Emergency Preparedness and Provident Living Newsletter
April 2025
Grocery Shopping tips to save money
Each week before shopping, take a few minutes to look at the grocery store app or website. Look for foods that are on sale that your family likes. Instead of buying only one of that item, buy at least two. Only buy the foods and non-food items that you like and purchase already. Depending on the grocery store chain, in order to get the best price, you have to use a digital coupon or buy a certain number of that item. Many of these deals will allow you to mix and match similar items or flavors. Read the fine print.
Shopping this way will save you money in the long-run and it will also help you build up some food storage. Always use a marker to put the year and month that you bought it on the lid or front label. Pull older items toward the front of the shelf. Put new items in the back of the shelf. .
Use the store app to clip digital coupons. Some store chains like Kroger will send you physical coupons in the mail. Be sure to put them in an envelope or organizer and use them before they expire.
Buy fresh produce in season and preserve it
Watch for seasonal produce to go on sale and check the prices often. When there is a special on certain foods, buy a lot and then freeze, dehydrate, can or freeze-day it. In Winter citrus is at its lowest price. In April and May, you will find strawberries and asparagus will be at their lowest. In early Summer fresh cherries will be at their lowest price. In the Fall pumpkins, other squashes and apples will be on sale. These sales are cyclical and you will know when to watch for these good sales.
Case Lot Sales
I realize that not everyone has a store that offers case lot sales. These sales are usually a week or two long, 2 times a year, and offer many canned and boxed foods for sale by the case. In Utah, Eastern Idaho and the Las Vegas area these usually occur in March and September. Most of the time these sales makes the per item price cheaper than the everyday price. Common case items are canned fruits vegetables, beans, tomato sauce and paste, flour, sugar, vegetable oil, apple juice and some box mixes for rice or Hamburger Helper and tuna. For those stores that have case lot sales, be sure to check them out and support those sales if the prices are right.
For those who do not have access to case lot sales, you can buy many of these items by the case at Costco and Sam's Club.
Online Resources for Food Storage
Amazon sells Augason Farms #10 cans of long-term food storage. If you watch there is often a daily deal where you can save a lot of money on that special.
You can purchase food storage items on the websites for Costco, Walmart and Sportsmans Warehouse.
Food Storage | Store This link for churchofjesuschritst.org/food storage, allows you to purchase long-term food storage and have it shipped to you for a $6 per order shipping fee.
Find a Home Storage Center This is from the website providentliving.org Scroll to the bottom of this page to see the current price sheet. This page also has information to locate the nearest Home Storage Center to you, where you can shop in person. All items are already packaged.
Www.beprepared.com is the website for Emergency Essentials. They have been in the emergency preparedness business for over 30 years. They sell long-term food storage items under their original name. They bought out Augason Farms a few years ago.
Shelf Stable Emergency Food Products - Augason Farms This company, affiliated with the above company has a great selection of long-term foods for sale. They ship all over the United States. Their products can also be bought inside some stores such as Walmart and Associated Foods Stores in the Western Unites States like Maceys, Lins, Dans, Braulims and Petersons. I have been very happy with their products. If you have never tried any of these foods, buy a can of each to sample. Once you know you like it, you can them buy more as money allows.
Best Value Freeze Dried Emergency Food Storage | Affordable – Legacy Food Storage
Best Variety & Great Value! - 4Patriots
Freeze Dried Food for Camping & Emergency | Mountain House
Project suggestions to do this month
Each family is different and has different needs and is at different stages of preparedness. Take a few minutes to go over this suggestion list and decide what projects you can do this month to be better prepared.
#1 Make a list of foods you commonly buy and that you want to start to stock up on.
#2 Download the app for your favorite grocery stores and start looking at their adds and coupons each week before you go shopping. Most stores also put their weekly ads on their website. Make your shopping list from the specials and coupons.
