My preps are geared for hurricane season. I keep on hand a little more than a month?s worth of non-perishable food items. I gave up on trying to stash food away in totes or 5 gallon buckets as I kept finding them here and there a year or two later. I?ve taken to just filling up the pantry and keeping an eye on it myself.

I will do the grocery shopping every second week when my paycheck comes in. My wife prides herself on how little she spends at the market (not a bad thing!), where as I could care less what I spend (within reason) as long as that pantry is stuffed full. I always help putting the groceries away, which gives me control of rotating canned food and gets brownie points from the wife. I try to find something new as often as possible and buy just one, then the family can decide if I should buy more. Latest, was Progresso white clam sauce, excellent, but canned asparagus was vetoed. This method also means the food is eaten year round, so little waste.

I've found the easiest thing to prepare post storm is the Chunky Soups or stews. One pan preperation, lots of variety, a few crackers and I'm good to go. My comfort food when reading at night to the hum of the genny is PopTarts. Talk about long shelf life , second only to the life of the shelf! <img src="/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> Once the family comes back from bugout the menu becomes much more varied.

We keep 24 1-gal jugs of water, 4- 5 gal jugs, and always the favorite 3 cases of bottles.

With 3 women in my family paper products are a must, all I can say is I keep as much as I can fit.

Fuel stores consists of 5 rotated, stabilized Blitz cans, with 3 empties for pre-storm purchase. A new storage plan needs to be formed for fuel as last year was the first flooding I?ve experienced from Hurr. Wilma. Only got 8? at my home but 4? one block away. The cans are stored in a low 3 block high structure to reduce wind resistance but watching the water creep up and in it was distressing to say the least.

Scott