Where Do I Go From Here?

With several months of prepping under my belt, I feel like I have made great progress in a variety of areas. We're accumulating our water supply (that Diet Coke 2-liter addiction is actually helpful!), we have been regularly using and rotating our canned goods, we have switched from store-bought wheat bread and tortillas to grinding the flour and making our own. And the biggest advancement? We have successfully completed our first month using Dave Ramsey's cash envelope budget system! The reason for our money issues is now painfully obvious ... but I'm considering that a very good thing since now we can change our (ahem ... MY!) habits.

Perhaps because of all the recent progress, I feel I have reached a temporary prepping plateau. When I look around and see our on-hand stock, I feel comfortable ... but deep down I know that I need to continue to refine our supply. As I'm writing this post, I realize that I should create (and implement!) an inventory system so I will know exactly what we have and where it's located. Our long-term wheat, sugar, and powdered milk supply is boxed and labeled, but I need to figure out how to best keep on top of our canned goods and paper supplies.

The majority of our food supplies are stored in a small alcove in our laundry room. Since we lack a basement and our garage space is exceedingly hot, this set-up seems to be the best we can find. Here's how things look now:

The shelves are several feet deep, so we have plenty of room to store a big supply of each item. Each of the top 2 shelves hold multiple boxes filled with our mylar-packaged supplies (macaroni, wheat, powdered milk, beans, etc.). We're fortunate to live quite close to a Mormon storehouse, so we have set aside a portion of our monthly budget to purchase supplies there.

For anyone interested, the super-amazing rotating can organizers were purchased online here. I got these organizers after having a rogue can of corn land on my foot one-too-many times ... and really, it is my absolute favorite storage-related purchase. Very Special Friends are sometimes invited into my laundry room to have a look-see ... and, if they ask very politely, I sometimes even share the joy of watching the cans rotate. We take turns pulling a can out from the bottom section, then adding one into the top section and watching it rotate. (Ummm ... am I letting out a bit too much crazy here?!?!) But seriously, these organizers have made it possible for the kids to be fully involved in stocking and "shopping" from our supply.