Um, Where Do I Put it All?

A major obstacle with any food storage plan is where in the heck you're supposed to keep it all. It might seem like bag meals would be even more difficult to find a place for, but actually they're not. In fact that's one of the 12 benefits of bag meals listed in It's in the Bag - they take up less space. Michelle Snow (the author) says before using bag meals, her two-year supply of food storage took up 1000 square feet. After switching to bag meals, she was able to keep a supply for the same amount of time in just a 16 1/2 by 4 ft area.

image courtesy of Michelle Snow

But even that is more than a lot of us have. Well, I think one of the major mistakes we make when trying to figure out where to store it all is thinking that we have to keep it all in one place. When working with a small apartment, tiny house, or even a big house that just happens to be filled with people, you have to think a little more outside the storage room.

One great idea is to keep them under your beds. In It's in the Bag, Michelle Snow estimates you can fit 86 bag meals under a queen size bed. That's about a month and a half's worth of meals, if you're eating breakfast and dinner every day. So, if you have two queen size beds in your house, you have room to store your 3-month supply.

 

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Other ideas:

Leave a little bit of space between your couch and the wall, and store your bags behind it. You could even make or buy inexpensive bookshelves (maybe like these ones) to maximize the vertical space. Then, you have almost a little console table behind your couch for lamps or drink-setting-down capabilities, and when you need to access your storage, you just slide the couch out of the way.

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Dedicate a corner of each of your closets to bag meals. Again, some shelving would help maximize space. You could build or install a shelf along the bottom of the closet, put bag meals under and shoes on top. You could use that top shelf every closet has (just be sure it's not too hot or wet there, since that would affect how long you could store food there).

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Use the space up above your kitchen cabinets. It's not pretty, true. But if you're starving, you're going to wish you cared a little less about aesthetics. Even then, you could probably find a way to hide it or make it look cuter.

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If you have stairs, under-stair storage is a great place. In our house, previous owners even built a little storage cabinet above the stairs. If you know someone handy or are handy yourself, you could probably find a way to get some storage going in, on, under, or around your stairs.

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In our house we have an armoire we just stuck in our basement hallway. We're using it to store water and the bag meals we've assembled so far. I figure I can probably get one or two month's supply in there, and then I'll start using under the bed space (you know, once we finally build our bed), closet space, etc.


So, those are all the clever ideas I have.Want to weigh in? Share your ideas in our giveaway and be entered to win the book It's in the Bag!