This fall I started buying meat from local suppliers. 1/8th of a beef or a 1/8 of pork mix of meats to put in the freezer. It’s weird to me because I don’t have to shop for meat at the local mega-mart for sales. My freezers are mostly full and about all I want to get is a Turkey and Rib eye roast for the holidays and my shopping is mostly done.
Buying local seems a bit odd compared to my normal shopping pattern which was also odd compared to how most people shop that I did not realize what a “rut” I was in how I shopped. I think I created “mental block” for myself that only a certain class of people or political viewpoint or people bought food and stuff from the socially approved sources rather than evaluate how to get the most bang for my dollars.
What I have noticed most is buying local has become more competitive in price and quality compared to most mega-marts. Value per dollars spent is the biggest change for me. While getting the beef and pork bundles were not cheap. I don’t have to shop the mega marts for meat because I already have full freezers of vacuumed packed meat.
Onto the white flour I stored: The flour smells a bit odd after a few years of storage. I have read that white flour can be less than optimal after 4-5 years of storage and I think some of my Flour storage has reached that point. While I hate throwing away any sort of food product. It is better to rebuild your supply rather than use a poor quality product if your life depends on that food storage. Good news is Flour is on sale building up to the holidays. So replacing White flour is not a problem.
Adding more quality pet food: I don’t think good quality pet food should be expensive but supply chains are breaking down so I need a to have a good quality pet food locally available and stored on hand. But if you look at the rising cost of store brand pet food. Locally made pet food is becoming competitive on price. A big thing I’m worried about is good quality pet foods will not be available at any price.
I remember the 70’s inflation and the USA still made stuff in the USA. With everything outsourced with a fragile supply chain it gets a bit scary that things are not only expensive but are not available at any price.
Keep on stocking up but try using more local suppliers for your basics. Learning to make/have ingredients for a basic dog food is not glamorous but it can keep your pets alive and healthy. If you stock up food for your pets you should stock up food for your family.
My Adventures in selfreliance 
I need to get rid of some old flour and replace during the holiday sales — guess both of us are assuming there WILL BE holiday sales. Nothing is remotely certain anymore.
Anna: Albertsons has 10 pounds of flour for $1.99 normal price and a lot of other baked good items on sale this week. That flour price means you can get 50 pounds of flour for $ 10.00.
I figure about a pound of flour makes small loaf of bread, not counting the other ingredients. So fifty pounds of flour is equal to about one loaf of bread each week, for almost a year.
I figure now is the time to double check older preps and replace if needed before the rush.
I have stored 25 – 50 pounds of flour in the bottom of my chest freezer for years. I despise trying to find food on the bottom of that freezer so storing flour there makes that job easier. I have used flour from the freezer up to 10 years from purchase date and it has been fine. I do store the paper bags in those super large ziplock bags just in case a bag gets punctured or there is a bit of extra moisture in the freezer. Until I started doing this, I like you, was dumping stored flour because of the stale taste it acquires. Plus, the freezer prevents weevil. Hope this helps.
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Marilyn: I never stored flour in the freezer because I had a basement, buckets and I thought I would use the white flour faster than it could go bad.
I’m using Ice blocks to fill the bottom of my chest freezer as backup cooling in case of a power outage but I can see that filling up a chest freezer with flour could be a good thing as the cold keeps down the bugs and a full freezer is an efficient freezer.