2 weeks of food for under 2 bills

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Albear357

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I set out to c if I could set up a 2 week supply of food for 2 persons. My mom is elderly and bugging out may not be an option 4 me right off the bat.. I set a limit of $200.00. We'll i was able to set up a 2 week supply of food 4 3persons and came in under $175.00. This is with out taking into account water. I have a small stash of water and there is always the 50 gal water heater. The food is three meals a drink ( coffee, water mixs. And cider). I think I did well.

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    1. peachpurple Jul 3, 2017
      I must admit that you are doing pretty well for 3 persons. You could try buying fresh food on the discount display tray for cheaper items. For example, I could buy Romaine salad leaves for 0.72 cents instead of $1.99. Thus I am saving $1.20 for the veggie that could satisfy 3 people per meal. Buy bulk items when on sale. Look out for coupons and discount vouchers to be used upon checkout. Sometimes, I buy groceries online when there is a sale. I could save up to 30%.
    2. peachpurple Jul 3, 2017
      I must admit that you are doing pretty well for 3 persons. You could try buying fresh food on the discount display tray for cheaper items. For example, I could buy Romaine salad leaves for 0.72 cents instead of $1.99. Thus I am saving $1.20 for the veggie that could satisfy 3 people per meal. Buy bulk items when on sale. Look out for coupons and discount vouchers to be used upon checkout. Sometimes, I buy groceries online when there is a sale. I could save up to 30%.
    3. TexDanm Jun 28, 2017
      I don't know how long a couple of people could eat on 25 lbs of pinto beans and 25 lbs of rice and a few cans of Spam and canned hams. I always have dried beans of several kinds and rice on hands. Corn meal, powdered milk and powdered eggs last a long time and will make corn bread to go with the beans and rice. I also usually have a couple of bags of deer corn and a grain mill. Throw in a couple of gallons of lard and you are set as far as basic calories and protein. The other things can be gotten partially from vitamins and local plant life like pine needles, nettles and dandelions and such. I would throw in a bunch of BBs and a BB gun for birds to add to things and you will have food for a long time. Throw in a bunch of salt, spice, dried onions, dried vegetables and some pasta noodles and you can have some variety.

      It's not fancy and not the best but it is dirt cheap and not everyone has a lot of money. One of the hardest things people will have to adapt to if things go down the well will be the fact that for most of history food was not entertainment. Day to day people at things like mush, gruel, soups and stews. We feast almost every day by the standards of our ancestors. Think about that old rhyme "Peas porridge hot; peas porridge cold; peas porridge in the pot nine days old." The pot stayed there and each day you added what you could to it.

