Why You Need to Keep an Inventory

In the last few days, I have posted quite a bit on the basics of food storage. Today I would like to cover inventorying. Most of us when we started out did not realize how valuable an inventory could be. I know I started mine after the fact and it created a lot of extra work. A good inventory solves the following problems.

How long can I live off my storage?
A good inventory tells you where things are stored.
It helps you know when to rotate your food.
What am I short off?
We keep a running inventory of all of our preps. The inventory is kept in a notebook that is stored in a secure location. The inventory not only tells us how much we have stored, but where they are kept. As food and medical items are added to our inventory, we dated the items both in the book and on the storage container so that we can tell when they need to be rotated.

Now I know of some who keep it on their computer in Excel or other formats. There are also some commercial programs that are designed for inventorying your foods. Because of possible problems with the computer we have decided to go the old fashion way and keep the inventory off the computer. In any serious emergency chances are you will lose power anyway, making your inventory inaccessible. It is a lot easier to hide a written list or carry it with us.

Someone near us had a fire and by using their inventory was able to get their preps completely replaced by his insurance. Now I know some would say that filing an insurance claim violates operational secrecy. I agree, but I would have trouble rebuilding mine without the insurance money. Better to have preps even with a bit of risk, than have none.