Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are counseled to have three months’ worth of everyday food on hand, and then store a year’s supply of longer-term storage foods, where possible.  Having food on hand is an invaluable part of being self-reliant.  It’s insurance for times of unexpected illness, disability, unemployment, power outages, or for when a neighbor down the street needs a meal.  It’s also handy for sharing with a local food bank. 

Once you have the three month supply of everyday foods, how much will a year’s supply of food cost you?  When you look at your monthly grocery bill, is it overwhelming to think of buying more?  I recently looked an emergency supply store’s online catalog; they advertise a basic year’s supply of food for ‘just’ $1999, for a little over 2100 calories per day of the basics (plus a water barrel and hand-crank wheat grinder), or for the version with freeze-dried foods and more variety, $5,999.  For one person.  Is it really that much money to get a year’s supply?

Buying basics on your own from the Home Storage Center and local grocery stores costs about $414 for an adult for one year; a month’s worth of food for one person is about $33. (It cost $25.31 in 2011, $16.23 in 2010) This provides about 2200 calories a day.

The Home Storage Center Price List can be found here for purchasing in person, or here for ordering it online. Prices online include the shipping. (Please note that while the in-person order form doesn’t yet reflect this, the following items have been discontinued:  berry drink mix, granola, instant complete potatoes, instant refried beans.)

These are the basics:
Grains- 300 pounds                                  Dry milk- 16 pounds
Sugar- 60 pounds                                      Salt- 8 pounds
Legumes- 60 pounds                                Oil- 10 quarts
 
If you’re storing food for children, plan on
50% of these amounts for age 3 and under,
70% for ages 3-6, 90% for ages 7-10, and
100% for ages 11 and up. 
Or store as much as you would for an adult and have enough to share.

Here is the cost breakdown for one adult:

Grains, 300 lbs- $22.08 per month, $265 per year. Costs were based on 150 lbs  of wheat (28 cans) 100 lbs of rice (18 cans), and 50 lbs of oats (20 cans-- 10 quick oats, 10 regular oats).  For a little bit more money, you can get some of your grains in the form of spaghetti or macaroni, which are also sold at the Home Storage Center.  I’ve recently seen local wheat sell for $15 per 50 lb bag; buying your wheat that way would knock the cost down $50. Spend that on the nice extras, listed at the end of this list!

Milk, 16 lbs -- $3.00 per month, $30.24 per year. (9 pouches)  Any evaporated milk you store counts towards this, too; it takes 5 1/2 (12 oz) cans of evaporated milk to equal one pound of dry milk powder.  (Both of those amounts will reconstitute to one gallon.)

Sugar, 60 lbs.  $1.69 per month, $20.32 per year. The cheapest way I've found is to buy it in 25 lb bags, which are $8.22 at Walmart now.  It’s sometimes that price at other stores on sale. You’ll need (3) 5-gallon buckets to store it in, which you can pick up used at many bakeries for about $1 each. (Bakeries get their frostings and fillings in 2.5 and 5-gallon buckets.)  Brown sugar, powdered sugar, and honey count towards the total.

Oil, 10 qts –$1.02 per month, $12.29 per year. This isn’t sold at the home storage center, but the last good sale price I found for canola oil was $1.79 for 1 ½ quarts (48 oz.)

Salt, 8 lbs- $.33 per month, $3 per year.  26 oz of store brand salt is $ .59. You’d need 5 of them, for $3.03 after tax.  4# box at Sam’s Club is $1.46, total for 8 lbs is $3.01. 

Legumes, 60 lbs– $5.04 a month, $60.50 per year. (11 cans) The home storage center sells black beans, pinto, and white beans.  They also sell dehydrated refried ones, for about twice the price. (These have only a 5-year shelf life, versus 30 years for the regular beans.  But they’re very convenient.)

Water, 14/gal/person-   You can store this for free by using 2- and 3- liter pop bottles, or juice containers (not milk jugs- they break down).  Or use the 5-gallon square jugs or big blue barrels; they’ll run you about $1 per gallon of storage. 


