• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
emergency preparedness

Simply Preparing

Survival blog for disaster and emergency preparedness.

  • Home
  • About Simply Preparing
  • Beginning Prepping
  • Simple & Inexpensive Prepper Projects

Family Food Storage Plan For 3 Months

December 7, 2012 By ParkerMama

We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned or linked to in this post, including Amazon Affiliate links

Making a family food storage plan for 3 months can feel daunting.  Overwhelming.  Something you’d rather not even think about.

How much do I need?

Where do I start?

 

I suggest working on a 3 Month Family Food Storage Plan.  3-Months of foods you KNOW your family will eat.  Nothing funky.  Nothing you hope they will eat.  Don’t buy into the theory that when people get hungry enough, they’ll eat whatever you put in front of them.  It simply ain’t true!

(Psst!  You are going to need 1 Gallon Of Water Per Person Per Day. We can show you how to do that AND how to filter emergency water too! )

I suggest you begin by creating 7 breakfast menus, 7 lunch menus, and 7 dinner menus that your family is familiar with and enjoys. 

Then break each menu down to each ingredient.  Don’t just assume you have enough tomato sauce, go and check.  Add up how many teaspoons of salt you will need and make sure you have it on hand.  How sad will you be when your Italian pasta bake has no oregano because you thought you had enough? If you like mayo with your tuna salad, you’d better list mayo on your ingredient list.  The same with pickles.  How’s your supply of celery salt looking? Go ahead and look, I’ll wait…

Now you should have the ingredients listed for 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches, and 7 dinners.

How Much Food Do I Need For A 3 Month Food Storage Plan

Since you are working towards a THREE MONTHS family food storage plan, you’ll want to take those ingredients and multiply it by 12.  12 weeks = 3 months.

  • If you are planning on serving oatmeal for breakfast once a week for 3 months, and your family uses a pound of dry oats per breakfast, then you are going to need 12 pounds of dried oats.
  • If you need 1 cup of raisins for each breakfast, they you will need 12 cups of raisins total.   How much brown sugar does your crew plow through each time they eat oatmeal?  You are going to need that much, times 12.
  • Oh, and if your family likes milk on their oatmeal, you’re gonna want to make sure you have either powdered or canned milk in your stash.

What I like the most about this plan of starting your food storage  is that you wind up with exactly what you need in order to make a variety of complete meals. 

(And because you have three months of meals your family can’t wait to eat, you can easily rotate the ingredients for each meal.  Yes, you must rotate your food storage. Don’t give me the stink eye over this.  Storing only cans of stuff that lasts for 20 years, is expensive and  full of sodium.  In times of crisis your family is going to want foods that are familiar. )

Imagine 3 months of nothing but taco shells, green beans and pudding cups.

Yeah.

This plan is sounding better already, huh?

How To Create A Family Food Storage Plan

Food storage plan for 3 months step by step infographic

PS:  Wondering how to make meals that call for meat if the power has gone out?  Thrive Freeze Dried Meats are beyond amazing and so easy to use!  And with a shelf life of around 25 years for most meats, you can purchase a few each month to build up your stash!   It’s easy to sign up to be a part of Thrive’s NEW Grocery Box plan for monthly deliveries!

If you have a way to boil water (and you REALLY should) when the power is out, you can cook with freeze dried foods!

Filed Under: Beginning Prepping, Surviving In Style Tagged With: beginning preppers, family emergency plan, food storage

About ParkerMama

Tammy is a mom to 6 wonderful kids, including Parker, who came with an extra chromosome! She is passionate about special needs advocacy, living within her means, and preparing for an uncertain future. Tammy's main blog is Praying For Parker. Make sure to visit her there as well!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Misty says

    October 14, 2014 at 1:48 am

    LOVE this infographic. SO awesome! I’m linking to it in my newsletter tomorrow. This is exactly what I try to to teach people only I use (and love) freeze dried meat.

  2. Brittany manning says

    October 20, 2014 at 5:32 am

    What can you recommend about eggs when making omelets? Or how do I make them with no power?

    • Christi says

      November 1, 2014 at 7:32 pm

      Camping stove. Grill. Outdoor equipment.

    • Megan says

      October 7, 2016 at 5:22 am

      powdered eggs are really not that bad. especially the ones from Thrive made especially for scrambled eggs

  3. Tedd says

    October 20, 2015 at 6:46 am

    I sugget to also to have a charcoal standing by at the house, in case you run out of gas you can use charcoal for cooking.

  4. Kathy says

    October 17, 2020 at 7:00 am

    My husband and I live in a senior community where generators and barb BQS aren’t allowed. How to cook beans and rice without power? We’re in Sacramento, CA where fires and smoke were surrounding us! How to get 3 months of a gallon of water per person per day?!

Primary Sidebar

Why Worry About Preparing?

Preparedness makes more sense now than ever.

As we move through 2026, it’s clear that the world is shifting in ways many of us can feel — even if we can’t always predict what’s next. In recent years we’ve seen global supply chain disruptions, international conflicts affecting energy and food markets, extreme weather events across multiple continents, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure, economic uncertainty, inflation, and rising costs for everyday essentials.

From global pandemics to geopolitical tensions and natural disasters happening around the world, the message is the same: stability isn’t guaranteed.

Whether or not you believe we’re headed toward a major global reset, there are plenty of everyday realities that make preparedness practical — not extreme. Job loss. Health emergencies. Severe storms. Power outages. Supply shortages. Economic downturns.

Preparedness isn’t about panic.

It’s about positioning your family to respond calmly when life throws the unexpected your way.

We’ve found that the more intentional emergency planning my family does, the less I worry about the big “what ifs.” When you have food storage in place, backup plans for power and water, and practical skills to lean on, uncertainty feels manageable.

That peace of mind is powerful.

Here at Simply Preparing, we share the survival tips, preparedness strategies, and practical systems we’ve learned along the way — from pantry building and food storage to emergency planning and self-reliance skills. Our goal is not to create fear, but to create confidence.

And we hope you’ll join the conversation.

Preparedness is not a solo journey. We all bring different experiences, lessons, and perspectives to the table. Share what you’ve learned. Ask questions. Leave comments. We grow stronger and smarter together.

Now, let’s get started prepping.

Pick a post and begin reading. At the end of every article, the blog will randomly suggest three additional preparedness posts to explore. Set aside just 10 minutes a day to build your knowledge base. Small, consistent steps add up faster than you think.

Because when it comes to preparedness, we’re never truly “done” learning — and we’re never wrong for being ready.

Let’s prepare wisely.

Affiliate Disclosure

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase—at no additional cost to you. We only recommend products we personally trust and believe are worth having as part of a simple, practical preparedness plan.

Privacy Policy and Cookies

This site uses cookies. Please read our Privacy Policy so you fully understand how we use them.

Copyright © 2025 Indigo Ink, LLC: Simply Preparing Disaster and Emergency Preparedness · WordPress · Log in