Three-Month Supply vs. Long-Term Storage: What's the Difference?

When people first start thinking about food storage, they often picture one big thing. Shelves of buckets. Cans stacked to the ceiling. A basement that looks like a warehouse.

But there are really two different kinds of food storage, and they do two different jobs. Understanding the difference makes the whole project a lot less confusing, and a lot more useful.

The Three-Month Supply

My stake president has encouraged us to get a three-month supply of food. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the church I belong to, a stake is a group of several local congregations, and the stake president is the volunteer leader over them. When he gives counsel like that, I listen.

A three-month supply is food you use regularly. It's the pasta, the canned vegetables, the soup, the peanut butter, the cereal, the things that are already in your kitchen cupboards. The only difference is that you keep more of it on hand. Enough to get your family through about three months.

The key is that you rotate it. You eat the oldest cans first and put the new ones at the back. You don't buy it and let it sit there. Because it's food you already eat, nothing goes to waste, and you always have a fresh supply ready.

This is where most people should start. It doesn't require learning anything new or eating anything unfamiliar. It just requires buying a little more of what you already buy, a little at a time, until the shelves are full.

Long-Term Storage

Then there's the long-term stuff. This is the wheat, the rice, the beans, and the other basic staples that last ten, twenty, even thirty years when they're packed and stored the right way.

Long-term storage is your foundation for a longer, harder stretch. If the three-month supply runs out and things still haven't gotten back to normal, this is what keeps your family fed. It's also the part that can carry you toward a full year's supply.

You can buy these staples at fair prices from the Church's Home Storage Centers, which I usually call the bishops' storehouses. They're open to the public, so you don't have to be a member, and there's an online store as well.

Don't Let Either One Just Sit There

Here's where I want to push back on something that's easy to do.

Most people understand that the three-month supply needs to be rotated. But the long-term storage? They buy the buckets, stack them in the garage, and forget about them. After all, it lasts thirty years. Why touch it?

You shouldn't let your year's supply sit there either. You should use it, get used to it, and know how to cook with it.

Think about what happens otherwise. Something goes wrong, the grocery store shelves are empty, and you finally open that first bucket of wheat. Do you have a grain mill? Do you know how to make bread from scratch? Have your kids ever eaten whole wheat anything? Has your stomach? A sudden switch to a diet you've never eaten is hard on anyone, especially in the middle of a crisis.

Now picture the family that's been cooking with their wheat, rice, and beans all along. They know which recipes their kids like. They know how long beans take to soften. They've learned that wheat can be used for a lot more than flour or cereal. For them, an emergency is hard, but the food isn't a stranger.

It also keeps you honest about what you've actually stored. When you're pulling from those buckets now and then, you notice when something has gone stale, when a lid wasn't sealed right, or when you're running lower than you thought. Better to learn that on an ordinary Tuesday than on the day you truly need it.

That's the family I want to be. It's the family I hope you'll be too.

How the Two Work Together

So which one do you need? Both.

The three-month supply carries you through the short-term troubles that actually hit most families: a layoff, an illness, a storm that closes the roads for a week. It's easy to start, easy to rotate, and it's food you already like.

Long-term storage carries you further, through the kind of disruption that doesn't fix itself in a few weeks. It's the backbone of a year's supply.

Use them both. Cook from them both. Let them become part of your normal life instead of a museum in the basement.

Make Your Plan

If you'd like to see what either one looks like for your family, try the free Food Storage Calculator. Put in the adults, teens, youth, and infants in your home, choose three months or twelve or anything in between, and it'll show you what you need and what it would cost at the Home Storage Centers. I walk through it step by step in how much food storage do I need. For water, fuel, cooking, and heat, the Family Planner fills in the rest. Both are free, with no sign-up, and nothing is saved.

A Thought to Carry With You

Food that sits untouched for thirty years isn't much different from faith that only comes out in an emergency. Both are there in theory. Neither one is ready when you need it. The things that hold us up in hard times, whether it's bread or prayer, are the things we've been using every day. Keep your shelves in use, and keep your faith in use too.