Long term food storage questions

My New Year's resolution is to begin a year long gathering of food. This would be for my wife and I no children. My goal is to do it slowly with a weekly budget of around $5.00 not including water. Certainly there will be weeks that I spend more when I find sales that are too good to pass up and I'll be using cupons when I can.
Storage is not an issue, I have shelves in both my basement and garage for this. Note: garage is unheated and I'm in the midatlantic states where we do get freezing temps and high heat throughout the year.
I have quite a few questions:
1. What are the best/least expensive methods for storing food? I'm concerned about things like rice/pasta/flour/salt etc.
2. What is the average shelf life for canned goods?
3. Does anyone have an Excell file that they are using for inventory control?
Will probably have lots more questions as I go along.
Thanks for your help.

Here's a site that may answer most of your questions:

http://www.survival-center.com/foodfaq/ff1-toc.htm

Sue

One of the best method for storing grains is using food grade 5 gallon buckets with tight lids lined with a mylar bag and oxygen absorbers. I've leafed through the book Food Storage and Survival by Peggy Layton and it's a good place to start.

Frankie