amom23
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,409
Jun 27, 2014 12:39:18 GMT
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Post by amom23 on Apr 2, 2022 21:18:20 GMT
We are a family of 2-5 depending on if the kids are home and I keep probably somewhere around 1 month worth of food in the house. We've been buying a 1/2 cow each Fall so have extra meat in the freezer. I feel like we have plenty of food on hand and if we had more I don't think I'd probably be able to rotate through it before it expired.
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christinec68
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,384
Location: New York, NY
Jun 26, 2014 18:02:19 GMT
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Post by christinec68 on Apr 2, 2022 21:33:01 GMT
On average, we have 2-3 weeks of fresh & frozen food and but a decent amount of shelf stable foods.
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Gennifer
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,171
Jun 26, 2014 8:22:26 GMT
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Post by Gennifer on Apr 2, 2022 21:48:54 GMT
Right now, probably only a month or so for our family of 7, but we do big pantry stock-ups twice a year. We are due for one, just waiting until we can drive all the way to our house and not transport in the sxs.
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Post by katlady on Apr 2, 2022 22:01:43 GMT
I don’t have a big food storage. I probably only have enough meat for 1-2 weeks on hand. The pantry could probably last us a month, barely. Lol! At the beginning of the pandemic, I probably stocked up on the most food ever (as empty nesters). That has slowly dwindled down to our “normal”.
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breetheflea
Drama Llama
Posts: 6,381
Location: PNW
Jul 20, 2014 21:57:23 GMT
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Post by breetheflea on Apr 2, 2022 22:05:03 GMT
Probably two weeks or so. I have two teenagers and a preteen, if I try to stock up on anything edible they will find it and inhale it...
I don't have a pantry and had a bad garage mice experience so I'm limited on where I can put things.
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Post by grammadee on Apr 2, 2022 22:11:19 GMT
Depends on what it is...
Vegetables for the year are harvested in the late summer/early fall. (Potatoes & carrots & onions in cellar storage, peas and beans and corn frozen, beets and cucumbers sealed into jars...) We also have pureed pumpkin and shredded zucchini in the freezer.
Beef is a once-a-year butcher and stored in the freezer. Chickens we batch buy from a local farmer three times a year. Other meats we buy when on sale, eat some fresh, and freeze the rest. All non parishibles are purchased when on sale and stored in the pantry or basement storage room.
We buy fresh salad veggies, bananas, and milk each week. Apples and oranges we replenish when they are gone, but they might stay in the fridge for up to several weeks. Bread we stock up on about once a month, again freezing what we don't eat fresh.
My kids say if there is a natural disaster they are all coming home cuz they know they won't starve...
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Oct 7, 2024 7:24:02 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 2, 2022 23:40:15 GMT
We live rural and things are very expensive in our small town. With Covid - and now gas prices, we decided to keep more things on hand than normal. We have a pantry area in our kitchen that stays well stocked - a fridge/ freezer in our garage that keeps extra dairy products and meal prepped foods - the freezer has fruits and veggies and a small amount of "junk" freezer meals. We also have a chest freezer in the basement (we get a quarter cow every year) for most of our meats and have some shelving with canned goods and some back up baking ingredients. We go to the nearest big town once or so a month to get what we need.
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Post by tealpaperowl on Apr 3, 2022 0:22:42 GMT
How do you go about buying a "whole cow"? I've heard several say that but I'm not sure how - or if it's offered where I live.
We are a family of 4. Hubby, me, DS who is turning 20 this month and DS who is turning 18 next month. They eat A LOT. Then they have friends over LOL!
I grocery shop weekly and do a big shopping at BJ's monthly. I'd say there is a solid 10 days of food in the house/pantry.
We have a storage room of stuff and an extra upright freezer in there so we stock quite a bit!
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gensmith
Full Member
Posts: 168
Jun 2, 2020 8:49:08 GMT
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Post by gensmith on Apr 3, 2022 0:28:08 GMT
Not big at all. Probably a couple weeks worth. It’s not something I ever worried about until the last couple of years.
