Setting aside a dedicated area in your house to act as a pantry, and stocking it with enough food to feed your family for up to six months is one of the best things you can do today to begin to reduce the impact of the economy on your family.

A food pantry insures that should the rough economy ahead affect your bread winners job security, or an unfortunate health event interrupt your income stream, your food budget is one less worry while you find yourself having to tighten the belt even further.

What to put in your food storage depends on your families needs, and your ability to use the products. If you don’t know what to do with a #50 bag of wheat or a 5 gallon bucket of dried milk you’re better off thinking about meeting the needs using grocery items that you use every day.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t have dried milk or beans on hand, rather I am saying that if you buy products that you already use, a few extra at a time with each shopping trip you will soon have an ample food pantry storage on hand to meet an emergency.

Pastas, beans, rice, dried vegetables and canned goods are an excellent start. Freezer foods are always a good bet if, and this is the big if you take the time to package and even repackage items in a vacuum food saver. Many frozen foods, bagged or boxed are not packaged for longer storage periods than a few weeks.

The most important part about food storage is three fold.

One, have an appropriate place, cool and dark to store your grocery items. A pantry near an exterior wall may not stay cool enough during hot Summer months, or may get too cold in the winter months. Two, stock a variety of items. Case lot doesn’t make sense if you won’t turn over or use all of an item within 1 years time. And lastly, three, rotate your stock or you may find hundreds if not thousands of dollars of waste in food storage.

There are a number of suppliers like ShelfReliance who make products designed to help manage food storage with ease. For great tips and information on buying food storage in bulk, we love Shauntell Ottley’s blog The Obsessive Shopper.