Food storage is a huge task. How do I start?

Good question - just how does one begin to tackle a whole year's supply of food? I would suggest that you start by making a plan. There are several schools of thought on how to store - but the simplest one that I have found is to store only those things that my family actually eats, make a list of favorite meals and then figure the amounts you need. It is a system created by a dear sister in the LDS church named Wendy DeWitt.

Here is a link to a youtube video where Wendy DeWitt explains just how to do this in great detail. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4woLOnURFiw. This is part 3 of 9 video sections of a class she did in Salem Utah in November 2008. In parts of the video series she mentions a booklet with all the instructions.

Here is the link to the downloadable PDF of the booklet http://www.theideadoor.com/PDF%20Files/RS/EverythingUnderTheSun.pdf.

Here is a link to Wendy's personal blog site. http://everythingunderthesunblog.blogspot.com/

Following is an excerpt from Sister DeWitt's booklet that deals with the system. It is much easier than trying to put into my own words.

THE SYSTEM
"I’ve based this system on a “worst case scenario,” meaning, if there were no stores, gardens, city water or electricity, I could still feed my family. This scenario also assumes that each family will be on their own, that we won’t be “banding together” at churches or schools. There are dozens of scenarios that would require isolation from other people. Please don’t put your family at risk by assuming that you will be eating someone else’s food! No one else is storing food for your family. Your neighbors aren’t, the government isn’t and the church isn’t.
How much food is a year’s supply? This system answers that question right down to the last teaspoon of salt. You choose 7 breakfasts and 7 dinners that you would want to have once a week for one year. There are 52 weeks in the year, you’re having this meal once a week, so you’ll have it 52 times. Make these meals things that you eat all the time, things that you like! You are going to multiply everything (including the amount of water) in each of your recipes by 52. An example would be if you used 1 jar of Ragu and 1 pound of spaghetti to feed your family, you’d
buy 52 jars of Ragu, 52 pounds of spaghetti and include the water to cook the noodles. My personal food storage has 14 dinners (multiplied by 26) 7 breakfasts (x 52) and a variety of breads and desserts. If we’re in a “worst case scenario” your big meal of the day is going to be in the afternoon before the sun goes down. So, you would have breakfast, a big dinner and maybe a sandwich or a snack in the evening. This is a very simple system that saves time and money because you only store what you really need and will eat. Another plus is the individuality you can give your food storage. I like Malt-o-meal, my husband likes oatmeal, so I store according to our likes.
Once you’ve made up your menus and have multiplied everything in them by 52 or 26 (or whatever you decide you want) make up a chart or table that alphabetically lists all the foods in your recipes....almonds to yeast, and keep this in a notebook. It might look like this: under “rice” you list all the meals that have rice in them and how many cups you need for each meal. Mine says “salmon & rice = 35 cups, Sweet & sour = 35 cups, rice pudding = 70 cups.” A little further over on the page have a column for “Need” which is how much rice you’ll need for the year, 140 cups. The next column will say “Have” which is what you already have in your home and the last column is “Buy” which is what you need to buy. The item, the meals, need, have and buy. I also list on this page when the food was purchased and what room it’s in. Carry this folder whenever you go shopping and shop the sales.
The equivalencies page of this book gives you most of the information you’ll need to do your own menus. Things like “a #10 can will hold 12 cups of rice, there are 59 tablespoons in one pound of baking powder and 1 cup of uncooked rice makes 3 cups cooked.”
COST The cost of using this system depends on your menus. Using the least expensive menus, if you shop wisely and bottle your own meats, it can cost as little as $350 per person per year. This would include 2 cups of breakfast, 2 cups of dinner and ½ loaf of bread daily.
STORAGE One person’s year supply will usually fit into 10 cannery boxes. (The kind that 6 #10 cans fit into.) This will fit under a regular twin size bed. In desert areas you must store your food in the house. Heat will destroy your food storage. Water can be stored in the garage or on the north side of the house.
ROTATION Most people have a hard time with rotation because it’s difficult to keep track of all that food. I purchase my meals all at once, meaning within a reasonable amount of time. Everything is logged in my notebook; how much food I have, when it was purchased, what room it’s stored in. Since I’m all about long shelf life, the shortest shelf life I have is 3 years...the powdered milk. Once a year I check my notebook to see if anything is expiring that year. I check my vacuum sealed foods at the same time to make sure they’re still sealed. If anything is close to expiration, I take it out, put it in my kitchen pantry for daily use and immediately replace it with fresh food. With this system, food storage is a once a year event and I always have a full year’s supply on hand. Have a food storage slush fund. If you put even $10 a month away, after those 3 years you’ll have $360 to purchase your new food. And the food that goes into your pantry is going to cut your grocery bill because it’s food that you like and use. "

This system may sound overwhelming at first - but it is really easy. It is just a matter of organization. I did not have this system when I started my food storage in earnest but I did something similar. I started by having a good bread recipe that I knew how to make and then I got my basic year's supply of wheat, sugar, white flour, yeast and oil for that particular bread making recipe. (let me interject here - that if you have a year's supply of wheat and don't have a grinder - you are kind of up a creek in an emergency. You can get a simple hand grinder for under $100. I see them on sale around my neck of the woods for $69 and $79 all the time. If you choose to get an electric one - ask your friends and neighbors for their recommendations of what they have and like best.) After I had my year supply of bread making items, I started getting a year's supply of breakfast foods. I already had lots of jams and jellies because I have fruit trees and hate to see anything go to waste, so I can jellies like a mad woman every fall. I figured with the bread and breakfast, I would get a supply of peanut butter next and at least my family would have sandwiches and breakfast for a year. Of course after that I began to hodge-podge together a bunch of pasta, and canned goods like spaghetti sauce, tuna and soups, but I had no real plan. I love Sister DeWitt's system, because it really fit well with what I was already doing and made the organization of it much easier. These are just the basics - I will write more about storing other items later.
Remember - Start today. Don't wait another minute. Even if all you have is $5 you can start your food storage. Get a good bread recipe first and start assembling your ingredients with that first $5. You never know when a situation will arise that you will need it.