How To Start A Food Prepper Pantry

Starting a prepper pantry is easy! If you can shop and go to the grocery store then you can start a prepper pantry. There are several different types of pantries: some for long term food storage and others a working pantry.

I use our family’s pantry as a working pantry. So we are constantly rotating food when we run out of something in our everyday pantry then we go to our food prepper pantry. When I use something from our prepper pantry we use the item that is close to the best use by date (also known as the expiration date).

Some people choose to can their own foods using jars. This is a skill that I do plan on learning one day. I really do wish that I learned from my Grandmother’s. I remember seeing their jars beautifully lined up on their shelves.

This option may be the healthiest option when stockpiling food for long term pantries. It also has a learning curve that will take some time to develop. What I would do, is to put this on one of my prepping to-do lists to be sure to learn. We will discuss the prepper to-do list in another post.

But to get started right away, I want to share with you how I got started and how you can start today as well. I just wanted to give you a heads up just in case you enjoy only fresh foods.

Let’s Begin!

I will give you some homework to do at the end. So be sure to take notes and grab your FREE Prepper Pantry List Printable down below.

Take An Assessment

Part of this is really simple: Just take an assessment or inventory of what you and your family already eat.

What could be challenging is: How much do they consume within a certain time frame? And then how much you need in order to have a stockpile for your family for a certain particular timeframe.

GRAB YOUR ULTIMATE PREPPER PANTRY WORKBOOK TO HELP YOU GET STARTED STEP BY STEP

Ultimate Prepper Pantry Workbook | 37 Pages – How To Build A Prepper Pantry Guide | Emergency Preparedness – Planner – DIGITAL DOWNLOAD

CLICK HERE FOR THE PREPPER PANTRY WORKBOOK

Create A Goal

With creating a prepper pantry or a working stockpile pantry ask yourself what is your goal?

Do you just want to have just a few canned goods in case the power goes out or if a storm comes through for example a hurricane?

Or do you want to have enough food for your family, if they could not go out for an entire month on hand?

Possibly enough food for six months to get you and your family by if someone was to lose their job tomorrow.

FEMA and The Red Cross recommend having at least a two-food supply on hand in case of an emergency. Homeland security recommends a 3 day supply.

Set a goal for yourself!

• 2-week pantry stock up
• 1 month
• 3 months
• 6 months
• 1 year
• 5+ years

Just off of this information alone we should set a goal to have a least a 2-week emergency food pantry stockpile in our pantries.

RELATED BLOG POSTS:

What Is A Prepper Pantry? Why Everyone Should Have An Emergency Prepper Pantry

Beginners Prepper Pantry Ideas

5 Simple Techniques To Save With Coupons When You Do Not Have The Time

Set A Budget

Be sure to set a budget for each grocery trip, weekly or monthly pantry stock-ups.

With this journey, it is so easy to get carried away. Prepping and emergency food prepping are addicting. I really do feel like it is so addicting due to the fact that we are doing something beneficial for our families and ourselves. That feeling alone is exuberating!

Feel like you need everything when you are just getting started. It can get out of hand quickly and you can easily lose track of what you are spending and buying.

Don’t look around and see what others are doing and blow your budget. Stick to budget and do not spend money that you do not have.

Remember that this journey and experience is supposed to be freeing and stressful. Not a journey of stress and headache.

Find things that you can cut from your daily, weekly, or monthly expenses. A membership that you are not using for example Hulu, Netflix, gym, subscription box or etc. Eating out or getting your hair done can also be an expense that you can pause until you are able to build your emergency pantry.

Where To Shop

The next thing you want to do once you have a budget in place is where are you going to shop?

This was tricky during the pandemic where some stores had limits on items. Now that some of the restrictions have been lifted it is easier to purchase items for the pantry in larger quantities.

Aldi is one of my favorite stores to shop for groceries. They are affordable and convenient. Great for any budget! Although Aldi was one of those stores that had limits at one time. Just keep that in mind just in case limits ever come back around.

Walmart is another great store to shop to build your prepper pantry. Some of their can goods are actually cheaper than Aldi and you can get as many as you like. Depending on the day or time the selection may be slim.

Dollar Tree is a great place to also build your emergency pantry. Although a lot of their non-perishables can be purchased elsewhere for cheaper. Dollar Tree has lots of non-food items that are great for building your stock.

