Here is how I went from homeless and broke to camping in the Adirondacks, getting an apartment, furnishing it, creating a garden and growing and maintaining it. I’m still broke, but it feels better 
I got out of a bad situation and camped and lived in my van. I thoroughly enjoyed camping free!
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/ongoing-added-to-description-of-how-to-live-in-your-van/
Budgeting and planning had to be very careful to accomplish my goals
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/the-budgeting-never-ends/
I kept track of what I bought
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/keeping-track-of-my-finances/
Putting together the seed starting shelves
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/seed-starting-shelf-components-ordered/
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/2010/03/13/what-the/
Pictures of my garden
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/my-adirondack-summer-and-garden/
This year’s seeds, plants, bulbs, tubers, garden gear, etc…
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/my-seed-stash-for-2010/
Apartment furnishings
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/had-a-pretty-good-day-today/
http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/2009/08/01/new-looks-for-old-stuff/
Food storage
I have enjoyed getting to know a bit more of your history. On your food storage, do you have a 3 month supply? 6 month? etc. I also have food storage. I am always suprised at the people who think they will just run to the store if somethings happens.
Hannah said today that we needed to go thru our 72 hours bob’s and get new food in them. I have the one for the auto redone. A friend at church saw it and asked what it was and said that her husband would have liked to have that when he was stuch in snow for two days. I was surprised that a truck driver didnt have something like a survival kit.
Food storage is always a work in progress. My goal is to have a year’s worth as suggested by LDS prophets. Once there is a year’s worth, it’s good to always be adding more. Store what you eat and eat what you store. 72 hour kits are very important! I’m glad you know that
How come I always see my spelling errors after I hit submit? Oh well.
I didn’t see them. Sometimes “Spell-check” can’t even help me. LOL. We don’t ask for perfection. Just your pleasant words.
What size are your ball jars with the dried beans, etc.?
The jars on the top right and near the bottom are half gallons. The shelf with 21 matching jars are quarts. The shelf with raisins has quarts, pints and cups.
I’ve used pints and quarts before. I don’t think I’ve seen half gallon jars before. What do you have on the bottom two shelves? Looks like some red lentils, green and yellow split peas?
I order half gallon jars online at Ace Hardware, then pick them up at my local store for no shipping cost
http://www.acehardware.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2841638
I can look at the shelves from here and tell you what I see…but I move the jars constantly as I use stuff. Red beans, black-eyed peas, salt, soy beans, chick peas, barley, cheddar cheese powder, popcorn, Jasmine rice, Basmati rice, regular rice, brown sugar, apricots, dates, green split peas, yellow dal, red lentils, raisins, pinto beans. Just imagine going into a food co-op or natural food store and buying bulk from all the dried foods.
There are pics of my shelves in Vermont….
http://peaceandcarrots.homestead.com/HomesteadAndOrganicFarmForSale.html
Those were mostly gallon and half gallon jars.
I have red, green and brown lentils; brown rice; unhulled barley; pinto and black beans; quinoa; amaranth; yellow and green split peas; arborio rice. I know I’m forgetting some things. All organic. I have them in quart jars. Makes for a pretty display of all the colors and textures.
I’ll bet those half gallon jars are really heavy!
One of the things on my To-Do list is to write down everything in my food storage. I had those lists in my van, Florida and Vermont.
I ordered several of the cardboard can rotator racks. I am so excited. I am currently using pop rotators for the fridge but they just dont fit right. They had a special buy 5 packages and get 10% off which helps pay the shipping.
I always use my food storage and rotate. I have read blogs where the folks say this is food storage and we never touch it for any reason. I think well in a few years you can touch it to throw it out and start over. I store in 5 gallon buckets in closets, downstairs and also in my huge pantry.
I love the picture of the wall of jars from the farm. It makes your heart warm ya know?
I bought plastic Shelf Reliance rotator racks when I lived in Florida. I will be interested to know how you like the cardboard ones.
I will probably do a post on the carboard rotators after I get them and get the pantry situated.
On the inventory. The last time I canned a bunch of chicken, I had the girls inventory when they took the jars to the basement and Hubby made a spread sheet. Now when we get something from there we just cross it off.
The closet, the totes in the utility, the pantry and the big cabinet in the utility are all still uninventoried.
I need to at least do the closet so we can make a trip to the cannery and restock.
We love their refried beans and instant potatoes. I use the milk a lot too. Well I use it all.