use part in the cereal and have them drink the rest?
Mine says 3 tbsp per serving and has 38 servings per container. My kids usually just use milk in the cereal, so all of them can share 1-2 servings of milk. This can would last us 19 days just for cereal. How you handle it will determine how much milk to store. Don't forget the water. You need it to reconstitute the milk.
Freeze-dried is the same principle, except you have to factor in two serving numbers for some foods. A can may say serving size 1/4 cup, but don't forget that when it's soaked in water, it will become a larger serving. Make sure the person eating it will eat it all.
For instance, 1/4 cup of freeze-dried apples is the recommended serving size. However, reconstituted it is more like 1/2 cup. We will each eat a full serving. There are 46 servings in the can. One serving of apples every other day for our family: 46/5 = 9.2 days, so one can will last us for just over 2 weeks. We would need at least 26 cans for one year.
As you can see, just like grocery shopping, planning for even a week needs to be done in order to make sure you have enough of everything you need. It also helps make sure you don't make the mistake I did. No one likes wasting money or time.
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