Warehouse Stores are great to build your stockpile quicker because you can purchase in bulk. I love warehouse stores. It doesn’t matter which store it is Sam’s, BJ’s, or Costco. I enjoy shopping with them all. I do not enjoy the price tag at the register but building our pantry faster was a big convenience.

Amazon is also a great resource. Finding hard-to-find items also helps eliminate multiple trips to the stores. And they seem to have everything!

Buy What You Normally Eat

Purchase what you and your family normally eat firsts. Build your regular pantry and cabinets first. You want to build up your regular pantry before stocking and building an extended pantry.

Once you have your regular pantry built then you can work on an extended food prepper pantry.

Buy what you eat and eat what you store. Do not get caught up with what other people purchase for themselves and their families. If you do not like potted meat and corn beef hash do not purchase them. If you like tuna and salmon stock up on that instead. When you are shopping and want to try something for the first time pick up just a few and try it to see if you and the family will like it.

Build Your Staples

Once you have built your regular pantry then it is time to purchase items for your extended pantry. These are the staples that will help sustain your family and yourself if you have to go without going to the grocery store for a set period of time (that you have chosen to stock up for your family ex. 3, 6, or 12 months).

Stock Medicines & First Aid Supplies

We can not forget about our medicines and first aid kit and supplies. This is important in case someone gets sick, injured or just to stay healthy.

You want to make sure you have an extra supply of any prescription medications or any medical supplies that you may need for any equipment that you may have.

Dollar Tree is a great place to pick up a lot of your supplies to stock your medical and first aid preps, especially if you are on a budget.

If you have a health flex card or savings account this is a great time to use some of it to stock up on these items.

Also if you know how to coupon at stores such as CVS and Walgreens stocking up with their sales, reward programs, and coupon deals. I have a post here that will help you get started with couponing if you are short on time.

Stock Personal Care Items

Don’t forget your personal care items for your family. Although in some cases we probably will survive/live without personal care items for a short or long period of time. Nevertheless having these items make our lives easier and more comforting.

I remember having to wash dishes with laundry detergent, using kitchen hand towels when I was frying bacon (or etc.), and needing to get some of the grease off of it. I remember having to use paper towels or having to take a shower (sorry TMI) when we ran out of toilet paper. Or running out of body soap and using some sort of body wash ( I am not sure why we always had body wash but ran out of soap. LOL!)

I will never forget the feeling of wishing I could buy items in bulk…it all seemed like a dream at the moment. This is one of the reasons why couponing was and is important to me and my family because I still remember that feeling.

Don’t forget to download the FREE Prepper Pantry Checklist HERE for more ideas to help stock your stockpile. Please do not let the list overwhelm you. Purchase what you use, need, and within your budget. You may not need everything on the list.

Find Resources

When I didn’t know what was my next step, a lot of my support and tips came from my YouTube friends. Their comments helped me tremendously!

Also, I love to read more information on anything new that I am trying to learn. So I headed over to Amazon in search of any books that would help with building a prepper pantry.

I ordered several, some about gardening, canning, dehydrating, cooking books, freezer meals, and food storage.

This post may consist of affiliate links. It doesn’t cost anything to you, just a small portion helps support my blog. Thanks in advance.

My favorite books I feel everyone should have if they have or want to build a prepper pantry are:

• Prepper’s Pantry: Build a Nutritious Stockpile
• A Year Without the Grocery Store: A Step by Step Guide to Acquiring, Organizing, and Cooking Food Storage
• A Year Without the Grocery Store Companion Workbook
• Store This, Not That!: The Quick and Easy Food Storage Guide Paperback

Above are my favorite books so far that I had time to read. I am sure all of the other books are great I just need to sit and read them. They all are great resources that helped me with my journey and books that I will refer back to when I have a question about something.

Your journey to start an emergency food pantry is YOUR journey and no one else!! Take your time and work according to your budget! One item at a time with consistency will get you to your goal of a well-stocked emergency pantry.

We are going to continue on this journey to help you build your emergency stockpile together. I have an entire playlist on my channel that you can watch. But we will continue on this journey by going more in-depth.

Homework

So your homework for today is to just take an assessment of what you and your family normally eat and use, also take note of how often you all go through them. This may take some time to actually figure out how soon you go through a certain item and that is ok. Don’t let that stop you from starting. Just remember to take note of it. Use a dry erase board somewhere in your kitchen to keep track of it.

See You Next Time!

Remember There Is Always Hope!