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Post by AussieMeg on Apr 3, 2022 0:34:23 GMT
I have a TON of pantry storage but not enough freezer storage. Well, I probably do, but there's too much 'stuff' in the freezer, I can't fit another thing in there. I have a French door fridge/freezer, and our old fridge/freezer is in the garage. I keep a lot of frozen junk food (pizza, meat pies, chips, chicken tenders etc etc) for when DS is hungry and when we can't be bothered cooking. That takes up a lot of room.
There is no way I could fit a whole cow in my freezer. My MIL and I once split a whole cow, and I struggled to fit even half in the freezer, with other stuff already in there.
That being said, I'm sure I could stretch out the meat in my freezers to last 3-4 weeks.
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Post by bc2ca on Apr 3, 2022 0:41:14 GMT
I don’t have a big food storage. I probably only have enough meat for 1-2 weeks on hand. The pantry could probably last us a month, barely. Lol! At the beginning of the pandemic, I probably stocked up on the most food ever (as empty nesters). That has slowly dwindled down to our “normal”. Our second fridge died in December and we decided to see if we could survive with just one. I tend to shop every four days for fresh produce and proteins and have a limited pantry of dry and/or canned goods. I could probably stretch to a month with what we have right now but that would literally empty us out.
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Post by maryland on Apr 3, 2022 0:49:11 GMT
We are a family of 5 but our 22 yr. old has her apt., and our 24 yr. old is in grad school and 19 yr.old is in college. So it's usually just husband and myself at home. We don't have a lot of storage space, and the grocery store is a mile away and Walmart 2 miles away. It's better if I shop every 1-2 days. I waste so much food if I can't find it in the refrigerator! So I just buy what we need. We do have about 10 bags of frozen vegetables and meals and a few extra boxes of cereal.
It was so hard during the pandemic to buy 2 weeks worth of food! I had trouble meal planning for 2 weeks and we didn't have much space to store food so we put it all on our dining room table. All of us were home during the first year of the pandemic.
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Post by Spongemom Scrappants on Apr 3, 2022 1:13:38 GMT
I cook a lot so I keep a very well stocked pantry and freezer. I have two chest freezers in my basement. One stays fairly well stocked with summer veggies we put up, seafood from the coast, doves/quail from hunts, and assorted frozen foods. We bought the second freezer because we did buy a whole cow from a farmer friend and had it processed - actually we got half and my in-laws got half.
I still go to the grocery store probably 2-3 times a week though for a small amount of fresh fruits/veggies, dairy products, and bakery items.
I have no idea how long I could go on food I have on hand. But with a little creativity… probably a very long time.
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Post by Merge on Apr 3, 2022 1:19:06 GMT
No more than a week’s worth of fresh produce and dairy. We don’t tend to buy canned or frozen produce except for frozen peas and corn. I get a monthly meat box from a local farm so we tend to have a lot of meat on hand - a few months’ worth at least. Pantry could last quite a while with creativity, but I don’t go out of my way to stock up.
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Post by busy on Apr 3, 2022 1:33:09 GMT
If we *had* to, we could probably feed ourselves for a 2-3 months with what we have on hand. Definitely would not be our preferred way of eating, as we rely heavily on fresh produce, but we’ve got a pretty good supply of pantry staples and a fair bit in the freezer too. We used to have a lot more in the freezer but we started feeding Otto a raw diet and now half of our garage freezer, half of our kitchen freezer, and all of a drink-sized fridge are devoted to his various foodstuffs. He eats about four pounds of fresh food a day, so we could only feed him for about a month with what we have on hand.
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Post by Laurie on Apr 3, 2022 1:41:24 GMT
We have one of those large metal shelving units in our basement that is full of food and personal care items. We began doing this at the start of the pandemic so we could limit our trips to the store. We live in a very small town so our store is limited in items so we usually have to drive an hour away for groceries, Costco and Sam’s. We were keeping our trips to once a month. We ended up liking having basically our own little store of items we use so we are still maintaining that level.
