When this question hit my inbox, I was ecstatic! I love to see people actually doing something to get prepared! Once you decide to start, the planning part can make you want to quit. I feel your pain, and hopefully I can help you with this before you smash your computer to bits!
QUESTION:
Do you know of a food storage inventory list sheet that is available anywhere, preferably free? I tried making my own on Excel (Microsoft spreadsheet) but got hopelessly bogged down & gave up! Love your blog and follow on FB. Thanks in advance!
ANSWER:
I’ll admit once again, questions with compliments get immediately moved to the front of the line ;)
I went ahead and searched the web high and low and asked some amazing food storage experts if they could help me with this one! There are some fabulous resources (all for free too) that I’m so excited to share with you!
Why re-create the wheel if it’s already been done for you? Take a look at these and customize them to suite your needs!
Food Storage Inventory Sheets:
#1 – What Do I Have?
If you want to quickly figure out what food you have and what you still need to get, go ahead and download these 7 food storage inventory lists and get started. These lists are perfect if you’re not very computer savy and just want something you can fill out immediately!
She has 7 lists on her site you can download that cover everything you might need in the following categories:
- Liquid
- Meat
- Grain
- Fruit
- Vegetables
- Dairy
- Basics
#2 – Food Storage Excel Worksheet
For those who are crazy serious about getting their food storage, this excel worksheet is a beast! Here are some things you can expect when you download this bad boy:
- Inventory Tracker for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner & Snacks
- Instructions & even a Video on how to use it!
- A Sample Page
- Common Food Items
- Non-Food Items
They didn’t forget anything and the best part is it’s ready to go! No having to figure out how to create your own Excel Spreadsheet or needing to beat your computer with a stick.
#3 – Food Storage Calculator
If you despise math as much as I do, you’ll love this handy spreadsheet done by the Food Storage Made Easy gals! They blow me away with all their free and very useful resources they have available.
All you have to do is enter how many adults and how many children into the Family box at the top and ta-da – you’ll know exactly how much food you need to purchase!
This also is a great tool in calculating how many children you want to have! No longer is it just a cute 6 lb. baby you’re bringing home, but also an extra 600 lbs. of food you need to factor into your plan ;)
#4 – Preparedness & Food Storage Worksheet
It’s hard to prepare and stalk-up when you have no idea what you need to get or why! These worksheets make you think about what you are really preparing for and help you actually write it down!
Take a couple of minutes to fill out these worksheets and when you are done you can easily print them off and save them in your preparedness binder!
#5 – Food Storage E-Book
If you’re done playing around and just want an entire book with everything you need to know about getting started with food storage then head over to Simple. Healthy. Tasty. To get the free download you just enter your e-mail and the book will be sent straight to your inbox.
Not only does it have food storage inventory sheets and lists, but she breaks everything down into 6 simple steps:
- Start with the Basics!
- Rotate
- Sprouting
- Gardening
- Herbs
- Share
It’s a great book packed with tonz of useful info, and you really can’t beat free!
Fill Out a Food Storage Inventory Sheet!
Everyone likes to do things a little bit different, so find a food storage inventory sheet that works for you and go ahead and download it! Don’t over think this, just do it! Extra points if you actually fill one out this week!
If you have a food storage inventory spreadsheet that’s been extremely helpful for you, be sure to let me know or link to it in the comments!
***Feel free to SUBMIT your questions, or READ some of the past ones!***
I don’t publish every question I’m asked, but I do try to respond to as many as I can!
thanks for this great list to choose from – BUT do you know of any type of hand held home scanner where I can scan the barcodes of the items and then upload to excel – it would definitely make my life easier than having to type everything in – plus when my husband takes something I would know when he scans it instead of going in the basement and see we are all out of something! thanks so much LAura
Wow, you are super hi-tech. I’ve only had one other person ask me something similar. I think I need to look into this more!
You’d think there would be. I know my Out of Milk phone app you can scan things in and keep inventory. But not as handy because DH takes stuff out without scanning.
I also had this idea of scanning bar codes. Would help gain so much time when food shopping.
I use the E-food Storage app on my phone. It works pretty good, as long as I remember to scan…lol…You can use your phone to scan, OR a bar code scanner from your computer…Export to Excel…Set goals, and expiration dates, etc…
You could maybe try using your phone instead. Check-out the E-FoodStorage app I have listed here – http://prepared-housewives.com/emergency-apps-that-might-just-save-your-life/
I haven’t checked it out, but it might do some of the things you mentioned.
There is an iPhone app where you can scan the item into an inventory. You then can export the information into an Excel spreadsheet if you want. There is a free version to try first, then if you like it upgrade to the full version for a fee. I have been using for about a year and love it. The app is called Prep&Pantry. You can see their website at http://www.prepandpantry.com
Thanks RaLen for letting us know! I’ve been curious too, if anything like this existed! Definitely will be trying it out!
Thanks so much – I am sooooo excited and it has both iphone and android – I have iphone and my husband has an android – PERFECT – can’t wait to get started!!!
