Acquiring Food

Now that I have chosen a menu, calculated the ingredients and taken an inventory of what I already have it is time to calculate what I need to acquire. This seems VERY overwhelming, especially if you are like me and start running totals in your head...48 lbs. of chicken at $1.70 per lb. (if I get it on sale) equals $81.60...yikes! That's just one ingredient on this big list. (I will be talking about canning meats in a later post...you don't need to buy another freezer!)

Step #4 - Acquiring Food

Now we need to determine how much we need by subtracting the total we need from what we have. I fill in my third column in my list that I created when I took an inventory which is "What We Need". Because I have a list of what I need, I can now watch for sales and buy what I need when it is priced decently. I often take my food storage spiral notebook with me when I shop so that I can remember how many I need of the items I might want to buy.

Take a deep breath! You can do this over time. I decided to take $10 a week...that's just $40 a month...and in the last month I was able to buy...

• 36 small cans of tomato sauce = $7.50 (25 cents each)
• 12 cans of diced tomatoes = $7.08 (59 cents each)
• 8 cans of cream of mushroom soup = $5.52 (69 cents each)
• 8 cans of cream of chicken soup = $5.52 (69 cents each)
• 8 cans of cream of celery soup = $5.52 (69 cents each)
• 12 16oz boxes of rigatoni noodles = $10.68 (89 cents each)

Total = $41.82