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.