For meat we get half of a cow in the fall and then our other half will probably be ready shortly. To the pea that asked how you find someone we live in a rural community where there are a lot of farmers so for us it is easy. If you know any farmers reach out to them. If they don’t have cattle I am sure they know someone who does.
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Post by jenna on Apr 3, 2022 1:45:47 GMT
Roughly 1-2 months worth of freezer food -- aka meats and frozen veggies.
Pastas and rices are more like 3-6 months? We get the big 25lb bags of rice and have large storage containers for it, and I stock up on dry pastas whenever I head to trader joes as that's our favorite. Canned tomato products (diced/sauce/paste) are also a good 3-6 months worth.
Dairy is about a month-- that's usually how long until we need to head back to Costco for cheese/milk.
The main fruit we buy are clementines and apples and the bags I get last us a good 2-4 weeks depending on who's eating them. Fresh berries are gotten weekly for parfaits/yogurt.
Veggies are maybe a weeks worth at a time.
If push came to shove we could life off homemade spaghetti for a while.
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Post by melanell on Apr 3, 2022 2:08:11 GMT
Not very big at all. We typically have two week's worth of food on hand, but the 2nd week would be rough if we didn't go shopping. If pushed, I guess what we have could go to 3 weeks because we do always have various flours, grains, pastas, nuts/seeds/dried fruits, oatmeal, dried beans, & rice in our pantry and those things can feed you for awhile. But our freezer isn't well stocked at all right now. It's full of crap, really. A bunch of non-food items live in there---ice cube trays, the bowl of the ice cream maker, tubes for making popsicles, so many freezer packs! So yeah, our freezer is a hot mess. Our fridge holds mostly dairy & fresh produce and so we empty that save for condiments pretty much every week. During the actual winter we tend to be better stocked up, because of the possibility of bad weather.
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Sarah*H
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,015
Jun 25, 2014 20:07:06 GMT
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Post by Sarah*H on Apr 3, 2022 2:17:32 GMT
3-6 months on meat. Produce is pretty lean right now - I still have peppers, tomatoes and pesto I froze in the fall so that would get us through at least a month. And if I had to start baking bread or making pasta, there is probably enough flour to do that for a month.
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Post by crazy4scraps on Apr 3, 2022 2:31:51 GMT
How do you go about buying a "whole cow"? I've heard several say that but I'm not sure how - or if it's offered where I live. We are a family of 4. Hubby, me, DS who is turning 20 this month and DS who is turning 18 next month. They eat A LOT. Then they have friends over LOL! I grocery shop weekly and do a big shopping at BJ's monthly. I'd say there is a solid 10 days of food in the house/pantry. We have a storage room of stuff and an extra upright freezer in there so we stock quite a bit! We usually will buy half or a quarter of a cow at a time from the butcher shop in a small town near our lake cabin. For us it’s way, WAY cheaper to buy meat this way if you have the freezer space to store it. Sometimes they don’t have enough people to split one so we have to wait until they do. We have a chest freezer, an upright freezer, two full sized refrigerators, two tall pantry cabinets and shelf space in our mudroom where we have some overstock of certain things. We usually shop for fresh stuff weekly but if push came to shove we could go for quite a while with just what we have on hand.
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valincal
Drama Llama
Southern Alberta
Posts: 5,768
Jun 27, 2014 2:21:22 GMT
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Post by valincal on Apr 3, 2022 3:09:55 GMT
I live in a condo apartment in a large city so I don’t have room for food storage nor is it something I worry about.
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Post by iteach3rdgrade on Apr 3, 2022 3:18:00 GMT
My dh is slowly collecting a lot of freeze dried foods that last around 20-30 years. In 2019 I teased him about his need to stock up on a few items, but he was right. He's expecting food to get expensive. We need a freezer chest so we can start collecting meats before the cost goes too high.
We aren't get at stocking up on weekly groceries and not wasting things. We need to be better about it, but we've run out of room.
