Acquiring Food - Part 4

Now that I have chosen a menu, calculated the ingredients and taken an inventory of what I already have it is time to calculate what I need to acquire. This seems VERY overwhelming, especially if you are like me and start running totals in your head...48 lbs. of chicken at $1.70 per lb. (if I get it on sale) equals $81.60...yikes! That's just one ingredient on this big list. (I will be talking about canning meats in a later post...you don't need to buy another freezer!)

Step #4 - Acquiring Food

Now we need to determine how much we need by subtracting the total we need from what we have. I fill in my third column in my list that I created when I took an inventory which is "What We Need". Because I have a list of what I need, I can now watch for sales and buy what I need when it is priced decently. I often take my food storage spiral notebook with me when I shop so that I can remember how many I need of the items I might want to buy.

Take a deep breath! You can do this over time. I decided to take $10 a week...that's just $40 a month...and in the last month I was able to buy...

• 36 small cans of tomato sauce = $7.50 (25 cents each)
• 12 cans of diced tomatoes = $7.08 (59 cents each)
• 8 cans of cream of mushroom soup = $5.52 (69 cents each)
• 8 cans of cream of chicken soup = $5.52 (69 cents each)
• 8 cans of cream of celery soup = $5.52 (69 cents each)
• 12 16oz boxes of rigatoni noodles = $10.68 (89 cents each)

Total = $41.82

Money? What is that?
Finding the money to acquire our food storage is overwhelming to me. Since Mike was laid-off almost 2 years ago, money has been...shall we say...more than just "tight". We make a little bit more than half what we made 2 years ago. That is a big difference! Some things we have had to do to make ends meet, pay down our debt, and buy food storage.

• Downsize our home - we actually live in a larger home in Missouri than our Queen Creek home for less money...because it is a Duplex. A bit of a sacrifice for us, but it saves us over $150 a month. I would love to live in a regular home again, but this has made life quite a bit easier.
• Got rid of paid TV (it's free on the Internet anyway - hulu.com, channelsurfing.net.)
• Got rid of a home phone (we paid $40 for one year of MagicJack)
• Reduce eating out - Mike and I pretty much eat out once every two months for a date and we try to use "buy one, get one" coupons.
• Reduce our heating/cooling costs - we have turned down/up our thermostats by one or two degrees. It took a couple weeks to adjust, but we are now comfortable at the changed temperature. We also keep our thermostat very low in the winter over night. We have plenty of blankets.
• Reduce classes, clubs, and sports - Our kids are very talented, but we decided that it is more important to feed them and be debt free than to participate in costly events. They have ONE thing each that they participate in and those are often chosen very carefully.
• Make homemade items as much as possible - we are having another homemade Christmas this year. Last year was a big success!
• Use cheap cleaning products - except for the dishwasher and clothes washer, we use bleach or vinegar for all of our cleaning. I do have some items I got for practically free with couponing. Also, I have learned we can use less than half of what the product recommends and still have clean dishes and clothes.
• Go without! - There are many things we had grown accustomed to that we have given up. I am careful how much I drive, we cut our own hair as much as possible, I stopped coloring my hair, etc.