If you’ve been able to accomplish all the steps before this one, let me congratulate you! Your household should now be able to survive a year long without any need for grocery stores, mini-marts, food stamps, or government handouts. Feels good doesn’t it?

Realize that food storage will only sustain you in direct proportion to how much you have stored away To thrive during the tough times, learn the skills to become more self-reliant Self-reliance and independent living allows you to become helpful to those in need

If you’re only reading this though, I hope by now you have a better understanding of where you need to begin. The most important thing to get out of all of this is to (lest you get weary with me repeating myself) start small. Begin with Step 1. Once you gain confidence in storing bottles of water, take on Step 2 which is only a matter of buying a little extra of what you already eat and use each time you go shopping.

Even if you are only able to accomplish the first two steps, you’ll gain a huge amount of confidence and peace of mind. This should carry you over to Step 3 and 4 which is building your year’s supply food and essential non-food items. While the last two steps are more involved, you need not feel overwhelmed. Again, just begin small and build up from there (are you beginning to see a pattern here?). Soon you’ll be well on your way to a year’s supply.

So what’s next? Once you’ve completed the four steps, where do you go from there? Well there’s still plenty to do and learn. Since I consider food storage in the realm of survival, if you really want to go beyond just surviving and instead thrive during those hard times ahead, there happens to be a plethora of skills and knowledge to gain on the subject of self-reliance and preparedness — many of which are covered in this site. Here’s a list of just some of the subjects that you can learn about:

• Clothes Making and Household Crafts
• Financial Security
• Gardening
• Homesteading
• Raising Livestock (chickens, goats, rabbits etc)
• Solar, Wind, and Other Forms of Alternate Energy
• Primitive, Urban, and Wilderness Survival Skills
• Self-Defense (Unarmed and Armed)
• Local Plant Identification and Use
• Herbal Medicine
• Hunting
• and More…!

What’s important is that you continue to grow and develop. The more self-reliant you can become the more helpful you will be to those who are less fortunate during the hard times ahead.

• Getting Started with Food Storage
• Food Storage Basics: Step 1 – Water
• Food Storage Basics: Step 2 – Building a Three-Month Supply
• Food Storage Basics: Step 3 – Long Term Storage
• Food Storage Basics: Step 4 – Non-Food Items
• Food Storage Basics: The Basics and Beyond

• Posted in Food Storage, The Basics