This guide is designed for people who don’t have a permanent kitchen, rent or live seasonally, and want to build a pantry that works even when life changes without overbuying, overpaying, or relying on freezer-only storage.
Figuring out “6 months of food” doesn’t have to mean thousands of dollars, deep freezers, or huge storage spaces. Instead, think in terms of actual use, rotation, and flexible pantry items that fit your real life. Even if you move, travel, or only have a small kitchen.
If you want to stop buying boxed mixes altogether, I put all of my pantry replacements into one simple printable pack HERE.
Why We Never Stocked up Before Now
We have always been super close to the grocery store, so this was quite different for us. We have spent most of our life on the road, passing grocery stores left and right! Because we were always on the move we had to keep our weight down to a minimum, so we didn’t spend quite so much on fuel. Meaning, we only bought what we needed at the time and when we ran out of supplies, we simply stopped at the grocery store. If you want to learn more about who we are and our lifestyle, you can visit our about us page, here.
How My Research Began
At the very beginning, I was so overwhelmed! When we would go grocery shopping, we would be standing in the isle trying to decide how many items to get and my husband would ask me.. “How long will that amount last us?” The first few times, I just shrugged my shoulders. I had ABSOLUTELY no idea how long each item would last!! After the first few trips to the grocery store and having no answers, I started doing the math!
Do the Math
Here is how I started… Start tracking everything!! Example: We went to the store on this date, we bought this many, and at this date we ran out. Your goal is to figure out exactly how long each item lasts you and your family. That way you know exactly how much to get when you go to the store again.
Rather than grabbing random numbers or big survival kits, I recommend starting with your actual consumption patterns. Track what you actually eat weekly and build from there. This gives you a real baseline without buying things you’ll never use. Smaller rotating systems compound into 6-month readiness over time.
I have created a FREE PDF Printable Tracker to help you with this if you like to stay organized.
Next steps
The next steps I took were figuring out “approximately” how much food your family eats. Now this is a rough estimate to give you an idea of how much food your family typically goes through in a day.
Start with breakfast. My husband usually eats 2 eggs, a slice of toast, an avocado, with a couple pieces of turkey bacon. When we have pancakes, he usually eats 3-4 with fresh fruit and a side of 3 sausage links and so on. For breakfast, I usually eat about the same. If we estimate that we eat eggs 3 times a week then we need 12 eggs per week, 48 eggs per month, etc.
Obviously, this will be very hard to do for some things so it won’t work for everything, but it will give you a good place to start and it’s a great way to start understanding how much food your family goes through in a month.
Always Over Calculate
When I started doing these calculations, I got the number I thought would get us through 6 months and then I added a little extra just to make sure we had enough. The worst thing that can happen is you are short and end up running out of things you needed because we all know we are not perfect and these calculations are not always perfect either. We are human. We make mistakes. Plan ahead and get a little extra in case of emergencies.
My biggest fear, when it comes to prepping your pantry for long-term, is that we prep for 6 months of winter but then winter goes a little bit longer than we thought it was going too, and we can’t get to the grocery store. This is why I always prep extra because we can’t see into the future, we don’t know what emergencies are around the corner.
Another thing you can do
You can also calculate how many calories each person in your family needs to consume a day. Here is a good calculator to use if you have no idea how much calories to consume a day. For me, this takes a lot more work because you would have to calculate every meal and I am a wing it kinda girl when it comes to meal prepping. I should be better at that but as I’ve said before, we are human, and I don’t expect anyone to be perfect.
Don’t Google it!
In the beginning stages I googled how much food we needed to prep for 6 months’ worth of food. It told me to prep 100 lbs. of rice. Now, I already know that my husband and I eat about a cup of uncooked rice during 1 meal. There are roughly 200 cups of white long grain rice in 100 lb. bag and there are only 365 days in a year. We would have to eat rice every single day to use up 100 lbs. of rice in 6 months. We only eat rice about 3 times a week, MAX! We cut that number in half and still have rice left over after the 6 months is up. So don’t trust that google is giving you the best information.
If you do google information, make sure you do your own math to back it up with facts.
Make a shopping list
Honestly, this was one of the first things I did. I figured out what I used the most of and what items where the most versatile so that I could work off that list and figure out how much of each item I needed to have on hand. When you’re staring at your pantry, it’s hard to know where to start so I started with my most used items.
These items consisted of…
- Flour
- Sugar
- Oats
- Rice
- Baking Soda
- Baking Powder
- Butter
- Milk
- Eggs
- Etc.
These are the items that could be used to make bread, biscuits, tortillas, muffins, cookies, etc. They are the most used and most versatile items so that’s what I started with first. I then moved onto proteins. This consisted of beans, lentils, canned meats, jerky, etc.
If you want my full shopping list, you can get that here completely for free.
Preserving Food
I really focus on preserving foods because you only have so much space in the fridge and freezer. Yes, you can get more appliances to gain more space but if you are like us, you only have so much space in our homes, and it costs more in electricity when you start adding more appliances. Yes, even if you have solar panels and get free electricity from the sun, you have to get more batteries and solar panels to keep up with the amount of electricity needed to powder those appliances. Plus, non-perishable foods last so much longer!
Dehydrating
When you start getting to those fresher foods that will eventually start going bad, that’s where I started diving into dehydrating food. Now, I’m not a professional (yet). I’m still learning how to dehydrate and rehydrate foods, but I’ve got a pretty good handle on it now. It has been quite the learning curve for sure but once you know the basics of it, it’s pretty easy to learn.
If you want to learn the basics of dehydrating, I’ve made a post dedicated to helping you learn it here.
The foods I would suggest dehydrating for long term storage are..
- Onions
- Garlic
- Potatoes
- Veggies
- Fruits
- Ground Beef
- etc.
I’ve made a list of dehydrating recipes here and I will continuously be adding to the list.
Canning
If you prefer canning, then do that! I don’t know a lot about canning at the moment so I can’t teach you how to do that, yet. However, I will be adding those posts later when I have gone through the trial-and-error stages. When I have figured it out, I will be sure to share it with you!
When This Method Works Best
This approach works best if:
- You don’t have a deep freezer or large storage room
- You live in an apartment, RV, or small space
- You want usable, rotating food supplies instead of static stockpiles
- You plan to rebuild or relocate seasonally
Final Thoughts
I hope this post has given you enough information to get started. Remember, there is no one size fits all. We all need to consume different calories; we all have different size families, and we don’t all eat or like the same foods.
We are all different and unique in the best way possible. Do what is best for you and your family. I know it seems like a lot of work, but my hope is that I have provided you with enough tools to make it a little bit easier.
Want a pantry that works even when you’re on the move or between homes? Grab my Off-Grid Pantry Starter Guide built for small spaces and flexible lifestyles.
If you want to stop buying boxed mixes altogether, I put all of my pantry replacements into one simple printable pack HERE.
With Love and Adventure,
Mindy
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