Stockpiling is not from fear

 

This is another post on the way of caring for your home and family in lean or hard times.

Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. Proverbs 31:25

Caring for your household

 

So as you know, I believe in being prepared for food shortages and other distribution problems. 

I have been buying extras of staples when they are on special and my pantry is shaping up really well.

Likewise, I have been refurbishing my first aid supplies and updating our medications. I also have bought home cleaning supplies when on special and extra cat food for Xena and Milo.

I checked up on what foods were rationed here in Australia during WW2 and I have used that as a base guide for buying foods... plus I am adding foods that I know we particularly enjoy.

Also, I have purchased some extra diabetic supplies and monitoring machines to ensure we have the means to keep our diabetes under control.

In case of power outages we have purchased a generator and we still have our camp stoves with gas cylinders for cooking. We have an aluminium kettle and saucepans in case we need to use our camping stuff. I have bought different strength batteries when they were half price too.

This may seem all time consuming and energy intensive, but with no spoons due to ongoing fibromyalgia, I can tell you that it isn't. It just takes some planning and then buying a few extra things on your list each week.

Not wanting to keep our storage foodstuffs in the pantry with our usual edibles, I cleared off some shelves in my linen press and these have made a wonderful storage larder. Likewise my fridge/freezer in the garage is just loaded with storage edibles.

I know that hard times will come. Jesus has warned us in the Word. So it really makes sense to gather and store food in these times of plenty for when the times are lean.

There is no fear, just a quiet confidence that you can laugh at the times to come because you and your household are well cared for.

Strength and honour are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come. Proverbs 31:25

A helpful guide

As reported on the news, there will  be food shortages in the future, so I have been building my pantry and freezer up.

I am not living in fear, but rather I am trying to emulate that wise woman in Proverbs 31. She was not afraid of winter because she was prepared. I want to be prepared too.

As you probably know, I have been cooking extra meals and doing a cookup on days I have some spoons. It's been working marvellously well for me. Especially for those days when my fibromyalgia is flaring. I simply grab and defrost a couple of meals and dinner is done.

I make sure everything is clearly marked and dated so that I can rotate the food and not have it sit there until it is out of date.

One thing that I noticed when freezing my meals is that the label came off and I couldn't identify what the meal was and how old it was. So I read that masking tape doesn't fade or come off easily and I did that. It's true.

I came across this guide of shelf life for pantry items and I posted it here for our easy reference. Goodness knows, food's too expensive to waste, so this should be a helpful guide.