Bergi, your from Happy valley Utah and you only have a bucket of rice? I didn't think that was even possible? Oddly, I was going to post something like this up at thenewX but was worried I would look like a tin foil hat wearing fruitcake, so I never did. But Im a prepper. Currently worried about a lot of things that I will continue on later. I would dare to say we could go a full year without resupply at my place, but some of the meals would be boring. But we would get nutritious meals. Ive been doing it for years and every other year I expand a little. Even when I was a single bachelor in an apartment I was prepping, but the thing about shared community places is fire. Someone down the hall gets one going your screwed. There are always pros and cons to everything but at the time it was all I could afford. Now 15 years later, family, a house, and a dog. My preps are larger. I have a VERY large "short term" food room. I call it my down stairs pantry. To augment this we have a 15cuft chest deep freezer, the kitchen fridge, the cupboards and the pantry closet. If it gets bad I have to dig a bit but can access the long term food stuff. 6 gallon buckets holding mylar and desiccated grains, beans, legumes, sugar, honey, salt, etc. Then several dozen cases of #10 freeze dried stuff. Some meals, but most ingredients: sausage crumbles, chunk chicken, beef chunks, pork chops, steaks (remember the Mountain House uncooked freeze dried steaks/ chops), veggies/ fruit, milk, eggs, standard kitchen mixes. Then oddities by the case, red feather butter, yoders bacon, cheese, etc. Some things like the eggs/ mixes/ milk need to be rotated more than the freeze dried stuff. But its like your car, food stuffs needs maintenance as well.
With food, you need stuff to prepare. Cooking, prepping, water, serving, and getting rid of (human waste and food waste). Composting/ humanure/ outhouse maintenance and design is an odd book collection that many have laughed out in my library but knowing this stuff will be key post zombie apocalypse. I keep a few dozen "home depot buckets and lids" for a variety of things including toilets. Speaking of which, there is always over 300 rolls of toilet paper at my place.
I have bought over 300lbs of charcoal at a time during Memorial weekend when Walmart sells the dual 20lb kingfords bag for dirt cheap. Then a few standard 30lb propane tanks all stored in the shed out back. BBQs (gas and charcoal), dutch ovens, volcano, camp chefs/ coleman stoves/ partner stove, solar ovens, and even a pair of wonder bags is in my cooking collection (amazon wonderbag for a awesome fuel saving cooking bag if you have a heavy, lided, non vented pot, IE dutch oven, if you don't have one, Im sure you will soon).
Then water.. this is the one I hate due to the work it takes. Yearly I need to rotate drums/ jugs of water. I do have a few Berkley filter setups, several sawyer filter setups, them a few katadyn pump filters. But the drums/ USGI cans/ cases of water first line supplies. Im sitting just shy of 1,000 gallons.... Need to be creative for the weight distribution and storage for this type of a load. Luckily Utah is a prepping state and there are several vendors who sell 55 gallon drums for cheap locally the large drums are nice but get spendy fast. have 2 160 gallon drums, each cost twice what three 55 gallons drum do, but the floor space is just 20% greater than a single 55 gallon drum but you get 3 times the water capacity, And you can stack them in an average room height, Due to this, they have nice spouts to drain and convenient fill spouts as well. You see one price on many of the sites, but if you walk in your price is typically less than half. But it all takes space and lots of it. having one room and a few closet areas/ cubbies, along with a shed and the walls of a garage to hold the water/ food stuff. Then a shed and garage for the flammables which is always a concern.
The main key, don't buy it all at once. Take some time and find what works for you. The photo above is impressive but after reading inventory of the kit, I would be worried of spoilage/ FIFO/ rotation then dead space (in and around the bucket). Storing cans in a bucket would be convenient to move it, but I would be worried of space waste and not like rodents (also a concern for many with food storage) will get thru a can. The box pasta is nice in the bucket but again rotation/ dead space/ etc roll into it. Just stick 4 round buckets in a square and there is a bucket of space wasted between them (about 20% wasted space for a round bucket). Square buckets combat this nicely but cost more and do not have a Gamma lid option. But empty and stacked they are efficiently stored... As for Gamma lids. These are needed when you want to get in and out of them often. I keep several "orange" colored Gamma lids around so when I open a bucket I put on a orange lid. The "O" in orange stands for "OPEN" to me. Thus I know which ones Im already in (FIFO- first in first out). Ill have to take some photos of the can rotators I use. I hate most on the market since they are standard and have 2-3 shelves for standard 14 oz cans, 1 for 30 oz cans, and 1 for #10 cans. Not many rotate #10 cans so its a waste of space.
Again, being local to many vendors I went to one with a goal and said... what can you do. I got 2 72" high 24" deep, 48" wide racks custom setup for me and a good friend. The top 5 rows are for the 14 oz cans. The bottom row is for the 30oz can. The width can vary and best part, Even in this unique layout which was more efficient and perfect for us, we got the pair of systems for $556 (278 a piece!). I remember the number since its one of the common ammo calibers I store. It makes inventory easy, rotates via the FIFO philosophy, fits my needs, and was convenient IE don't waste time keeping track of dates/ inventoy/ and you can see what you have. But there is also some waste, really not a lot, but some yet again, its what fits your needs, like the photo above illustrates. Plus's and minus's for everything.
If I get off at a decent time Ill host some photos but due to OPSEC there will not be much else shown outside the short term food closet but this is the most impressive, most used, and best part I think. Ill also give ideas why I store what I do in cans. It makes sense, is nutritious, easy to cook/ prep, and versatile. I don't ever plan to bug out as I don't feel anyone can survive on foot/ out of the car for more than a month without resupply of some sort. Its like a wet dream. Nice, but never going to happen.