For about $110 more you can get the following:

-2 (#10) cans of dried onions- the #10 can holds 12 ¾ cups-- the equivalent of almost 70 medium onions (3 Tbsp dried onion = 1 medium fresh onion), without the tears and chopping. They can even be reconstituted and grilled or caramelized! (2 cans =$15)

-3 (#10) Apple slices (3 cans = $33.75)

-6 (#10) cans of potato flakes (6 cans = $30)

-2 (#10) cans of dehydrated diced carrots, equivalent to about 10 pounds of fresh carrots, nicely diced for you.  (2 cans = $17.00)
​
-4 (1-lb) bottles of honey ($16) or four 2-lb packages of hot cocoa mix-- each package makes about 32 8-oz servings or two gallons. (4 packages = $17)

Other things you might consider getting at the home storage center:
Water bottle with filter ($15), pancake mix, potato flakes, more pasta or anything else.

​This talk was originally given on September 22, 2019.

Cheerfully do all that lies in our power

Up the road from us in Kaysville, Utah, the Church owns a large grain mill along I-15-- Deseret Mills, now also a pasta plant.  The buildings there were dedicated a few days after the Teton Dam disaster, in June 1976.  President Spencer W. Kimball spoke at the dedication of Deseret Mills.  This is what he said.

“I hope, and this is my brief message to you today, that no one ever reads one word about that terrible flood and the sadness that it has brought… without saying quietly to himself,
 ‘No moment will ever pass when I will not be prepared as the Brethren tell me to do.’ One year’s supply of commodities, well cared for, well selected, is a minimum.

It’s the minimum [President Kimball hit the pulpit for emphasis], and every family, if they have only been married a day or a week, should begin to have their year’s supply. 

Now that’s basic, and we mean it!  [He hit the podium again.]

There should be no family under the sound of my voice who isn’t already prepared for whatever eventuality may come. We can’t anticipate it, of course. We don’t know where another dam is going out, or where a river is going to flood, or whether an earthquake is going to come, or what’s going to happen.

We just are always prepared because the Lord said, ‘If ye are prepared ye shall not fear’ (D&C 38:30). And the only way to have peace and security is to be prepared.
May the Lord bless us that not one family of us will go from this room without a determination from this moment forward that there will never be a time when we will not be prepared to meet the hazards that could come.” (Pure Religion p. 266-267)

More recently, Julie B. Beck, then in the General Relief Society Presidency, declared, "We become self-reliant through obtaining sufficient knowledge, education, and literacy; by managing money and resources wisely, being spiritually strong, preparing for emergencies and eventualities; and by having physical health and social and emotional well-being.”[1]

My main message today comes from Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and Timothy, and the Doctrine and Covenants-

“The Lord loveth a cheerful giver” (from our Come, Follow Me reading this week,2 Cor. 9:7, and “therefore, dearly beloved…, let us cheerfully do all that is in our power. (D&C 123:17)  “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (1 Timothy 1:7)
 
There are lots of reasons for having food storage as part of our emergency preparedness – power outages, earthquake, economic crisis (this can be widespread but is more often in our own house with sickness or job loss), health benefits (incl. cooking for those with allergies), ‘everyday emergencies’ like quick dinners, last-minute food assignments for neighbors who need it, and having no time to shop). Ezra Taft Benson declared, “The revelation to produce and store food may be as essential to our temporal welfare as the ark was to the people in the days of Noah.” https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1980/10/prepare-for-the-days-of-tribulation?lang=eng
 
  But the biggest reason is that self-reliance can help our spiritual growth.

At the October 2011 General Conference, then-President Uchtdorf told us a little more of why President Kimball had such a testimony of self-reliance.
 
“In 1941 the Gila River overflowed and flooded the Duncan Valley in Arizona. A young stake president by the name of Spencer W. Kimball met with his counselors, assessed the damage, and sent a telegram to Salt Lake City asking for a large sum of money.
Instead of sending money, President Heber J. Grant sent three men: Henry D. Moyle, Marion G. Romney, and Harold B. Lee. They visited with President Kimball and taught him an important lesson: “This isn’t a program of ‘give me,’” they said. “This is a program of ‘self-help.’”
 
Many years later, President Kimball said: “It would have been an easy thing, I think, for the Brethren to have sent us [the money,] and it wouldn’t have been too hard to sit in my office and distribute it; but what a lot of good came to us as we had hundreds of [our own] go to Duncan and build fences and haul the hay and level the ground and do all the things that needed doing. That is self-help.”10
 
By following the Lord’s way, the members of President Kimball’s stake not only had their immediate needs met, but they also developed self-reliance, alleviated suffering, and grew in love and unity as they served each other.
 
Pres. Uchtdorf continued, "Too often we notice the needs around us, hoping that someone from far away will magically appear to meet those needs. Perhaps we wait for experts … to solve specific problems. When we do this, we deprive our neighbor of the service we could render, and we deprive ourselves of the opportunity to serve...
 
