Love the pantry!
WBF, I left the 'how much of what do we need' to my DH. He loves doing that stuff. He sat down and figured out our usual meals (for a whole year!

), then he calculated the amount of canned goods needed for each meal X how many times we eat that meal in an average year, and told me how many half pints/pints/quarts of each item I'd need. Keep in mind, the guy is a bit anal (

), so he divided our pantry into store bought and home canned. He has a log book just inside the door, that DS and I MUST keep up with - he goes through and 'checks' how well we're doing once a month

I pick on him about it, but it makes things SO much easier to be so organized. I planned my garden based on his calculations. It would be different for everybody, of-course. If I try something new and we like it, he sits down and figures out the additional needs for me. So, if you have an anal math whiz handy, figuring out the canning needs for any size family would be a snap

BTW, we wait for our local big box lumber store (here it's Menards) to run their sales on canning jars - we get cases of pints/quarts for $6.88! Half pints are impossible to find anywhere around here, so we order those (we use a lot for butter, cheese and some of our cubed up meats). Just so you know, our pantry looks pretty bare too! There are still a bunch of empty jars, waiting for this years harvest!
