But this will provide some ideas and some reading to do for when you feel like it and want to plan for next year.
This week I went through my storage jars. I am going to collect more now. I have collected them for years. In the country I can often get boxes of old preserving jars for 50c each. They are thick strong beautiful glass. I don't want to spend money on storage containers I want to use the money on the food. If you know anyone with a cafe, hotel, bakery... takeaway food shop or anything like that ask them what containers do they throw away? Some have seriously strong buckets, lovely jars and all kinds of containers. Probably we all know someone who is throwing away jars and if we can ask them to save them for us we have an incoming supply.
I have a heap that were sold in boxes of six in the cheap shops. They are the preserving jars where the middle of the lid pops out. If you want to pretty them up or use them to give food gifts you can pop out the top, cut a picture to fit and then put it back together with the picture on the top. They look so cute. You could do any theme... (I'm thinking baby shower) but here I have made it Christmas. On some I just tore up some gingham to make bows to go with the gingham pattern on the lids. (I had this from making gingham tablecloths!)
Friends know I love jars so they often come my way. Helen gave me these gorgeous ones as a gift!
Glass is wonderful. Now I know if you live in an earthquake area this might not be so practical. But I love my jars and there are free and cheap alternatives and things we can use for storage that we can collect and they are so handy.
I was so inspired by a blog post I read on Coffee, Tea, Books and Me. Her article called When you have nothing to give was just wonderful. Brenda mentions a couple of things that make my heart just happy. One is that when she has a little extra money she puts it into things to build up her pantry. Elsewhere on her blog you can read how this has helped them at times. The other thing is about the miraculous way you can make so many wonderful things to feed your family from a few basic ingredients. If you have say, eggs, flour, sugar, milk... you can make pancakes, scones, cake, muffins, quiche, pie, pasta... it is amazing. then if you might add a few other things on hand the list just goes on and on. When you have no money and need a present you can bake a wonderful cake or a tin of biscuits.
Have you done that? Where things are bare or thin on the ground and you have a cook up and create all these goodies that your family just goes mad for. It is so satisfying. With our pantries stocked it is amazing what we can do.
Every time we DON"T run to the supermarket for a couple of things we save money. And time. Running to the shops for one thing is such a waste. Our pantry saves all that energy and time. Money is a valuable thing but so is our time!
Ronda has a series called Deepening my Pantry and a How I stock up series. All good reading!
If building up your pantry is on your 2015 list here is some good reading for you.
Brandy of The Prudent Homemaker has great frugal living ideas and the most wonderful pantry. They lived for a year when bad times hit from the contents of the pantry!
Food storage made Easy is a really useful site that I like.
Safely Gathered inSafely Gathered in is a website full of good reading. It covers a huge range of subjects on preparedness and is a wonderful resource.
Helen found this one and it is fantastic Survival Mom.Survival Mom This has endless reading and across the top she has a free section which has printables and downloads. I love the LDS preparedness manual.
An old favourite pantry post is from Laine. A well stocked pantry. It is very encouraging. A well stocked pantry.
A working pantry blog (on my side bar) is a wonderful read with so much inspiration and information on pantries.
I will resume here when we all are over Christmas and the sales are on! This is when I hope to be able to get some food put away and get the year off to a really good start.
Meanwhile please feel free to add your knowledge and experiences I really appreciate that. Any any good links too please!
I have an aim to have a very well stocked pantry plus emergency supplies by this time next year. I have some supplies now, we would be fine for a week or so. Perhaps aiming for three months supplies would be a good goal. Plus the money saving, buying only on big specials factor.
Have a good week. Nurture your family and yourself. xxx
Annabel your Christmas theme jars are seriously gorgeous. Have you heard the saying when the student is ready the teacher will appear? Well appear for me you have. There is so much I am learning here on your blog. I have also added your blog to my blog list – because good things need to be shared. One thing we have done in our household for emergency preparedness this week was to buy a radio that doesn't need batteries or electricity to run. It is a hand-winding charge radio so you wind it up to run. It also has a solar panel so it can be charged by the sun as well. It has a built in torch and which is really handy. You can also charge a mobile phone on it – though I haven’t tried that as yet.
ReplyDeleteDear Sherri thank you so much. and thank you for adding me to your blog list. I have had a quick look at your blog and will have a better look later. I can see you are a country girl! (like me)
DeleteThe radio is an excellent investment. A life line in a crisis!
Your kind words made my day. It is a difficult week isnt it.Encouraging words mean a lot, love Annabel.xxx
I'm going to get a radio like that! Thanks Sherri for mentioning it.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for those links Annabel. My pantries are in need of a good overhaul and it is usual for us to live out of them a bit over the summer holidays. I think it is hot and we hibernate a bit in the air-conditioning here when we get those 40+ days. It is always interesting coming up with new ideas or ways to make things work more efficiently! Reading and then implementing wonderful ideas on blogs like yours really transforms our thinking and approach. Thanks so much for your continual inspiration and sharing of beauty. Your blog is a treasure trove. Love Kaye xoxoxo
Kaye we lay as low as possible once its 40 plus and I dont use the oven or anything to make it worse.
DeleteThank you for your support and kind words they mea a lot to me.xxx