Expirations ~ Explained

The thought of having your own mini store in your house is quickly growing in popularity.  With shows like TLC's Extreme Couponing, people are flocking to the Internet, to learn how they to can purchase hundreds of dollars worth of groceries, and personal care items for pennies on the dollar. 

My own plight in growing a stockpile began when I learned that I would be losing my job, and we would be going from a 2 income household, to a single income. 

So began our own stockpile.  It's not as easy as one would think to grow an effective and successful stockpile.  Sure anyone can build a stockpile, and grow it... but maintaining it, well that's a different story all together. 

We all are aware that food items have expiration dates listed on them, but did you know that items like deodorant and body washes have expiration dates on them?  Now, the expiration dates for personal care items are guidelines for effectiveness, which is why if you look at most items, they may say, "Best if used by" which refers strictly to quality and not safety which in that case you would see the terms "Use By". 

Manufacturer's have different methods for dating their products, some use a Packed On date, while others use Jillian date codes, which is strictly a number.  January 15th, 2011 may look something like this: 01511 and December 31st 2011 may look like this: 36511. (If there is a letter(s) in this number, that's usually for identification purposes for the manufacturer.  It tells them which machine or packer packed the item, if a problem should arise later on.)   There are terms like "Born on" dates, most recently being used for beers, "Guaranteed Fresh" is a term mostly used on bakery items.  "Sell By" is a term that is referred to for retailers, this is the last date in which an item should be sold, and shouldn't be referred to for an expiration date.  "Expiration Date" is commonly used to determine the absolute last day a food should be consumed, and the last day a manufacturer would "guarantee" the item. 

Here's a list of commonly stockpiled items with their shelf life.  All items listed are for UNopened, UNused products.  Once opened, shelf lives vary, depending on storage, usage, and ingredients.