“…the Lord’s way of caring for the needy is different from the world’s way… He is not only interested in our immediate needs; He is also concerned about our eternal progression. For this reason, the Lord’s way has always included self-reliance and service to our neighbor in addition to caring for the poor.” [1]              
                                             
Doctrine and Covenants 105:5 tells us that Zion can only be built up by living celestial law. 
 
Oh, how we want Zion! 
 
There’s a conference talk that President Marion G. Romney gave that is so central, so important, that it’s been printed in the Ensign three times.  It’s called “The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance”. (Study it sometime!) In it, he explained, “the principle of self-reliance is spiritual, as are all the principles of the welfare program. This is not a doomsday program, but a program for today.[2] One of the… mission[s] of the Church is to perfect the Saints, and this is the purpose of the welfare program. Today is the time for us to perfect our lives.”[3]

It’s about learning to consecrate ourselves.
Neal A. Maxwell told us this “is a deliberate expanding outward, making us more honest when we sing, ‘More used would I be’.[4] Consecration… is not shoulder-shrugging acceptance, but, instead, shoulder-squaring to better bear the yoke."[5]
Living providently -- which includes "preparing for eventualities" and storing food-- IS PART OF THE GOSPEL.
 
If each of us are going to focus on “cheerfully do[ing] all that is in your power,” what is in your power to do? The question isn’t ‘what do others do’, but what can you do right now.
 
Have you already done the things that cost little or no money? 
You can store water in cleaned soda or juice bottles. 
Inventory what you have. 
Find ways to use leftovers and reduce food waste. 
Get better at making and keeping a budget.
Gather and preserve food from those who have extra. (Anyone want to make applesauce?  I have extra apples ripening, and so do half the people on my street!)
Avoid debt.
And then prayerfully consider what you can do next.

Brigham Young said, “I need the Spirit of the Lord continually to guide…and the more I have to do the more revelation I need, and the more acute [sensitive] my spirit must become… Never worry about anything, but have the Spirit of the Lord so as to know what to do, and when you have done or counseled right never fret about the result. It is in the hands of the Lord, and He will work out the problem”. (Journal of Discourses 13:308)

President Nelson has told us, “Pray … And then listen! Write the thoughts that come to your mind. Record your feelings and follow through with actions you are prompted to take. As you continue to be obedient, …Every blessing the Lord has for you—even miracles—will follow. That is what personal revelation will do for you.”
 
THE DETAILS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM
If you look on the Church website under “Topics”, “Food Storage” is listed and says this: “Our Heavenly Father …has lovingly commanded us to ‘prepare every needful thing’ (see D&C 109:8) so that, should adversity come, we may care for ourselves and our neighbors, and support bishops as they care for others.”     

This is part of ministering!

I saw an example of this kind of ministering from a friend. Our first home was in Cache Valley, and Sherrie Schiess lived up the street from us.  Her husband loved to fish—he even took a trip to Alaska and caught  lots of salmon, and Sherrie bottled most of it.  One lovely Mothers Day, the nearby Blacksmith Fork River overflowed its banks. It flooded homes that had stood dry for decades, and the local bishop sent out a call for neighbors to help. Sherrie ground wheat, made a few large batches of fresh bread, pulled jars of home-bottled salmon out of her basement, and fed 50 displaced people. 

That’s caring for your neighbor.
 
Earlier this year, the bishop asked me to create a get-your-food-storage-in-one-year plan that anyone in the ward could use. The current Church counsel on food storage is found in the “All is Safely Gathered In” pamphlet, on the Church’s “Provident Living” site.  In addition to 2 weeks of basic water storage, the counsel includes “a three month supply of food that is part of [your] normal diet” + “a longer-term supply of food that will sustain life”.[6]  Elsewhere on the Provident Living website, it clarifies this as at least one year’s worth—this was not rescinded-- in countries where it’s legal.
 
It’s legal here.
 
Most of us don’t eat whole wheat, rice, beans, and powdered milk as part of our daily diet.  If we switched over suddenly, it would put us in the hospital.  The three-month supply gives your body time to adjust if your crisis lasts that long, and gives you time to improve your cooking skills!
 
