Have you ever tried to find something that you KNEW that you purchased for your preparedness, but you couldn’t find it? Remember that time you wanted to go camping, but you couldn’t find your camping stove? Or maybe you could find every sleeping bag but ONE. Organizing your preparedness supplies can be tricky in more than one way!!
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So today we’re going to tackle the topic of organizing your preparedness supplies. When we’re talking about preparedness supplies, I want to make sure you realize that while we ARE talking about food storage, we’re talking about so much more than just food storage.
Our preparedness supplies range in items from sleeping bags and blankets to oil lamps to old fashioned kitchen utensils, washbasins, medicines, toiletries, cleaning supplies, lighting supplies, baking supplies, and so much more.
There are two main ways to handle preparedness organization, but no matter which way you choose to organize your preparedness supplies – this first point should be observed.
Preparedness Items as Decoration
Why would use put our preparedness items as decorations – especially when we want to observe OpSec? Most of us, have limited space in which to store our preparedness items. If we can put some things out for everyone to see either as decoration or part of ‘normal life’ the more space we’re going to have to store the things that aren’t decorative.
There are so many things that can be used as decoration. We have about five oil lamps that keep out in our great room ranging in size from itty bitty (which really is my favorite) to very large – about 18″ tall. There are three in the picture to the left.
I had a friend who took an old ladder for us and sanded it and painted it for us. We display different 
blankets on it. Our great room is always the hottest room in the house in the summer and the coldest room in the house in the winter. Having blankets out where people can snuggle under them when we watch a movie together makes perfect sense, and doesn’t scream, “WE’RE A PREPAREDNESS ITEM!!!”
We also have put a bunch of our old fashioned kitchen tools out on display in our great room as well. Our basement which is decorated in a cowboy theme, I’ve hung two washbasins and a washboard on the wall. They don’t look at all out of place, actually, they fit the theme down there really well!
I’ve always loved the way that Cracker Barrel used old-fashioned tools to decorate their restaurants and stores. I’ve just done the same thing. And call me crazy, I’ve always thought if we did experience TEOTWAWKI, while everyone else is raiding Wal-Mart and grabbing things like TV’s or more practical things like containers to carry water, I was going to head to Cracker Barrel and take any of the old-fashioned tools that I didn’t already have.
But once we hide things in plain sight, now we have to have places to put our preparedness supplies away.
Two Ways to Organize Your Preparedness Supplies
I’ve read just about all of the 535 comments on my Amazon book page. Several people have said that organizing things the way that I do or acquiring the number of things that I have requires people to have a basement, and they don’t. So I’m going to tell you, right here, and right now. You DON’T have to have a BASEMENT in order to store your preparedness supplies out of plain sight.
So back to the two ways to organize your food storage. You can organize your food storage in ONE ROOM (doesn’t have to be a basement) !!! OR !!! You can organize your food storage by areas of your home.
Organize Your Supplies by Area
Let’s start by tackling how to organize your food storage by areas of your home. Now if you don’t think that you have any place in your home that you can hide your supplies – and yes, I know this is a bold statement – You’re wrong. Don’t think so? Check out this article. It will walk you through places that you’ve NEVER thought about hiding food or supplies.
Keeping Similar Items Together 
When you are organizing your items in different areas of your home, it is best – if at all possible – to keep like or similar items together. If you decide to put your master bed up on risers so that you have more storage space underneath it, then keep items that are the same type in that place. And can I just say that it’s amazing how much you can fit under a bed that’s up on even 5″ risers! I speak from experience.
For example, if you are starting to gather a good amount of different types of protein. Keep them together. Using the space under your bed to store your protein items is a great way to use it. I LOVE these rolling under the bed totes. They are tall enough (7″) that you can fit a lot of stuff in them that you wouldn’t usually think you could. They also open halfway, so you don’t have to pull it totally out before opening the tote. More than that, they are on wheels. If you’re going to keep canned goods under your bed in a tote, you really do HAVE to have the totes on wheels or you may not be able to get them out from under your bed easily.
And by keeping all your protein items together if you need to dip into the protein portion of your food storage, you should always know exactly where to look!
Different Areas for Storage
So besides under all of your beds, there are plenty of other places in your house to “steal” a little space from for storage. We have put bookshelves in our bedroom closets. Because 95% of our clothes only hang halfway down, we are able to almost double our storage space in our closets.
Maybe in your closet, you keep all of your lighting supplies and first aid supplies. Maybe in one of your kids’ closets, you can keep all your sleeping bags and extra kitchen equipment (only the stuff that isn’t sharp).
What about the space at the bottom of your coat closet? We’ve talked about putting a 2×2 organizer in there and using two of the spaces for gloves, hats, mittens, etc. and the other two for preparedness supplies. Or if that’s too wide for your closet, stand a 3×1 organizer up in your closet and use one or two of the spaces for winter accouterments and the last one for preparedness supplies.
Other areas to consider for storing your supplies are the spare bedroom, the laundry room, one wall of your office, and so many more places that I mention in this article.