#3 Assemble a Go-Bag or 5- day kit. Maybe it is time to check your kits and change out some of the food or clothing. Have you thought of new things to add to your kits? Add some paper maps and more cash in small bills to your kit. Be sure to scan and download copies of your Vital Documents to a thumb drive and add to your kit.
#4 If you already have some food storage, take a look at your supply and organize it or reorganize it.
See if there are items that are years beyond the best by date. Do any items have damage to the packaging, look bad or smell bad? Throw away things that are obviously bad. You may need to take some time to reorganize your stockpile. We just learned the hard way that if things are too hard to get to....we don't use it and it is forgotten. We have several buckets of really old flour that need to be emptied. ( We could not get to them, and they were forgotten). We also found some home canned foods that the lid had come unsealed, and the food was either moldy inside or most of the moisture had evaporated. In this case, it is safe to throw the contents into the trash and wash the jars in a dishwasher. The jars can be safely reused in the future.
How old is too old for food storage?
Most canned foods from a store will be good well beyond the Best by Date. Don't automatically throw things away.
You will not know for sure if something has spoiled or is too old until you open it up. If in doubt, open it. Check to see if the packaging is still good. If it looks good, open it. Now that it is open, does the food inside look good? No signs of spoilage or discoloration? If it looks good, smell it. Does it smell ok? If it does, take a small taste. If it tastes ok, it is fine to consume. If something passes all of these tests, put it in the front of the shelf and plan on using it soon.
How will you know if something has gone bad? Your eyes and nose will tell you right away, but you have to open the can, bucket or jar to find out.
NOTES ON STORING FLOUR
Flour will only be good or taste good for a couple years, even if stored in a large bucket in ideal conditions. For better storage, only store a little bit of flour and store whole grains for most of your baking. Whole grains if stored in a cool, dark and dry place in an airtight container can be good for 20 years. Once grain has been ground it will then only be good for a couple years. Make sure you have a grain mill for grinding your grains as you need into flour.
The most affordable grain mill is a hand crank model. It is well under $100. It is non-electric and small. These can be clamped to a work bench or countertop. The hopper holds about 1 cup of grain at a time. I always suggest one start with this kind of grain mill. A common brand name is Victorio.
When you are ready to move up to a more expensive electric grain mill there are many brands to choose from. Do a Google search and read up on several different brands and check out the reviews for them. Depending on where you live, you may be able to find an old one for sale for a really good price in the classifieds or on Facebook Marketplace. Some of the old models may look old and dated but they still work very well. Here are some helpful videos on this topic.
https://youtu.be/WD8xAsG-RFs?si=5J3mhwp6pzOt6lsI Flour Power and Grain Mills
https://youtu.be/cbNXwbhTxdU?si=jo8wcEguVFE9C9B4 Selecting the Right Grain Mill for Emergencies and Everyday Use
https://youtu.be/ASGQWtWXBIo?si=hasfkVKVYWbzKjfp Grain Mill Review, Mock Mill, Nutri Mill Plus & Harvest
Tornado Preparedness
Do you know that there have been tornados in every state in the United States? They also occur in other parts of the world as well.
Tornados can be very unpredictable, but weather forecasting has come a long way! There are several Storm Chasing weathermen that have fantastic YouTube channels, and their forecasting is VERY good. One of my favorites is the Ryan Hall Y'All channel. Another well-known storm chaser is Reed Timmer. I recommend that you check out their channels and watch or listen to a couple of their recent Live Streams. They have multiple people on the ground in different areas of the predicted danger zones. If you subscribe to their channels, especially if you live in areas that have frequent tornados, you will get notifications of when they go live. These will be very helpful.
Make a family plan of what to do during a tornado in your area. Have supplies on hand in the safe place you will go. Be prepared to stay there for several hours if needed. Be prepared to be without power or communication for several days. I recently listened to this video by a man in tornado alley. He is a first responder and trainer. He covers a lot of great information in this video.
https://youtu.be/_UkpbuaUXkU?si=6fW9m2j2qY2KRbnm Tornado Survival Secrets No One Talks About