Prudent Prepping: Pantry Check

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Follow along as I build a long term plan via Prudent Prepping.

According to the notification on my phone, it's time to check supplies in my Buckets of Holding. It's supposed to rain this weekend (Yay! Seriously, we need it) and cleaning and organizing everything is my planned chore.

The contents of each pail are a bit different, but the basics are the same. I've not yet gone through all 5 pails to standardize them since their initial load-out, and when I'm finished I will have the same inventory in each pail.

Coming Out 

• 3 lb bags of rice 
• Peanut Butter 
• Canned Chicken 
• Pasta 
• Pasta Sauce 

The list is not exclusive, and if other items are found, everything will be swapped out. All these are items I use myself and have in my kitchen pantry, so I will move some of them onto my kitchen shelf. The rest is going to the local Food Bank. 

I make it a point to drop off this food to the Contra Costa-Alameda Counties Food Bank all year long, but especially going into the holidays. The San Francisco Bay area has some of the highest housing costs in the country and many people are stretched very thin to pay for everything after rent, and food is sometimes not as plentiful as folk would like. Besides the basics, I also make a point of donating extra items, including one or two frozen turkeys when they go on sale -- which they will be between now and Christmas.

Going In
The first thing to go in is two 1 lb bags of rice, to replace the 3 lb bag. My local Discount Grocery had 1 lb bags of brown rice priced at $0.69, so I bought 10! I like the idea of smaller, separate bags of food that can be swapped in or traded for something else if needed.

I will be buying the rest of the replacement items one or two at a time when I do my normal shopping this month.

The Takeaway

• My financial situation still isn't good enough to start converting my stored food over to freeze-dried or other long shelf-life food, so using conventional items is still essential. 
• Since the idea behind using several 5 gallon buckets was to make them easily portable and shareable, having quality food that others are confident of a must. 
• In an emergency, knowing you have food you can trust is one less thing to worry over.

Recap

• Purchased from my local Discount Grocery store: 10x 1 lb bags of brown rice, $0.69 each, for a total of $6.90.

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If you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.