A huge load has been lifted

So if you go back and read my blog on August 25th (I'm embarrassed that it took me so long to get my act together), you'll see that my pantry/cold storage was seriously lacking in organization.

When you look at this - I want you to know that I started 1 year ago. I purchased things on sale, with coupons. I added a little bit to each shopping trip and this is where I am today.

Well I'm happy to report that both food and non food items have found a home. Take a look at my food storage. It took my husband and I about 2 1/2 hours to sort all this stuff and it still needs a little work - but I'm happy to have it up off the floor and in a place where I can see how much I have.

This is a picture from the back of my storage room (the door is toward the top right of the picture)

This is in the same spot looking left. I decided to put all my "daily/3-6 month" stuff along the left. Some of these fruit snacks and breakfast bars/granola bars still need a little organization.

This picture and the next are just close ups of my "daily/3-6 month supply" stuff. I'm still trying to label everything and also make sure it's FIFO'd (first in, first out).

This is a shot from the door of my cold storage (I put my soups first - it seems like I'm always going down for some). By the way - I have over 200 boxes/bags of cereal - yeah, I think we're set for a while.

This is all my paper products, bandaids, soap, detergent, shampoo/conditioner, baggies, tin foil, saran wrap, cleaning supplies etc.....

Along the right wall, I have all of my long term food storage. I have wheat, honey, powdered milk, sugar, rice, and cannery stuff.
Some more long term storage.

Lastly - this is my door, my floor (that you can now see) and the water barrels still empty of water. My husband is building some mini pallet things with casters on the bottom so that we can roll them and keep them up off the cement. We have 7 barrels - I guess this needs to be higher on the "honey-do-list."

I would have been a smarter shopper if I had known what my inventory was all along.

I hope I never have to rely on this food storage because of some disaster or layoff or anything like that, but I am very thankful to know that we have these reserves in case we need them. If you continue to plug away and buy things at their lowest prices your storage will build just like mine.

As you watch my future shopping trips, they probably won't be huge truckloads of stuff. What I am focusing on now is filling the holes in my storage.