I’ve paid $7.99 for this app and on first day after spending few hours and capturing the inventory the application started crashing when a product image is updated. So this app started crashes now on all my tablets (because the online sync feature sync all devices). Sent an email to develoepr numerous times posted on their site but no update. This is frustrating and I’d not advise you use the product as the time and money is not worth it if Developers are not that available
I like that “calculate how many children you want”. lol I haven’t had one under 7#, yet, and don’t think the newest one will be small either! =) My husband and I both like spreadsheets (it has to be love!) and have been trying to make up something for our own food and non-food storage. We’re beginners, so these resources are going to be very helpful! Thank you!
I love when people catch my humor ;) Maybe, I’m the only that thinks about it, but with each kid I’m adding up how much more food.
Good luck with your new baby! Hope these resources help.
I have eight children who are now all over 14 yrs old, however, even when they were younger, I calculated everything as adults, because by the time your children are about 10 or 12, they are eating like adults. If I didn’t calculate it this way, I would have enough food in 5 years if a situation arose that I needed to use my longer term storage. If your child is 5 right now, 5 years from now they will be 10. I would rather make sure I have enough calories now, than ration everyone like they are still eating cheerios and goldfish crackers.
I totally agree! That’s how I did it with mine too!
I only wanted to have to do the math and figure everything out once!
Jamie,
Thanks for these great resources! As usual you are on top of things and super helpful. I am a regular reader of both Food Storage Moms and Food Storage Made Easy. But it wasn’t until you showed a variety of charts did I finally print out the set that worked for me!
Now I just need to get them filled out and organize my food storage a bit more and I’ll be on the road to prepping even better!!
Thanks again,
The Lady Kay
You are too sweet. I would definitely not say I’m on top of things ;) I wish!
Good luck with getting them filled out! That’s the hard part!
Great post Thanks so much for linking up with Front Porch Friday!
After reading your article, i was looking for dowload free softare that you mentioned. But could not find it. Can you please give me a web link so i may download.
Regards
Sorry about that, my links turned black for some reason. Click on the title of the one you want to download and it should take you there.
I have a question, being that almost everyone i know has a smartphone, is there any good apps out there that u can scan what is in your inventory and then edit it on ur phone so you only really have to scan once a week or so and being im the one who uses the store as i call it the most i can instantly edit the amount.
Check-out the E-FoodStorage app I have listed here – http://prepared-housewives.com/emergency-apps-that-might-just-save-your-life/
I haven’t checked it out, but it might do some of the things you mentioned.
Great website, thanks for all of the helpful information! I wanted to download the Food Storage E-Book you wrote about, but the link takes me to the website’s most current blog post, not the e-book. What am I doing wrong? Thanks!
Thanks Jeanna! To get her e-book you have to subscribe to her newsletter. It has a link in the right-hand column. You click on it and it will take you to her subscription page. Once you sign up it will be emailed to you.
Dont see a place to download the food storage spreadsheets.
Sorry about that. Click the name of the spreadsheet you want to download (next to the #) and it should take you to the website to where you can download it.
Thanks for food inventory lists. I hope it solve my problem about forgetting what I should purchase and what didn’t. I had to throw some food away or give to others because I purchase it while still remain in my refrigerator.
Try myfoodstoragebook.com! My friend has a great method!
I totally agree! Megan is fabulous & super organized!!! I love all her ideas and methods!
Oh and I wrote 3 books, tell me what you think, they are under my name on Amazon. Pam Emick. :)
Did you do the bread in a bag and soup in a bag? Does that help with cooking in the wonder oven? People are always asking me how to do that!
They are all dry ingredients in the bag (or jar) that you add water or other liquids to. So no it’s not a help for Wonderbox oven cooking. I gave a class (well, several) on Wonderbox oven cooking and found that if it’s difficult to gain access to the styrene beads you can always use two sleeping bags (cotton) around the pot and it works as well.
First time here. I wanted to comment on the use of barcode scanner to inventory your food stock.
I purchased a handheld scanner – farsun #FG9100A on ebay for ~$20 and it works fine for entering barcodes into excel.
Just be sure to set the cell for numeric entry and set decimals to none.
Been a prepper for a long time – before it became trendy!
Have the entire house inventoried down to EVERYTHING!
This is great and all, but do you print it every time you update it?? I don’t know how you would know what you have if you rely on this and the power goes out or something. Just a thought. I keep all my stuff written down on paper or the cans are stored together and labeled. I do a lot of my own canning so I know what we have all the time. I think it helps to keep husbands or kids out of your storage space, unless you know that they are down there from sending them to get something. My husband will go grudgingly, because he says he can’t find anything and doesn’t like my storage space. Mostly he stays out of it and is just happy we have food to eat. I also don’t store junk food down there (if we buy it at all, which is VERY rarely) So, he really will only go down to get pickles (which I keep out front for easy access) or if I ask him.
But, I’m glad that you are all planning and trying to keep your families fed in any emergency that might arise.
The next thing is to have a cookbook connected to a calendar that shows how meals correspond to inventory. That would be the ultimate preparedness app.
For example. Upload what you have. Then the cookbook shows all the meals you can make and how many of those meals until you would need to buy more of each of the ingredients. In addition, it recommends ingredients to increase the number of possible meals available to make from the cookbook.
Finally, have cookbook selections correspond to a calendar so that you have the recipe available for the day when you cook the meal and also know when to buy more ingredients.
I like the way you think! Let me know when I can download it ;)