What is your best investment in today’s scary financial markets and economic circumstances?

The answer may be food.

After all, to survive one must have water, food and shelter.

Water can be obtained in most places, without the luxury of utilities, by filtering stream water or by using rain barrels.

Shelter, in a worst case scenario, can be hastily rigged.

But you had better have access to food that you have procured or grown.

Food prices have been going up and will continue to rise in cost.

Much of the food we consume is unhealthy and in some cases possibly hazardous to ourselves and offspring.

Recent studies are linking GMO, Genetically Modified Organism, foods to autism.

We have become accustomed to a wide variety of readily available foods.

All it will take is a crisis, such as a natural disaster, or a less frequent solar flare to disrupt our food supplies.

Ever been in NC when a small snow storm is forecast. People go nuts.

Nuff said.

My food investment strategy is as follows:

1. I keep a many months supply of food.
2. I purchase as much “free” food as possible. I stock up with buy one get one free and especially buy 2 get 3 free. Hard to beat free food.

Some of you may say, I am living paycheck to paycheck and can barely afford buying one of something.

Answer: Save up $ 100 as seed money. Use this money to stock up on sale items (only those items you need) after a while you will save enough on food to save more or stash some money away.

I dare you to find a better more predictable investment than getting 5 items for the price of 2.

3. I am getting back into gardening and growing more of my food.

Last winter I created my first simple greenhouse. I have plans for a more elaborate one.

For the third year I have kept pepper and tomato plants growing in my bay window.

For the first time in my life I have grown plants from seeds harvested from my plants. This knowledge is invaluable if things ever get bad.

All of the seeds that I plant are Heirloom aka organic and non hybrid.

This allows harvesting the seeds and knowing what you are getting.

Growing your own food is not only about saving money, it is about fresher healthier food that is not going to make your family sick.

Here is the pepper I just picked. The outside temperature is around 24 degrees.