Food Storage Made Easy..

I want to introduce you to a fabulous site I just found!  If you have ever wanted to get control of your food storage or to start your food storage then I highly recommend you come here.  This is Food Storage Made Easy and it really is that.  This site will tell you anything and everything about food storage, how to start, what you need, and how to use it.  There are even great recipes available that use your actual food storage items.  Take some time and check out their site, I promise you will find it incredible helpful.

Budgeting

So I have taken this month on as a time to budget!  I want to go over every aspect of my families budget just to see where we are at, what we can change and how we are doing.  I also want to be able to see if there is more room to save.  I decided to start and see what the national average is for my family, not because I care what everyone else spends, but I wanted to get an idea of where to start.  I Googled national average for food spending and it took me surprisingly enough to the IRS web site as they list the national standards of spending for food, clothing, household items, etc...  I usually would not even go to a site like this, but I was curious to see what it said, I almost died laughing, no kidding!  Now I really know why our country is in trouble, do they honestly think this is a true average?  See for yourself here and compare that to what you normally spend.
Now that I know what is not realistic I am doing some more research.  I think I am going to start with my food budget.  I have a family of 7 with 2 teenagers and I believe I average around $500.00 a month on food, but since I have not been keeping track the last little while I am going to do so starting now!  Also, I want to come up with a way to make dinner night easier and planned better.  I have been toying with the idea of creating a theme night.  Something along the lines of Monday night is pasta night, Tuesday night is Mexican night, etc..  I am hoping by doing this it will help with budgeting, with planning and with making dinner easier on everyone!  I also want to incorporate my garden when that is up and running this spring/summer.  I love being able to go out to the garden and pick my dinner for the evening or to incorporate it into my meals.  Nothing is better than fresh fruits and veggies and they are already paid for and certainly help in the self reliance category.  Any suggestions?  Please leave them as they might be a big help!  I will let you know what I come up with!

Beef Jerky

Part of being self sufficient is learning how to make your own food.  My family was lucky enough this year to get in on a special deer hunt.  There was an area a few hours from us that had a lot of fire this last summer and it pretty well burned up everything that was green.  The Fish and Game figured that 2-3,000 deer would starve to death this winter because of a lack of food.  So they did a special deer draw and my hubby and older boys lucked out  and all drew deer tags.  They went up one day and each came back with a deer that we processed and made all sorts of stuff out of(deerburger, steaks, stew meat, etc..).  One thing my hubby wanted to try was to make jerky, so he got on line and researched how to make it yourself.  We bought the seasoning and got the meat out, mixed the season with it, wrapped it up and then let it sit overnight in the fridge. This is what it looks like the next day. 

Next you take your meat and roll it out till it about 1/4" thick, it does not have to be pretty, just go for the correct thickness. I used wax paper to roll it out on and also on top of it while I was rolling the meat.  You then take that and use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut it into strips about 1 1/2". It should look something like this.

Put the strips on a cookie sheet, they can be close together!  Use a spatula to lift the meat onto the cookie sheets, it makes it much easier.

Next you put these in the oven at 250* for 2-3 hours. I did a few cookie sheets at the same time.

When the timer goes off, you want to check for moisture, there should not be much either on the meat or on the cookie sheet.

Let your jerky sit out overnight to finish drying. The next day, place it in baggies or an air tight container. This must be eaten soon(1-2 weeks) as it wont last as long as the jerky you buy in the stores. Its also a good idea to keep it in the fridge.  You can tell if its going bad because it will start getting white little spots on the jerky.

Play around with the seasonings as there are many different varieties. We have tried some that we really like and some that we will never try again, so just experiment with them and see what you like!

You can also do this on a food dehydrator, just follow the instructions for drying times.

Prepardness Deals Coming Soon!

There are some great emergency perpardness deals coming on MarkDown.com.  If you are not familiar with how this site works let me explain.  There is a deal of the day and it usually has about 80 hours that it is up on the site but it can also sell out, which ever comes first is when the deal ends.

The past couple of items have all been preardness deals and this next week is no exception.  Yesterday they had those great reusable canning lids, they sold out twice in one day and within just a few hours!  Starting on Monday and through almost the rest of the month they will have the following:

Monday, January 16th-Thursday, January 19th:  MyPatriotSupply -  3 bottles of Potassium Iodate and a $20 voucher to MyPatriotSupply.com
No one believed the Titanic would sink. No one thought it was even possible. A nuclear explosion is a possibility. Protect yourself from harmful radiation with Potassium Iodate. This Markdown also includes a $20 voucher to MyPatriotSupply.com!

Thursday, January 19th-Monday January 23rd: Freeze Dry Guy - Food rations, fire starter, water filter and more!

You'll love the emergency preparedness options offered by this Freeze Dry Guy Markdown. From an 84 Serving Entrée and Breakfast "Bug Out" Hardy size Food Kit to a Sparkie fire starter and a 50 gallon water filter, Freeze Dry Guy will keep you safe. Freeze Dry Guy will provide the necessities you need to quench your thirst, keep you warm and feed your family.

Monday, January 23rd: Berkey Water Bottle – 2 Berkey Water Bottles including a built in filtration system

You likely already have a water bottle, but can your bottle filter dirty water, chemicals and other materials out of your drinking water? With Berkey Water Bottles – you’ll always have clean water. Whether you’re heading out to hike in unchartered territory or want to be prepared in case of an emergency – Berkey Water Bottles will deliver clean, fresh water – 100% of the time.

You will have to hurry on these things those and they may go quickly.  Just go to http://www.markdown.com/
and register.  Remember it was not raining when Noah built the ark, so prepare now!

Greek Starvation Recipes

If you have been following what has been happening in Greece, then you know its a bad situation and that we in the United States are being told that we are embarking on the same path.

One thing I learned about not having much money is that you have to get creative with food because its one of the largest expenses usually in your budget(depending of course on the number of mouths you feed). Yes, we did go on food stamps for 6 months but during that time I wanted to make the most of what I was given and be very conservative with what I had.

The other day I heard on one of our local AM radio shows Austin Hill about a cook book that recently came out in Greece called "Starvation Recipes". Fun title I know but as I did some more research on it and read the following article at the Blaze. The recipes in this book are ones that were used during the second World War, when people in Europe were quite literally starving to death and rationing everything they had as well as becoming quite creative on food.

Times were tough for them and it really got me thinking on what if that happened here or what if I had no money again and there was no food stamps, what would I do? Now I know there are other ways to get food right now besides food stamps, there are churches, food banks, etc.. But as I read on why this women created this book and especially why its selling out in Greece, it got me thinking again on why its important to be prepared and to be frugal, maybe not as extreme as this right now, but you never know do you? Also, what if it happens one day that there are no more food stamps, no more churches or food banks giving out food, what would you do to feed your family?

I also wanted to share a site that I found that is called Cooking Economy, you should really check it out! It goes along similar lines as the cookbook but not to the extreme! I really want to try some of the recipes on there, they look pretty good and I really believe it would be a good idea to know how to make some of these meals.

That said, how is your food storage?

Do you have enough food in your pantry to last your family for a little while? I will be talking more latter about how you can easily put together a 90 days worth of meals. These have been tried out, bought and tested and it wont break the bank! Did you know that most grocery stores only have enough on their shelves and in their store rooms to last for 3 days! In an emergency or a run on the stores those shelves and the store for that matter are cleared out in a matter of hours! Bottom line is to have enough food in your home to last for a little while but will touch more on that as I said latter.

See what you think about both and leave me a message!