I put the SHTF bag together a while back and own a Jeep that I've built up to be able to go anywhere, paved or otherwise, that I test all the time for fun by beating the crap out of. But I had been lacking on preps for the house and am getting a small start now.

I ordered one of the Shelf Reliance 55-gallon drum kits with wrench and siphon hose, then ordered some Mountain House #10 cans. One each of the following: beef stroganoff, chicken teriyaki w/ rice, noodles & chicken, lasagna w/ meat sauce, corn, scrambled eggs w/ bacon, and apple dices.

I also added 5 cases of 16-ounce bottled water, flavor packets for them, and a new jar of freeze-dried coffee. I plan on adding another barrel every month or two until I have a 90-day supply for 3 people, and adding to the food a little at a time also.

I'm pretty happy with my start, even though it's kind of small. Just gotta keep at it,

Freeze dried foods are rather specialized; they work extremely well in situations where you are doing multiday
backpacking in a region with abundant water. You might consider adding to your current stock with conventional canned goods; your money will buy a lot more chow.

Good start....Now,each time you go to the grocery store, buy a pound bag of dried beans, peas, or brown rice. Each adds a couple of bucks to the bill, but also adds a couple of days to your survival.

FWIW I made a surprising discovery about Mountain House foods while dinking around on youtube a few days ago. A poster there had a video claiming the cans are actually more expensive than the pouches designed for backpackers. That seemed unlikely to me since bulk is usually cheaper but I hit several sites and crunched the numbers- and he's right! The cans are significantly more expensive per ounce than the pouches for every product I could find.

Now obviously sometimes the cans would still be superior; they do seem to take less space and probably will keep longer. But if you're rotating your stock to keep things fresh the pouches are a better deal (although there's not as much variety). For home use I agree that conventional canned foods should be in mix, too. They're much cheaper and there's more products. Shelf life for canned foods is actually very, very good if you store them properly.

Some years ago, I got a good deal on some #10 Mountain House cans of freeze dried food. After a few years, I decided to rotate them into use and opened them up, to find about four packets of normal backpacker meals. Somehow I thought the contents would be packed in bulk. just what is packed in the cans today? It stands to reason that if you are adding additional packaging to your normal product, the cost will rise....

I'm not sure. According to what I've read and the pics I figured they're bulk. The nutritional information makes it appear so. But I've never tried any of the cans.

You're off to a great start Red. Way to go!

Once upon a time, when we first bought our house and got the added storage space and a chest freezer, DH and I bought one of those bulk food deals, where you buy about a years worth of food and then pay it off in installments. Obviously the company made money on the interest, but the prices were better than the grocery store, so it evened out for us. The big plus was that we overstocked the pantry and freezers in one go. After that I just replaced what we ate as we ate it, and only I needed to buy was perishables. (Which we could have lived without if we had to.) Eating today at yesterday's prices, and never worrying about the next meal, even in a possible year-long emergency, gave me great piece of mind.

Then DH downsized his job, then I downsized mine, and then I lost mine. We had lots of food but stopped refiling the pantry and the freezer. We ate pretty well and everyone learned the value of our family stores. Pretty soon that stock dwindled. It never disappeared and slowly grew by doing just as these guys have said - buying a little extra each week. Some weeks it might only be a couple of tins or bags of pasta or rice, but every little bit builds your safety net. We're not back to that year supply but have gotten to about 2 months, maybe three, through that strategy over the past year so.

I don't buy freeze dried, but rather canned and frozen. Rice and pasta are also key staples for us. There's an LDS link on the forums if you try the search function, and it has a lot of great ideas to help get you started. One key thing I've learned here is to stock what your family eats. An emergency isn't the time for a menu disruption.

Here's a link to some LDS food storage information:

http://familysurvivors.com/lds-food-storage.htm

Thanks for the tips everyone. I will be augmenting it as I go with more short-term stuff like canned Chunky Soup, canned veggies and stuff. Also going to start working on putting aside beans, rice and such.

For the long-term stuff I plan on sticking mostly with the MH cans, these are direct from MH that I ordered and come with high reviews. The can shelf life is 25 years while the pouches is only 7. I will be storing some of the pouches for shorter term use though, just not as much as the cans.

The cans I've seen on the MH site are just a can full of food, no pouches inside. They even open them and cook them in their reviews right off the shelf. I wonder if those were being resold by a third party that had the pouches inside them.

My goal right now is to have a 3 month supply of food and water by the end of the year. We are doing extensive remodeling and I'm seriously throwing the idea around of including a dedicated, temperature-controlled, beefy room just for preps. Nothing fancy, just beefier than a standard drywall over 2x4 room and well-insulated.

In addition to the 55 gallon drums, I plan on several cases of water bottles that will be constantly rotated as well as some 5-gallon or so Jerry cans that can be more easily transported if need be.

Also going to be looking into buying a dehydrator and some canning supplies. He have fairly abundant deer here, so there's deer meat in the freezer and I'm planning a small garden this year too.

The best deal I've found for storing water is 2.5 gallon containers of spring water, $1.00 per container. That is cheaper even than buying 5-gallon jugs in my area. The added benefit is that the 2.5 gallon size fits easily in the refrigerator so we are constantly rotating stock. Although packaged water is supposed to have a long life (indefinite, according to the FDA), it is still worth rotating.

Cheaper still is storing your own tap water. But this can be dicey depending on the source, treatment method and residual contaminants. Also, empty bulk containers tent to cost more than filled containers from the store, and don't fit in my fridge (at least not unless I take out all the beer ;^P )

And as for the Jeep, pics or it ain't true.