I came to the realization that my family's long term food supply is woefully inadequate. We are all set for defense, energy, water, coms, medical care, booze, etc., but have yet to put away serious provisions. We are not in a situation where we can grow our own food nor do we have a barter network setup with likeminded people so whatever we start with is all that we will have.

I want to start working on this and am trying to figure out where to start. Looking at offerings from mountain house, for example, I have a few questions and am interested to know where the M4C family stands on them.

1. What sizes to buy? I see everything from individual meals (expensive and take up a lot of space) to 10lb cans (how long do they last once opened?). What size(s) are you all focusing on?

2. Most of the meal buckets and 10lb cans I see are vegetarian. For a while I guess we would be ok, but we are carnivores. How are you supplementing this? With the 10lb protein cans? What's a realistic ratio?

3. Every manufacturer touts "X servings" in a container. How realistic are these for real meals? I mean, 3oz of chicken breast is considered a serving. When was the last time any of you ate only 3oz of anything? If this is a true survival situation and you are forced to stretch rations, I get it. I'm trying to avoid that by stocking up so that we can eat reasonably. Compared to the listed serving sizes on a container, what are you all realistically getting out of them without feeling starved?

4. How much storage space does is actually take to supply X people for X time? It's myself, my wife, our two adult kids in the house but I also have about 4-6 extended family members that I may end up helping out. If I'm planning for a long term situation, room to store it could be a big issue. What do you all do to maximize storage space?

5. How about climate control? I'm in the south so heat and humidity are an issue. I can put them in a climate controlled environment, but space is limited.

6. Budget. I figure starting out with $5k but can bump it up to $10k if I can negotiate a good deal. Any suggestions on where to go for the best bang for the buck? I would rather buy less and focus on quality and protein and then buy more later than just buy as much crappy stuff as I can just to satisfy the "now" need. I want to start with at least a 1 year supply and eventually get to 5 years. for 4-6 people, is this a realistic budget to start with or should I plan on a spending more?

Sorry if it's a lot of questions. I'm a buy once cry once person and this is something I definitely don't want to have buyers remorse on.