What This Prepper Buys: The Dollar Tree Food Storage Edition!
After nearly a year since the last “What This Prepper Buys” article, I am back. I wasn’t doing anything crazy or fantastic in prepping, so I didn’t know where to go with the next article in this series. However, an acquaintance of mine said something that struck me. They asked how to get started with food storage when food prices were going up at the stores. I immediately decided to help them and any new/experienced prepper out in the food storage department.
That is not a dumb observation. I’m glad I started when I did with food storage, but you can always get started now. There is never a bad time to get started as long as you do so in the immediate future. However, you can still get food cheaply. In the next few months, I hope to help you out with ways and places to buy food cheaply to build up your food storage.
This food storage haul will attempt to be somewhat nutritious and filling. If you are looking for organic or nutritionally dense food, this is not the place to look. If you find anything organic in Dollar Tree, count your blessings and call it a rare find. That is not the point of today’s article. The beauty of Dollar Tree is that everything is either $1.00 or 2/$1.00 which means it is cheap. The sizes of the food may be odd and the expiration dates might be tomorrow or two years from tomorrow. You get what you get: cheap food to start or supplement your food storage. Cheap can be good!
As usual with this series of posts, I have a dollar limit that I set before going into the store. This haul was $25 before taxes. I will feature some future hauls with different amounts and ideas.
The Dollar Tree Food Storage Haul
1-pound bag of dried red kidney beans
This is not a mind-blowing spectacular food storage shopping trip. However, this would be more than you had before and would help supplement what you already have. You have the ingredients to make meals like oatmeal with brown sugar for breakfast, tomato soup and crackers for lunch, or a turkey/tuna and pea casserole for supper just with what was purchased on this trip.
(Need some ideas about what you should store? Look at this list!)
The wonderful thing about starting or expanding your food storage is that you buy what you want. I didn’t purchase anything unusual or out of the ordinary for my household. I know everything I bought will be the food we eat. The same should be for you. If you don’t like peas, but love green beans, then buy the green beans. You can also buy comfort foods for yourself and the family cheaply and store them away for a time in the future.
In these times, you cannot have enough food stored away. We are facing some uncertain times and have already experienced shortages and supply disruptions. Nothing will be changing in the near future. If you have space, keeping stocking and storing your storage. If you are just getting started, keep going. Do not get discouraged and, for the love of everything holy, do not stop stocking up!
Thanks for reading,
Erica
Other articles in this series:
What This Prepper Buys: The Dollar Tree Pandemic Edition!
What This Prepper Buys: The 1 Dollar General Challenge
This was in no way, shape, or form sponsored by Dollar Tree. I love their store and the possibilities for prepping cheaply!
4 thoughts on “What This Prepper Buys: The Dollar Tree Food Storage Edition!”
At our DT, you can a 6 pack of water or a gallon of spring water (major brand) for a buck! And DO watch the expiration dates carefully. We've gotten bitten by that there a few times. Another great item is their shelf stable milk.
the UHT milk that USED to be available was a great deal – even had the soy variety on occasion >>> it disapperared for a few years because the US GOV and the world food orgs massive purchasing – came back into stock – gone again the last couple of years ….
never was much on $1 Store food – the health & first aid section was allll bonus ….
I have found they are really good for any canned meats. We have bought cooked canned ham, chicken, of course tuna/sardine and salmon. Dollar General, Family Dollar and many surplus and outlet stores have canned proteins, which also have the benefit of needing no cooking or even heating source.