      Food for survival doesn't have to be gourmet meals like most of the packaged meal companies are selling for thousands of dollars. It would be nice but if you don't have the money you can still be well supplied until your first garden starts producing. Make sure that you have a good selection of seeds and you will never have to be hungry.
    4. PriscillaKing May 23, 2017
      Awww, where's the shopping list?! I can confirm about the peanut butter...Recently, while moving some furniture, I found a jar of cheap, sweet peanut butter that had been bought as bait for nuisance animals. I liked peanut butter better back when it tasted like salted peanuts rather than peanut brittle, but had thought that jar had been used up in, what, 2010? However I was out of cash and low on groceries, and it looked normal. It smelled stale but not bad. It felt, to a spoon, slightly dry but not bad. So I tasted it. Now I know why manufacturers are dumping the sweeteners into peanut butter, such that it's often more sugary than the "all fruit" jelly! The staler it gets...the sweeter!
    5. NKAWTG Feb 20, 2017
      We have a combination of freeze dried foods for long term storage, and canned foods on a rotation basis.
      Generally speaking, store what you eat. It's a simple philosophy that has served us well. We have about six months of canned goods stored up and we rotate through the stock to keep it fresh.
      Take a look a the water blog for an idea of what we do for water storage.
    6. Old Geezer Feb 19, 2017
      Prairie Dog mentions the Katydyn filter. Many agree that Katydyn has the best personal filters. Katydyn also has LARGE filtration systems, but I don't know about those. I have a Katydyn. They provide a brush to scrub the ceramic filter. The inside of the filter housing literally has a silver lining to retard bacterial growth.
    7. JimLE Feb 16, 2017
      pretty great albear357..and as you,i do for my mom as well.we spend 400 to 480 for each months primary shopping,at the beginning of each month.for a average of 100 to 120 per week..but yet i've/we've learned of less expensive food items that we enjoy.for example.we now but knorr rice and pasta sides,and great value powdered mix drink.
    8. Prairie Dog Feb 14, 2017
      Your blog sent me looking through the net for ideas in regards to long term food storage and supplies. I found a resource that I believe is quite credible. Check out the videos by Canadian Prepper on youtube, exact topic. Has a system for evaluating food with price, storability, longevity and cost that I found very good.
      Prairie Dog
    9. Prairie Dog Jan 25, 2017
      Excellent practical prepping tip. Anytime you take a thought process and see it through practical application is a good thing. In my home I have food for a 2 week period (not counting the groceries in the cupboards because they come and go). I also have a Katydyn water filtration system and alternative means of retrieving water from my well. This will ensure potable water for about 1 year (figure the Katydyn, while tough and purchased with extra filters, will break down eventually). With the well, I will not be reliant on surface water which can be contaminated many ways or removed through drought. Might be time to up my investment and ensure my non grocery food stores are increased to a couple months. Thanks for the topic, its a good one to continually re-evaluate.
      Prairie Dog
    10. Old Geezer Feb 19, 2017
      Are we talking happy survival or simple survival?
      For simple survival the following leap to mind:
      > Fill your water storage barrels. I have some of the following. These drums have standard fittings. I put a faucet on each of mine for ready pouring. If you already have chlorinated water, you needn't put any more chlorine in, ... but I have added chlorine. You can add iodine tablets if you have doubts about the water's cleanliness. Old timers used to toss silver coins into water barrels -- silver retards bacterial growth. Premium water filters are lined with silver.
      https://www.uline.com/Product/Detai...gclid=CLaZkvy8m9ICFYxKDQodVQ8F5g&gclsrc=aw.ds
      > Up in the mountains, you simply run the water that comes out the side of a mountain through an iron pipe you've driven back in there, and into the cistern in your waterhouse behind where you've built your kitchen.
      > Peanut butter lasts and lasts and lasts ...
      > Jelly, blackberry jelly has a lot of Vit. A, good for your sight, thus hunting in low light. When canning, my grandmother just put wax atop the jelly, no lid necessary if you've capped jelly with wax. As a kid, my grandmother had dozens upon dozens of cans of all manner of fruits and vegetables down in her dirt basement / root cellar.
      > Used to pick blueberries at a 5000+ ft. area of an absolutely beautiful mountain. Birds eat berries. Snakes eat birds. When picking berries, first poke at the berry bushes with your hiking cane before sticking your hand anywhere near there. Rattlesnakes, copper-heads, ..., all bad news. Keeping a lite 20 ga. or .410 shotgun with you = snake meat.
      > Spam
      > Vegatable oil
      > Whole grains with manual grinder
      > Canned beans. I love baked beans. My paternal grandmother and I used to string beans and crack them while rocking on the front porch. We'd go through I don't even know how many steel pot-fulls before canning them. We grew them down on her sister's farm.
      > We've always grown more squash than we can eat, so you slice them up, bread them, pepper them, and freeze these slices. Fry them up in oil or lard.
      > Grow peppers and onions for seasoning. My maternal grandfather and I would dig ramps in the same woods we hunted. Ramps are a wonderful substitute for onions & garlic. However your body will ooze ramp aroma for 2 or 3 days after eating a bait of food fried with ramps.
      > Salt pork. I remember the smokehouses.
      > Chicken. Everybody kept some chickens for eggs and meat.
      > Canned fish; herring, tuna, mackerel.
      > Whiskey; Helps prevent a cold from turning into pneumonia.

      Growing your own food and canning it saves bunches of money. But canned store-bought food is very, very safe and not horribly expensive. It is not as nutritious as fresh veggies of course. I'll not comment on all of the preservatives put in canned food.

      My people came from poverty and subsistence living. People didn't hop down to the grocery store. My mother's side lived up in the hollars. Provisions to them was salt, pepper, lead, gunpowder, percussion caps, canning supplies, and hardware goods. There were gunpowder makers up in the mountains (bat guano in caves), blacksmiths, lumber mills, ..., all sorts of craftsmen and craftswomen. People weaved their own blankets. If you want cheap, then get ready for some work.
      PriscillaKing likes this.