Security in a Bag

With food prices on a steady march upwards, I decided I better purchase another bag of beans.  Here it is, all 50 pounds of it. It cost me $22.49 for this bag today. I purchased another bag about a year ago, and I hardly made a dent in it, so that means we have close to 100 pounds of this stuff. 

Still, this is less than half of the suggested amount needed to keep in food storage for a family of 4.  According to an LDS source the recommended amount is to have 60 pounds per person in legumes.  I probably have another 10-20 pounds in other miscellaneous types of dried beans.  I suppose this is a good start, but I need to step up the purchase. . .

Why do I do this? For one thing, I am purchasing food today that I will be eating tomorrow at yesterday's prices.  Beans keep indefinitely without losing much nutritional value, so I have the peace of mind that if prices become really high, I am assured that my family will be fed. It might get boring, but at least we will have food. . .

For another, I am convinced that we are in for some dire times ahead.  I probably sound like a nut, but I am convinced that we are facing a financial meltdown in the US in the not too distant future.  If things get really dicey, I will have a food supply stashed away until we can get into the swing of having to hunt, forage, and grow our own food.  In this respect, we are more fortunate than some. We live on an acre, so we have enough land to grow most of our vegetables if it came to that. Last year was the trial run, and we plan on enlarging the beds this year, "just in case."

As I watch the protests in front of the Wisconsin State Capitol over the proposed cutback of union representation for teachers, I feel I am seeing just a sampling of what is to come.  The teachers don't want to pay into their retirement and health care at all. They want the taxpayers to foot the bill. But the governor says without doing this, he cannot balance the State budget.  Things have reached the tipping point where the taxpayers are tired of paying public workers more in benefits than they themselves are getting.  I realize teachers are upset their cozy status quo is threatened to be changed, but if they don't give in, then they are facing layoffs! They don't see that they are going the way of Detroit where the unions completely destroyed an industry!

We are all making sacrifices these days.  I think it is time for union members to see that the status quo is not the answer.  In the meantime, I am going to continue squirreling food away "just in case."

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