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The 4 Moms are talking about food storage for large families this week, and we are inviting you to link up your food storage ideas.
We have a fair sized pantry in our kitchen where we keep our canned and dry goods that we use most.
And my husband recently added these shelves in our well room, which houses the well pump, which is attached to our garage, which is not attached to our house, where we keep our surplus items. (Did you get all that???)
My husband loves to do the grocery shopping and whenever he finds a good sale, he will stock up. His idea is that if I am reaching into our pantry for something I need, and I find that I am out, instead of going to the grocery store, I can just step out to the well room.
These are 20 pound bags of beans and rice. He also wants to make sure that we are prepared if we ever go through a time of need like we did when he was unexpectedly laid off.
We also have an extra refrigerator and a chest freezer out there where we try to always keep 5 gallons of milk (we are heavy drinkers) and meats that have been given to us or picked up on sale.
For instance, when my friend and fellow 4 Moms team member, Kim from Life in a Shoe, came to visit, she brought me lots and lots of chicken. We put it right in the extra freezer and have been able to use it as we needed it. We were also given lots of butter during our layoff, and we stored that in the well room refrigerator.
And NOW, it is your turn! How do you handle food storage? Small pantry? Garage shelving? Under the bed storage?
Here’s how the rest of The 4 Moms team does it:
And here’s how you can link up:
1. You must link to a specific relevant post on your blog.
2. Your post must include a link to at least one of the 4 Moms.
3. Your blog post must be completely family friendly.
If your link is deleted, you probably didn’t follow one of the rules above. Please feel free to add your link again once you have fixed the problem. If you don’t know why your link was deleted, please ask.
Did you know some of The 4 Moms were nominated for Homeschool Blog Awards? Here’s the rundown on who was nominated for what:
- Raising Olives: Best Mom Homeschool Blog, Favorite Family or Group blog, Super homeschooler, and Nitty Gritty
- The Common Room: Best Current Events and Politcs; Favorite Family or Group blog; and Best Variety
- Smockity Frocks: Funniest, Vloggiest, and Encouragingest
Other posts in this series
- How to Easily Cut Homemade Bread
- The 4 Moms Head to Church With 35 Kids
- 4 Moms Answer Reader Questions
- 4 Moms Teach History
- 4 Moms Eat Inexpensively While Traveling
- How To Keep Kids Still and Quiet During Worship
- 4 Moms Answer Reader Questions
- 4 Moms Reveal Where Babies Come From
- Summertime Company Meals
- How to Lose Baby Weight
- Large Family Moms Answer Your Questions
- 4 Moms Choose a Church
- Favorite Naptime or Bedtime Read Aloud Books
- Homeschooling a Child With Learning Differences
- 4 Moms Picnic Linky
- 4 Moms Announce a Book Club!
- Teaching Children Diligence
- 4 Moms Discuss Lunch Menus {Linky}
- 4 Moms Interview Kim Brenneman, Author of Large Family Logistics
- 4 Moms Discuss "Large Family Logistics"
- 4 Moms Discuss Managing the Week ~ Large Family Logistics
- 4 Moms Review Chapters 28 - 47 in Large Family Logistics
- 4 Moms Finish Reviewing "Large Family Logistics"
- The 4 Moms Keep Our Patience in the Midst of Chaos
- 4 Moms Pack a Lunch
- 4 Moms Discuss Memorizing {and 2 GIVEAWAYS}
- Keeping Up With Housework in the Midst of Homeschooling
- 4 Moms Tackle Large Projects
- 4 Moms Q & A
- Food Storage For Large Families
- Best Vehicle For a Large Family
- 4 Moms Celebrate Thanksgiving
- Preparing Children to Deal With Differing Beliefs
- Favorite Holiday Recipe {Linky}
- 4 Moms of 35 Kids Go Christmas Shopping
- 4 Moms of 35 Kids Answer Reader Questions
- How Do You Organize ALL Those Clothes?
- 4 Moms Q&A
- Encouragement For Homeschoolers
- 4 Moms Share Favorite Desserts
- 4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Your Questions
- 4 Moms Discuss Storing Keepsakes
- Ebook SALE! {Goes Live at 11:00a.m. CST}
- 4 Moms Answer Questions From Readers
- 4 Moms Make Time to Manage the Budget
- 4 Moms Manage Blogging Time
- What Do Large Families Do About Tithing, Saving for College, and Saving for Retirement?
