Food storage is like an insurance. Insurance against a job loss, natural disaster, illness, and more. Having 30-60 days worth of food stored up can give you a peace of mind during trying times. But, how to do that on a tight budget? Let us help you learn how to shop sales for food storage!
When you are stocking up your food storage supply, it is important to take advantage of sales. Knowing how to shop sales can help you get the most food for your money and ensure that your storage is well-stocked. Here are some tips on how to shop sales for food storage.
Plan Your Food Storage Around Sales
This will help you save money and use up items before they go bad. When you plan your meals, you’re also keeping your household from wasting food. Planning your meals and following through with that meal plan will save you a ton of money!
Shop sales for food storage and survival because it’s essential. If you’ve never done meal planning before, simply grab a piece of paper and make a list of what you’d like to make that week.
Store What You Eat
While not the most hard and fast rule, it’s better to store what you eat, and eat what you store. For example, if your family absolutely hates oatmeal, you are better off storing something else they will eat. While many people say “If they are hungry enough, my family will eat anything.”, the opposite may be true in a crisis.
When faced with a flood, fire, or natural disaster that adds loads of stress to your life, having food that you are familiar with and enjoy eating will reduce the stress in that situation.
Buy In Bulk
This can help you save money in the long run, but make sure you have the space to store everything. Sam’s Club and Costco are great options for shopping for food in bulk. Of course, this is not always possible or practical, so just do what you can.
Another option is to look at bulk food co-ops such as Azure Standard. You join a “drop”, order your bulk food, and then it’s delivered once a month to that drop.
Check The Clearance Aisle
This is a great place to find deals on food. Many stores will put perfectly good canned or bagged food on a markdown, simply because of dents in cans, or minor tears in bags. As long as the cans aren’t bulging, they are okay to eat. Just put them into the front part of your food storage rotation.
While it can be a rarity, markdowns on meat are a great find. Use those right away, or can or freeze the meat for best preservation. Keep an eye out for spices, baking supplies and more as well. Tightly sealed spices are typically good for up to 3 years, kept cool and dry.
Check Best Buy Dates
When buying food, try and get the longest best buy dates you can for the longest storage.
The expiration dates and best buy dates are not the same thing. “Best Buy” means the last day that the food will be the best tasting. Expired means that the food has lost much of it’s nutritional value. There are many who believe that the best buy date is just a guide and they have stored food for up to 3 years beyond that with no problem.
I would suggest checking the cans, making sure they aren’t bulging, rusting, or leaking. If they are in tact, the food inside should be good to eat. However, when in doubt, throw it out.
Compare Prices
Different stores have different sales, so it is worth it to compare and find the best deal. There are also many websites and apps that can help you do this. Gone are the times in which you have to look at paper ads, you can just go online and look for the stores you will be shopping at.
Don’t forget to use apps like Ibotta to help you save money as well.
Don’t Be Afraid To Haggle
If you see an item on clearance that is about to expire, don’t be afraid to ask for a lower price. The store may be willing to give it to you for free or for a very low cost. Remember that if you don’t ask, you may never know if they will give you the discount. You may find that they were going to throw it away, but you were able to salvage it and save pennies on the dollar.
So, the next time you’re stocking up on food, make sure you check out these tips for how to shop sales on a food storage. You never know when a food shortage will strike, so it makes sense to start preparing now for food storage.
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