*Updated November 2020* – This post may contain affiliate links. Read my affiliate link disclosure here
So many people ask me how to stockpile and how I planned and built our food storage so quickly. So I tell them… read my book. Joking! Then I explain to them how I did it, and that I wrote a book about it to make it easy for others.
I know books cost money and take time to read, so I condensed it down for you. As a result, below is the quick and condensed version of how to stockpile 3 months of food in 1 year.
FREE CLASS! How to build a food storage you’ll actually eat. Sign up here.
How to Stockpile enough food for 3 months
1. Plan
First I made a plan. You want to plan out 7 different breakfasts and dinners that are similar. Also, include bread and PB&J for lunch. (My Favorite Home Made Bread Recipe) Here is a list of 100+ food storage recipes that can help you find meals that you already eat, and have already been easily converted for food storage.
After you plan out what meals you want, you’ll need to create a shopping list for ALL the ingredients. This will be a very long shopping list… which is why having meals with similar ingredients will help. Here are some of my long-term food storage meal plans.
FREE CLASS! How to build a food storage you’ll actually eat. Sign up here.
2. Math
Next, you will want to multiply everything on the shopping list by 12… Which is 12 weeks or 3 months. This is where things can start to get tricky. You’ll want to have everything in the right measurements. Make sure all of your oil is for cup or Tablespoons. Be sure to include water needed to boil stuff as well.
***Quick Tip: This post does does everything for you, with recipes included to stock pile 3 months of food in one year.***
The blog post above will also give you some ideas of what I’m talking about for shopping lists, recipes, and how I divided the shopping up over a year’s time.
3. Collect
Next you will want to start collecting food. I found it best to keep the shopping list on my phone and deleted things as I bought them. Whenever I went grocery shopping I made sure to buy 1-5 items on the list (depending on my budget for the week).
After I ran out of small items to buy, I started collecting the big items and bought 2-3 big price items at a time.
On my 1 Year Food Storage Challenge, I divided it all up into $115 a month. This allowed me to buy your WHOLE 3 month supply of food in a year.
I originally only spent about $25 a month collecting food, then I would save extra from our tax refund or bonus pay checks to buy the more expensive items in bulk.
FREE CLASS! How to build a food storage you’ll actually eat. Sign up here.
Now what?
Well, when you start with a plan, you now know exactly WHAT meals you can cook when an emergency arises! This is AMAZING because you will already be stressed out about what to make for dinner and that decision will already be done!
In the process of collecting your food, you will be using it. So it’s important to continue to use those baking items and canned food in your everyday cooking. When you use an item, add it to your grocery list. This allows the money to come from your basic grocery budget, and you are replenishing your supply. Be sure to read about the uncomfortable truths about food storage to have an idea of what you need to prepare for.
What meals do you have in your 3 month supply?
Further Reading
#1 Food Storage Tip from the Experts
5 Steps to Start your Food Storage
7 Tips for Picking Food Storage Meals
How to Use your Food Storage… yes, you should be using it.
You can also check out my Shop, I have 7 different meal plans including breakfast or dinner options already planned out with shopping lists included for 1 week, 1 month, or 3 months.
Readers Comments:
“Rotate foods near the end of their shelf life by using them in your kitchen and adding fresh foods to the stockpile.”- DragonCityHacksAndCheats
As always, if you love what you read or have found it helpful, please PIN, share or comment below.
You can also like my Facebook page to get updates or subscribe to my email list.
Thanks for reading!
6 thoughts on “How to Stockpile 3 Months of Food in One Year”
So how can you quickly build up a stockpile with at least three months of food for you and your family on the cheap?
It depends on how much you are able to spend on it. The type of food I use (mostly canned, but some Freeze Dried) is pretty cheap, I would say, if I only had about $20 a month to spend on food, it would probably take 6-12 months (since the FD meat is expensive). If you want to do ONLY canned food, and frozen for your 3 month supply it would be cheaper and would probably only take a bout 6 months. If you have about $300 to put down at once, then you can buy it all at one time. It all depends on what type of food, and how much you can spend on it at a time.
In just 10 weeks, spending $20 a week, you can have a stockpile of food that will last your family several months.
Thats true. Think about it. If you drink one $4 drink a day, 5 days a week, that’s $20 a week. Take that drink out and put it towards your food stockpile.
Rotate foods near the end of their shelf life by using them in your kitchen and adding fresh foods to the stockpile.
Thanks, great article.