Organizing Your Preparedness Supplies (mostly) in One Room 
Now if you do have a basement, this is the obvious place to store your supplies. If you have an attic, you can store all but your food storage supplies and fuel canisters up there, but I would store everything IN a container because mice, spiders, aphids, silverfish, and more can get into them more easily up there because you don’t venture up there often. Don’t believe that you’ll get mice in your attic? I’m laughing because we have!
I’ll level with you, storing your preparedness supplies in the basement is MUCH more easily accessed and organized than if you use your attic, but if you only have attic space, then definitely utilize it (minus food and fuels)
So if you’re organizing all your preparedness supplies in one room, how do you keep that room neat and how do you easily find the items for which you are searching?
Type of item by shelving unit
When you’re working on larger items, keep similar items on the same shelving unit. Our sleeping bags are quite large. Because we keep seven in the house, we use two large totes on two shelves of one four-shelf shelving unit.
We do the same thing when it comes to cleaning supplies, personal care items, baking supplies, and of course, canned goods.
Type of item by shelf
When you don’t have enough of one item to give them their own shelving unit (or most of a shelving unit, then give them their own shelf. We do this with our medicines, supplements, and most of our medical equipment. We also do this for our dried fruits, our different types of pasta, as well as our potato products, and broth.
Smaller collections of items 
So how do you handle smaller collections of items that you want to keep together and organized well without things being scattered all over the place? I have a wonderful answer to that. We use small totes that fit into larger totes!
When it comes to things like my sewing kit where I keep a bunch of threads, needles, patches, snaps, sewing machine needles, bobbins are all really small. So they all fit really well in a smaller tote. Four of the smaller totes that I’ve purchased fit really well into one 27-gallon black tote!
Besides our sewing kit, I also keep a flashlight kit in one. I keep a communications kit in another. Our fourth one is personal hair items including hair bands, combs, brushes, hair clips, bobby pins, etc.
Organizing your Canned Supplies in one room
FIFO
FIFO stands for First In First Out. We have three FIFO units that I’ve purchased from Thrive Life. We LOVE these units. They aren’t cheap, but we can put three different sizes of cans. We use a lot of #10 cans (think coffee can size). You can also put regular cans like veggies or soup cans. Then you can also do larger cans like family size soup cans.
No FIFO? No Problem!
In our house, we buy and keep all our canned goods (that don’t fit on our FIFOS) in flats. When you purchase them this way, once you get them home, you can always write the month and year that you purchased them on the top of each can. You should then put the NEWEST flat on the bottom of the stack (if you have more flats of the same item). This puts the oldest cans on the bottom and the newest cans on the top. When you pull cans to use, always use the flat of cans from the top of the pile first. These should be the oldest.
But how can you know EXACTLY where you have what you have?
Cozi for Organizing!
Even if I’ve stored all my items in one room, sometimes things can get confusing! I still can’t find the water filters for the Berkey or can’t remember where the bulk 2″ gauze is because it wouldn’t fit on our medicine shelves. So how do I keep track of where everything is located?
I use a FREE personal calendar and organizer called Cozi. Cozi has several awesome features including the calendar. It also has a list area, a recipe area, and a to-do area. I use the list area all the time. This is where I have listed what is in what areas of my basement. Cozi lets you create different lists. So one of the lists that I have is “The basement.” I go through what is on each shelving unit. It seems like most of the shelving units that I have, will have at least one ‘spare’ shelf, and what goes on that ‘spare shelf’ will vary. Cozi’s list feature has saved me more than once.
Organizing using Spreadsheets
The other trick that I have to knowing HOW MUCH of any given thing I have and need is my spreadsheets. I have set up my food storage menu on a spreadsheet. I’ve got a snippet below.
On this menu, I’ve not only listed each recipe and each ingredient in each recipe. I’ve also tracked how much of each item that I need to make the recipe once and twelve times. Another column you’ll see is how much I have “Have” and “Running Tally.” The running tally is how much I have minus how much I used for that recipe. This helps me figure out how much more I need or how much extra I have.
What About You?
How do you organize your preparedness supplies? Do you have any other tips and tricks that you can share with us all? Leave a comment below, so that we can all be better prepared!
I have to use storage tubs for a lot of my things. I don’t want clear ones – a thief would have a hard time telling at a glance what might be in each one. But this also means *I* can’t see my stuff at a glance. Therefore, I have a very methodical labeling system: I put a box number in the upper left, in the center is a label of the general category. Sometimes I add a third, temporary label in the upper right that says “not full” so I know I have more room in that one. Otherwise the labels are the stick on kind, hard to fall off. I keep an inventory list in Excel so I can sort by box number and category. I also ad a column for where the box is (basement, garage, etc.). Consistenty putting your lables in the sam spot on each box makes it so much easier to quickly identify what you want. I add an extra layer of labeling by using color coding. Food labels are in black, clothing lables are in red marker, holiday/decor is in green marker, etc.
GreenDoor,
I do it similarly. I use a color code for the box number so I know at a glance the category. I use colored sharpies on duct tape putting the number in the upper right corner of each side and the lid. I also use an Excel file.
Within the next year, we will be moving to our homestead property…then I expect to have a bit of relief with space but plan to keep it as organized as I do now. Along with my side hustle, I use a significant amount of tubs.
Very detailed and helpful information! Thanks for sharing a wonderful idea for organizing supplies.