Buy It Cheap & Stack It Deep

I have a couple months worth of food around at any one time.

Sometimes I am asked if I go out of my way to buy bulk foods to keep my pantry going.
Actually the overwhelming majority of the food I eat comes from one place: The local supermarkets.
We keep an eye out for bargains at the local supermarkets.
Often the smaller packages are cheaper than the bulk or "family style" packages, so pay attention to pricing by weight. Sometimes it is cheaper to buy a bunch of 6 ounce packages at the supermarket than a 4 pound package!

Often the supermarkets will do promotions on things like soup or pasta sauce, "10 for $10". That's when you load up. Budget on spending an extra $40 or so on long-term food storage and when you see an opportunity like this, jump on it. Something like soup lasts a long time, so don't be shy about buying 3 or 4 cases of it at a time if the price is right.

Pasta and pasta sauce often goes on sale the same way. Pasta is great pantry food because it stores well, is easy to prepare, everyone likes it, and it is extremely versatile.
Flour, rice, beans, all of these things store well and are available really cheap in bulk quantities.

You don't get it all at once. Just every trip, look for something you like to eat that stores well, and buy a lot of it when it is cheap.

Your food stores aren't meant to be an emergency supply. They are meant to be the regular food supply, just padded well enough to last you through any hardships that might come up. Most Americans seem to need to go to the grocery store once a week (or more) just to get by.

If a major storm gutted the infrastructure here in the U.P., could you hunker down for a month without a functional grocery store nearby? That's all I'm talking about.

Try to make sure you don't box yourself in. Don't load up on foods that require a microwave oven or some other electrical device to prepare. Dried foods that just need hot water are good. Canned foods consume more space but often don't require much in the way of extra water to prepare.

Make sure some of your food is relatively portable and free of preparation requirements, so that if you need to evacuate your home you can just grab a few days worth of food and go.