- 4 Moms Q&A Time
- Large Family Moms Homeschool Through Chronic Illness and Pregnancy
- Large Family Moms Serve Leftovers
- Favorite Frugal Tips of Large Family Moms
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I love this post!! Seeing a nice food stockpile (instead of your garage stacked to the ceiling w/ TP, deodorant, body wash and fem. hygiene products like “extreme couponers”…) makes me happy. I have a wall in our pantry/laundry room that holds all our home-canned stuff (tomato stuff, peaches, pears, applesauce, pie filling), store-canned stuff that is bought in bulk goes down in the cellar where we also have 2 deep freezers – a HUGE upright for meat (we bought 1/2 cow this past spring and plan to buy a whole cow next spring) and a mid-sized chest for veg/frozen fruit. I’ve put stuff under the bed before, too, when I didn’t grow a garden and bought a lot of canned stuff.
I also loved see your “stash”. We also have a chest freezer and an upright freezer. I buy a half cow but I need to up it to a full cow next year if I don’t raise my own next year. Along with a normal extra fridge outside (I do cooking for my dad also don’t look at me like I am crazy) I have my good size pantry inside and then I have my stock pile in my basement which I am HOPING to one day make into it’s own room. Right now it is just open to any of the kids or hubby just walking in for a free for all. I haven’t always been a stockpiler. But I now see the error of my ways. I can’t stand to run out of stuff it is just crazy. My dad was with me yesterday when I bought 4 gallons of milk and he was like are you really going to drink that much milk I was like that is going to be gone in about 5 days. LOL..
Thanks for sharing..I really enjoyed seeing the pictures.
Great tips! Laughed out loud (for real. And I’m 30 so I cannot in good conscience type out LOL without irony) at “5 gallons of milk (we’re heavy drinkers)”. This teetotal family is a heavy drinking family too, under this definition.
{Envy} I love your pantry, I wish I had one!!
Great post! Last year when we got a rather large tax return we used a portion of it to buy lots of different kinds of beans and rice in large #10 cans. They came 6 cans to a box. The boxes just so happen to fit perfectly under our queen sized bed and became our mattress foundation. I think of these things as our emergency foundation. We eat a lot of beans and rice, though not usually together. If something happened at least I know we’d have a good basis for nutritious meals that are filling. Oh there’s also about 6 cans of powdered milk in there. The kids actually like it (miracle!) so I like knowing we could mix that in if needed.
In the kitchen I have a pantry about the size of a large bookcase. I also use a hallway closet that I put shelves in. The kitchen pantry is the stuff I use everyday, and snacks. The hallway closet I have cans, extra sauces and lots of pasta. My goal is to have two weeks of food we usually eat in the house at all times. Food that I know how to make, that we like and eat regularly. On top of that I’m trying to build up the hallway closet to have enough food to make three months worth of meal supplements. That way, if we got sick or unemployed, we’d have the base of the meals, and just need to buy fresh produce and occasional meat.
I love seeing other’s pantries! I love my pantry and don’t know how I would be able to prepare decent meals for my family without it!
I love seeing ideas for food storage! I need to collect all the ideas I can for when I have more than just my husband, my baby, and myself to feed!
Had to laugh about the butter, I remember that post……….;)
LOVE IT!!! I have a old farm house and they put in a pantry. It stays very cool and is great for our canning. We to have an old giant freezer chest someone was nice to give it to us. We also have old cupboards witch are the very best for my stock pile. I also hate to run out of anything. We have a store call Gordons and they sell to resturants love the large size stuff. Not to mention they have a discount card that gives me 10% off. Love IT. Buy the way we buy 6 gallons of milk a week. Teens love them. Have a blessed day
Hi Connie ~
Great topic for the 4 Moms to have chosen this past week. Thankful for the ladies and their followers…great ideas, resources and even laughs from time to time.
Blessings ~
Jarnette @ Seasons of Life
Love it, it also took my husband getting laid off a few yeas ago to think seriously about food storage. I do stock up on tp and soaps and toothpaste, but not the same excess as the tv show, but well, you need tp and soap and toothpaste almost as much as you need food and it can be pricey so it makes since to stock up on it if you come across a huge bargain.
I also like my outside chest freezer to be full. What I consider essential has changed too, it is amazing what an experience like that can do to one’s outlook.
I don’t have a large pantry area, but I do have enough staples to last us about three months. We keep most everything for baking in large glass jars because one year we were infested with millers and they wiped out my pantry – it was such a loss. I too like to buy things I see on great sales and keep them on hand – it is such a blessing when I’m in a hurry or don’t want to run out to the store, and it enables me to bless others more economically when they are in need. We have an extra fridge, and an upright freezer which is currently filled with our beef order. We feel very blessed.
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