Preparing for higher food prices

Like a majority of my fellow citizens, I don't make a whole lot of money, but we manage to make ends meet.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the Consumer Price Index is on the rise for most all areas, but especially for the price of our food. Anything that you can manage to purchase today, and store for tomorrow should be considered money saved. The prices are not likely to be going down at all within the next 30 years (they didn't within the last 30 years).

If you can find the space, or perhaps re-purpose some storage space for food storage, you might want to consider making that happen as soon as possible.

Just remember to store what you eat. If your regular diet consists of saltine crackers and a can of spam, then by all means, stock up on as much as you can.

Otherwise, hang on to reality as much as you can while you consider what you might be planning for next weeks meals.

A majority of what we purchase already has a storage life of at least one year, but with proper rotation and daily use, you will soon feel good about buying the groceries for October and spending April's money to do so.

There are certainly a ton of books on the subject of food storage that you might consider buying, but there are also a number of websites which offer the same, if not more, information for free.

If you are still not comfortable trusting yourself to implement a food storage and rotation system which will work for yourself and your family, then ask some other people within your family, or around your neighborhood, and ask them if they have noticed any increase in the price of food. It might just be the ice-breaker that you need.

I happen to love black beans and rice, and both of them have a very long shelf life.

If you want, I can post some more information on this subject. Yes, I was one of "those people" who prepped for Y2K, and I can tell you that even though nothing happened, I eventually ate everything that was stored. I maintain the same rational each month when I pay for my auto-insurance. I don't expect that anything will happen, but if/when it does, I will know that I was prepared as best as could be.

Lastly, I will leave you with an observation that I have made over the last few years. I see a lot of people trading in one form of "consumerism" for another when deciding to prepare. Keep this in mind as you ponder what the future might have in store for you, and for your family.