Food Storage!!!
In the Church news room on lds.org I found a statment asking that we share any experiances that we have about food storage on our blogs, so here I go.


I’ve heard all of my life that the Prophets have asked that every member of the church have at least a one year supply of food. When Aaron and I were married we decided that we wanted to get our year supply during our first year of marriage, we started to work on this and did pretty well, but never fully got all of it. Over the next couple of years we had our first child, used a lot of our food storage. The only problem was that we had a hard time restocking our shelf like we would have liked to. Although we were doing what we thought was our best we just didn't seem to ever be able to finish it and maintain what we did have.For our Christmas in 2006 my Grandpa and Grandma Simmonds gave everyone in their family a #10 can of food storage with a letter expressing the importance that they felt for each of their family members to follow the council of the prophets and get their food storage. This gave us the push that we needed, they gave us several ways in which to obtain just the basics needed, since my husband and I had already stared to work on our food storage, but had never finished it, this gave us a challenge, but with a date, that date was the April conference of 2007. Aaron and I didn't really have the extra money to just go out and get what we needed, so we changed what we did with our food budget, we decided what food we felt was necessary and important for us to have like fresh veggies and fruit, and even then we cut back, then the rest of our food budget plus any extra that we might have earned we took and stared to accumulate the food that we needed. Since the change that we made in our family food, I had to start making our own bread and cereals again.For our family of four, we found online a list of the basic thing that we would need and this not only included wheat, sugar, rice, beans, dry milk, but also things like Peanut Butter, honey and so on. We were able to call my Grandparents and report that we had meet the goal that they had set for us, and we felt that we would be able to survive on the bare necessities if we had to. Since this time we have tried to get more that just the basics and add in things that would make our food tasty! This includes spices and sauces, canned veggies and fruit, canned meats, along with fun things like cake and muffin mixes.We have now also been counseled by the Church leaders to not only have a One year supply for our families, but to also have a three month supply of things that we use on a daily basis. We stared to work hard right away on this, I was not going to stop until I felt like had all that we need as a family. So I stared by calculating out all the TP that we would use in this time frame I also stocked up on Diapers, cleaning products, trash bags, paper goods and the list goes on and on.I have to say that by doing what we have been asked by the Prophets I have found peace in knowing I have got my one year and a three month supply of food for my family and that we are working on becoming debt free. Over the last year I have still struggled as I have tried to rotate the food and keeping our shelf’s stocked. But I think that my effort is working and I am learning more and more everyday. I am grateful for gospel being taught in my home growing up and that I had the testimony that I needed to follow the Prophets council, concerning food storage. President James E. Faust, once said that "Every father and mother are the family's storekeepers. They should store whatever their own family would like to have in the case of an emergency . . . [and] God will sustain us through our trials." I know that by doing my best that Our Heavenly Father will help my family when that need arises.One last thing that we have been counseled to do so that we can be prepared in a time of need is to be financially prepared, or in other words be Debt Free. As Aaron and I have worked on this we have been so blessed. Aaron’s sister Keely and her husband Tom have played a big role in helping us learn how we can get out of debt, they are always willing to share books, CD’s and advice, we are so grateful for their example and for all that they have done for us. We don’t have everything that we want, but we do have everything that we need. I hope that we will always be able to follow the Prophets council and stay out of debt.President Thomas S. Monson said, we hear: "Many more people could ride out the storm-tossed waves in their economic lives if they had their year's supply of food . . . and were debt-free. Today we find that many have followed this counsel in reverse: they have at least a year's supply of debt and are food-free."
this is a link to a blog on preparedness- letsbeprepared.blogspot.com