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maryannscraps
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,791
Aug 28, 2017 12:51:28 GMT
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Post by maryannscraps on Apr 3, 2022 12:33:23 GMT
Not much at all. My fridge/freezer are almost empty. My pantry is almost empty. I probably couldn't eat for a week out of there.
We just finished a kitchen remodel, and I haven't bothered to stock up on anything. I shop every couple days. It's just two of us, and we just don't eat all that much.
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Post by mikklynn on Apr 3, 2022 12:40:52 GMT
I could easily live a month on what I have here, probably two. I have a freezer that is just a bit larger than a dryer, perfect for one or two people, plus my regular refrigerator/freezer, and a small bar refrigerator for beverages.
I am trying to use up as much as I can before I move in May, rather than buy anything more.
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kibblesandbits
Pearl Clutcher
At the corner of Awesome and Bombdiggity
Posts: 3,305
Aug 13, 2016 13:47:39 GMT
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Post by kibblesandbits on Apr 3, 2022 15:56:38 GMT
I'm not even sure we could get through a week - I have a real tendency to hoard food and I'm working on that issue. I used to food shop for entertainment. For the past few months, I've made a meal plan and strict list and stick to it. I shop 1x a week for general groceries, then stop at a butcher twice a week for meats. There's only two of us at home right now.
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milocat
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,570
Location: 55 degrees north in Alberta, Canada
Mar 18, 2015 4:10:31 GMT
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Post by milocat on Apr 3, 2022 16:14:57 GMT
How do you go about buying a "whole cow"? I've heard several say that but I'm not sure how - or if it's offered where I live. We've boughten a 4H steer (the sale is coming up beginning of June here). We've boughten off a farmer. You can buy right from some places that do the processing. I live an hour from the city. We have 2 small grocery stores here, one in my village and one in the town 10 minutes away. I stock up so I don't have to go to the city as often, because winter is 7 months long, because I cook every meal from scratch and you need groceries for that. I've also always extra had personal care items, toilet paper, garbage bags etc on hand. The amount depends on how much the item is used and if it has an expiry date. I have no idea how long I could go for, a week the fresh produce would run out, a couple more and any good meal combinations would be gone. A few more weeks if you were desperate and couldn't get anymore food and all you had left were wierd combinations of things oatmeal and shrimp on the side, canned tomatoes and some almonds but I guess you'd still be eating something becuase there would still be some food in the pantry and freezer.
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Post by grammadee on Apr 3, 2022 16:33:16 GMT
How do you go about buying a "whole cow"? I've heard several say that but I'm not sure how - or if it's offered where I live. Easier in a rural area where you can purchase directly from the farmer. Our nephew accepts orders until late fall when he ships the year's calves to market. He then keeps the ordered animals over the winter, feeding them hay and chopped oats. He has appointment(s) with a local butcher (gov't ceritified) and delivers the ordered animals there. The purchaser then picks up the meat, cut & wrapped, from the butcher and pay for those fees. Their payment to my nephew is based on a per lb rate set in the fall and the weight info that the butcher provides.
Often families combine their order, so one animal (300 to 600 lbs of meat) would be divided up among households. But it is paid for as one animal to both the farmer and the butcher.
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Post by katlady on Apr 3, 2022 17:48:16 GMT
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Post by ntsf on Apr 3, 2022 18:21:56 GMT
I have a small kitchen.. and only have a couple of cupboards for food storage. I have a small stash of backpacking meals in the basement.
we rarely eat beef.. so no cows. no extra appliances. we could eat for 2-3 weeks at least.
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Post by ~summer~ on Apr 3, 2022 18:25:28 GMT
Not big. I go to the store every few days. We have fresh vegetables and fruit for only a few days. Meat for maybe 5-7 days. Could live off beans and rice for I’m not sure maybe a couple weeks. My parents however have huge pantry plus 2 freezers plus a deep freezer and I swear they have casseroles and frozen meals in there that could last for months. If we hit the apocalypse we will head over there!
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