Food Storage: Texas Style!

It's not pretty.... but here it is: my food storage! I say 'Texas Style' because there are no basements here. Also, the garage is not an option because the 3 ideal environment conditions for food storage: cool, dark, and dry would be an impossibility in a Texas garage!

I'm sure that I will learn a thing or two (or more....) from the more experienced Texas food storage enthusiasts here, but this is what we did. We put our food storage in our closets! Above is Closet #1: Coat closet turned food storage closet. Works very well! We stacked 15 large buckets of food storage into one closet and hung our coats in, well- our own closets.


Closet #2: Our master closet is nice and roomy- we used the area by the window for our medium-size food storage buckets. Again, works nicely and my husband enjoys another place to put his "not dirty/not clean" pile of clothes!

I packed a lot of these buckets myself with dry ice in the bottom. Have you done that before? You just take a small amount of dry ice and place it in the bottom of each bucket. Quickly fill the bucket with desired dry food (oats, wheat, rice, etc.) and put the lid to the bucket on top loosely. The dry ice will "melt" taking most of the oxygen from the bucket with its' gas. This allows your dry foods to last longer in storage.

Once the dry ice is gone, (you will be able to tell by feeling the bottom of your bucket- it won't be freezing cold) pound the lid of the storage bucket into place. Your food should be good to go for many years!

Closet #3: My daughter also has a nice, big walk-in closet. We placed one set of food storage shelves in her closet and stacked our smaller cans and readily available foods on those. (She's nice to bring me a bag of flour, etc. when I ask her to!)

Closet #4: Not really a closet, it's our pantry. As you can see, I have many #10 cans of food! I use a lot of them in my cooking regularly, so this is a great place for them.

Regulars at our house include sugar, flour, wheat, powdered eggs, powdered milk, white beans, vital wheat gluten, dehydrated onions, macaroni, oats, and chicken bouillon. We also like the chocolate pudding and hot cocoa mix! I don't mention this as much as I should- but learning to use these dry ingredients will decrease your grocery bill many times over. (I'm also very proud of the stack of FREE pasta in my pantry!)

I've included many recipes using food storage items right here on Savvy Sister Shops, if you'd like to get started and use your food storage items regularly in your family's diet.

Can you tell what my son was for Halloween from the pantry picture?

We also use more cupboard space to store more foods. Coupon shoppers always have extra boxes of cereal, right? (The bags of Halloween candy were also hiding in this high spot.)

What I really want to have more of is regular cans. Cans of tuna, vegetables, soup, fruits, etc. Many of you that know our story know that we lived on food storage and coupons through 9 months of unemployment. We continue to use these items to live as frugally as possible. There's no sense ending a good pattern!

Like I said, these pictures are not pretty, but I know the foods we have stored will help us in case a "storm" comes our way. Do you have some great food storage tips? Please let us know by leaving a comment!