Any thorough food storage plan has to include more than lists of food. It needs to help build skills to cook, rotate, and preserve the food, ways to waste less and make your grocery money go further. There’s a new post on the blog most weeks.  (The Church site is Provident Living.org; mine is The Provident Homemaker.com).  If you forget, or want to see what’s up, it’s listed in the ward bulletin each week.  The plan listed on my blog takes 6 months to build your 3 month supply, then 6 months to build your long-term supply.  You really can do it!
 
The Home Storage Centers are a good resource. The one nearest us is in Sandy.  Now we don’t have to can our own food there; you walk in and buy it ready off the shelf. They even have monthly sales.

In March this year, we had a special 5th-Sunday lesson from the First Presidency on finances.  They said,

“Heavenly Father cares about how we manage our financial resources; to Him, temporal matters are also spiritual matters.” (see Doctrine and Covenants 29:34)
Two financial principles and practices to consider, listed in the lesson, are “Be a good steward over spiritual and temporal blessings. Remember that we are accountable for our actions toward ourselves, our families, others, and the Lord.”[7]
Let us cheerfully do all that is in our power.

 Ezra Taft Benson stated, “The Lord has warned us of famines, but the righteous will have listened to the prophet and stored at least a year’s supply of survival food.”
 
Sometimes we think that the General Authorities don’t say anything nowadays about food storage.  They do, just not always in those words.  Again, it’s a major piece of self-reliance and consecration, which are celestial principles. Last Conference, for instance, we heard these statements:

President M. Russell Ballard- “Loving God and loving our neighbors is the doctrinal foundation” of all programs in the church…Teach members to provide for themselves and their families and to assist the poor and needy in the Lord’s way.”
- “The True, Pure and Simple Gospel of Jesus Christ”
 
Elder Neil L. Anderson --“I try to keep the focus off what I don’t have and instead on what I do have and how I can help others.” (quoting then-Elder Nelson,) “Prophets see ahead. They see the harrowing dangers the adversary has placed or will yet place in our path. Prophets also foresee the grand possibilities and privileges awaiting those who listen with the intent to obey.”
- “The Eye of Faith”
 
Sister Becky Craven- “There is a careful way and a casual way to do everything, including living the gospel.” 
-“Careful Versus Casual”
 
Brigham Young said it this way: “My faith does not lead me to think the Lord will provide us with roast pigs, bread already buttered, etc. He will give us the ability to raise the grain, to obtain the fruits of the earth…and when harvest comes…it is for us to preserve it—to save the wheat until we have…enough of the staff of life saved by the people to bread themselves and those who will come here seeking for safety.”[8] 

The overall goal is preparing to serve by becoming more self-reliant; the point of self-reliance is the increased capacity to help others.[9]
 
Let us cheerfully do all that lies in our power.[10]
 
INVITATION TO ACT

Ponder how you will apply what you’ve heard. What did the Spirit tell you?  The most important thing you get from this talk is what the Spirit tells you while you’re listening (reading) and thinking about it. Counsel with the Lord this week and seek His help. As President Nelson shared, Pray, Listen, Write, Act.

Focus on what you have power to DO- have I done what is free? Have I sat down and figured how to make the food budget allow for building storage? Can I spare extra from somewhere else for a little while?  Have I taken time to inventory what I already have?
 
President Gordon B. Hinckley, in Oct 2002 and again in April 2007, said, “The best place to have some food set aside is within our homes…We can begin ever so modestly.  We can begin with a one week’s food supply and gradually build it to a month, and then to three months… I fear that so many feel that a long-term food supply is so far beyond their reach that they make no effort at all.  Begin in a small way, … and gradually build toward a reasonable objective.”[11]   “Regardless of where we live or our financial situation, the path to preparation will open before us as we comply with the counsel of the prophets and go forward as means and circumstances permit.”  -Gordon K. Bischoff, Sept. 1997 Ensign, pg 67

“The law of consecration is that we consecrate our time, our talents, and our money and property to the cause of the Church; such are to be available to the extent they are needed to further the Lord’s interests on earth… Now I think it is perfectly clear that the Lord expects far more of us than we sometimes render in response. We are not as other men. We are the saints of God and have the revelations of heaven. Where much is given much is expected. We are to put first in our lives the things of his kingdom.” (Bruce R. McConkie, April 1975 General Conference)

I hope that each of us will go and “cheerfully do all things that lie in our power”, turning to the Spirit of the Lord to guide us to know what IS in our power—and then to do it today, tomorrow, and always.  He will open the way and give us miracles, as we grow in capacity to serve our family, neighbors, and God.
 
