Just why would you have food storage?

Old  story....it was Christmas of 1972. I was suddenly a single mother with a pay check of 202.00 twice a month and 185.00 in daycare to pay that month (half  from the first paycheck and 1/2 from the second) and 145 dollars in rent.   Not to mention a car payment (28.00) a car insurance payment for myself and my not so soon to be ex, and a utility bill.   It was Christmas, and saying  we had no money would have been an understatement.  I had 5.12 in the savings.

My soon to be ex had been out of work with no unemployment for over a year.   I had bought a case of tuna some time back when it was .28 a can at safeways.  I still had a bit of food.   I called welfare to see if I could get help and was told that what I had to pay for daycare didn’t matter, I earned too much.   It was put your big girl pants on and punt time.

No one can predict the future.  People have had times when the federal government was on hold, you still had to work, but got no pay.  People can get laid off and have no unemployment.  Yes, in this state if you are a non profit, you can opt out of paying  unemployment insurance.  You can work for minimum wage and have no fall back if the business closes or downsizes.   One Christmas, I -5 was under water and the food trucks couldn’t get to Seattle.   Grocery stores were running out of food.

In other words, bleep happens and having a small food storage is your best insurance policy against being hung out to dry.  Especially. If you have purchased it for 50 cents on the dollar.   Nowhere these days can you get a better return on your money and not take a big risk.  It wasn’t long ago that we were getting 3/10 of a percent on our certificate of deposit at the bank.

Getting a small 4-6 week supply of food can be done one can or box at a time.  Homemade mixes keep you from the preservatives, but cans and boxes of some things can be pretty tasty if you can’t get to a grocery store or you have t seen a paycheck for a few weeks.

The other asset to having a four to six week supply is that you can take advantage of sales and pay half price for your food.   It makes it a whole lot easier to eat good for for a price of four  dollars a day or less.

Remember four dollars a day is the amount you totally spend on food.  It is, it buying a lot of food for a lot of money and only putting four dollars worth per person on the table.   Buying your food at RBP is the key, otherwise feeding a teen aged child could be more than difficult.