 ----------------------------------------------------------
[1] This description of self-reliance is shared in at least three places within Church materials—in “The Eternal Family” manual, in the “Welfare and Self-Reliance” manual, and in the Ensign/Liahona as part of a Visiting Teaching message.

[2] President Kimball said, “No amount of philosophizing, excuses, or rationalizing will ever change the fundamental need for self-reliance."[2]
https://scriptures.byu.edu/#:tc0a:g94 

[3] Elder L. Tom Perry taught, “The principle of self-reliance is spiritual as well as temporal. It is not a doomsday program; it is something to be practiced each and every day of our lives.”   https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1991/10/becoming-self-reliant?lang=eng

[4] Marion G. Romney of the First Presidency explained, 
“I do not want to be a calamity howler. I don’t know in detail what’s going to happen in the future. I know what the prophets have predicted. But I tell you that the welfare program, organized to enable us to take care of our own needs, has not yet performed the function that it was set up to perform. We will see the day when we will live on what we produce.

“We’re living in the latter days. We’re living in the days the prophets have told about from the time of Enoch to the present day. We are living in the era just preceding the second advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are told to so prepare and live that we can be … independent of every other creature beneath the celestial kingdom. That is what we are to do.

“This welfare program was set up under inspiration in the days of President Grant. It was thoroughly analyzed and taught by his great counselor, J. Reuben Clark, Jr. It is in basic principle the same as the United Order. ***When we get so we can live it, we will be ready for the United Order.*** You brethren know that we will have to have a people ready for that order in order to receive the Savior when he comes.

“I know from my own experience and the witnesses by the thousands that I have received of the Spirit that this is the Lord’s work. It is to prepare us. If you’ll think of the most sacred place you ever have been, you’ll remember that the final thing that we are to do is to be able and willing to consecrate all that we have to the building up of the kingdom of God, to care for our fellow men. When we do this we’ll be ready for the coming of the Messiah.” (In Conference Report, Apr. 1975, pp. 165–66.)
https://www.lds.org/.../section-78-consecration-an...
 
[5] “More Holiness Give Me,” 1985, Hymns, no. 131

[6] See All Is Safely Gathered In: Family Home Storage, 3.
This pamphlet with its prophetic counsel was distributed about 6 months before the worst financial downturn in 60 years (October 2007), and Vaughn J. Featherstone gave a very helpful talk, appropriately titled “Food Storage”, along with a challenge for each family to get it in place within a year, shortly before the recession of the late 70s.  But if you want to have your eyes opened to this being a PATTERN of timely revelation from God through our leaders, read this talk by Harold B. Lee in April 1943, “Hearing the Voice”. It's a remarkable thing to have living prophets! 
https://scriptures.byu.edu/#:t47:j01
 
[7] Also see “Top Ten Food Storage Myths” https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tzkTKfOuz6YXaWjtiAtKEsQvKf4epET5bVFqhAMQ9is/edit
 
[8] Brigham continued, Will you do this? “Aye, maybe I will,” says one, and “maybe I won't” says another; “the kingdom that cannot support me I don't think of much account; the Lord has said it is his business to provide for his Saints, D&C 104:15 and I guess he will do it.” I have no doubt but what he will provide for his Saints; but if you do not take this counsel and be industrious and prudent, you will not long continue to be one of his Saints. Then, continue to do right, that we may be His Saints; sow, plant, buy half a bushel of wheat here, and a bushel there, and store it up”.
 
[9] See The Celestial Nature of Self-Reliance, by Marion G. Romney, and another statement from him: "As we prepare for the building of Zion, we must not and we shall not abandon the basic principles upon which our Church Welfare Services are founded: love—love of God and neighbor—and work, or labor."- "Church Welfare Services Basic Principles", April 1976 General Conference

[10] You all know the verse in Proverbs 31 that says, "Who can find a virtuous woman? For her price is far above rubies." I've never looked up the Hebrew word translated "virtuous" before; I sort of assumed it was mostly based in moral purity.  And that is a piece of it.  But the verses following indicate it's much more. I looked up the Hebrew this week. The word is chayil. It means power. https://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/pro/31/10/t_conc_65901 A 'chayil' woman is one who is active in doing good, one who taps into God’s power to increase her ability to serve.[11]
Who can find a 'powerful, able' woman? For her price is far above rubies.

[11]  President Monson said, “The best storehouse system that the Church could devise would be for every family to store a year’s supply of needed food, clothing, and, where possible, the other necessities of life.”  Treat it as you would a storehouse – inventory!