So far my preps have not progressed past normal grocery items and canned goods but I am researching other more long term preps.
What is the best way to store dried goods within the 5 gallon buckets? For some items that are more often used, such as wheat or rice,
I would think one large mylar bag within the bucket would work well. For other items that would be used less often or at least in smaller
quantities such as sugar and salt, I would think smaller mylar bags would work better.

If our preps are to be rotated into normal usage I would rather not have an open 5 gallon container of salt or sugar in the pantry. I am thinking
that smaller 1 gallon or perhaps 1/2 gallon bags could be used for these items and therefore maintain freshness by exposing as little of the
sugar or salt to the air as possible.

I regularly see preps with 5 gallon buckets but rarely see how people store things within the buckets. I am curious as to whether or not
this method of smaller storage bags is used.

As far as prepping is concerned I am mostly preparing for short term weather emergencies as well as long term diet supplementation. In other
words I am preparing for increased food prices or sporadic availability as opposed to TEOTWAWKI.

Am I the only one thinking about smaller bags?

Nope. Smaller bags make more sense to me as well.

I use a combo of large and small bags, just depends on what is going in them.

I have several buckets that are filled with just one large bag and several others that have anything from 2-10 smallers bags.

J-

I used to use mylar bags.  But now I just use mason jars.  Much easier.

I have seen several people on here that store the smaller (gallon size) mylar bags in the 5gal buckets.
How many bags you can get in each bucket depends on what you are storing and how much you fill them.

One idea I saw was someone that stored a mixture of beans, rice, pasta, salt, sugar, etc. in each bucket.
I am not a big fan of the 5gal buckets.

To me, how you store depends on how many people you are planning for.

At my house it is just me and the wife, since the kids are all grown and out of the house. (Not saying no one may come back )
So, 5gal is a lot of food for us to eat.
We store everything in #10cans and 1gal mylar bags because it fits our situation better.

Another consideration is extended family members that you may not want moving in with you.
The smaller mylar bags and/or #10 cans make a nice size to give away if needed.

I have a mix of both in buckets.

Staples  - rice, wheat, pasta,milk, etc. I pack in one large mylar/5 gal bucket.
About half my buckets are mixed with several 1 gal mylar bags. I try to balance carbs/protein & veggies in the mixed buckets. eg. Rice/beans/brocolli. You do lose a lot of space in the buckets when trying to cram the 1 gal bags in there.

Ok well this is another good point to think about when I start gathering buckets and bags.

Do you guys tend to stick with wheat, rice, etc. in the larger bags and sugar or salt in smaller bags?

Also how long doe each of these bags last. Right now I am planning for my girlfriend and I who would be using the
food during normal times but I also have three good friends who I room with. The roommates are unfortunately
not on board with prepping.

sugar and salt can go in a big bag if you want too as they really can only go bad if they get wet.

I tend to load all my staples including salt and sugar in large bags in 5 gallon buckets as I am part of a small group so it is just easier and I know that the items will be used prior to going bad after opening.

I list all my experation dates on my bagged stuff as 35 years. once opened obviously they will not last as long.

As for the red part, then they do not eat, make it clear to them that they can not expect anything that you have if the time comes.Prep for you and your GF.

J-

How long they last depends entirely on the item and how many people you are feeding.
For example, we store our beans, rice and wheat (actually, now that I think of it, almost everything) in either #10 cans or the 1gal mylar bags.
For day to day use, this fits our needs.
I really like the # 10cans, you put 6 - #10 cans in a box and they are very easy to stack and store.
My experience with the buckets is there is a lot of wasted space around the buckets when you stack them.
However, if I was storing for a group (4+ people) I would probably go with the buckets since your rate of use would be higher.

Calculated this way for me and my wife:

One #10 can holds about 5.5lbs of wheat. (A 1 gal mylar bag holds about the same).
5.5lbs of wheat is equal to about 11 cups of wheat, 11 cups of wheat berries yields 16.5 cups of flour.
My wife averages 3 cups/flour per loaf, so one #10 of wheat will give us about 5 loaves of bread. That lasts the two of us a while.

We store 5lbs of pinto beans per 1 gal mylar bag.
5lbs of dry beans = 10 cups of dry beans.
10 cups of dry pinto beans yields 30 cups of cooked beans, again, this is a lot for just two people.

Salt, sugar and honey last indefinitely. (keep the salt & sugar dry and bug free)
For salt, I don't bother packing it in mylar or buckets. I buy the Morton salt at the store for ~.50 cents each and store them in a plastic, water tight container.
We have 39lbs. of salt stored, which for 2 people should last quite a long time. It all fits in one nice, easy stacking tub.

We store sugar the same way in the 4lb. store bought bags. My wife likes Imperial sugar, says the walmart brand is too coarse.

salt and sugar have indefinite shelf lives....

I do use 2 gallon buckets with mylar for my spices, and dehydrated things such as carrots, onion, and potato.

It looks like I will be storing in 1 gallon bags for mostly everyday use.

The roommates are not against prepping but just indifferent right now. I am trying to get them more interested in the whole idea.

Well, I just bagged up 140lbs of pinto beans and 225lbs of long grain rice yesterday all in 1gal mylar bags.
I use the mylar bags from the LDS (7mm).

ETA: In case you are wondering......
225lbs of rice fits easily into 40 1gal mylar bags and looks like this:


This picture was taken right after sealing, the 02 absorbers had not yet removed all the 02.

I mix up rice/beans/sugar/ect in seperate mylar bags in my 5 gal buckets

My buckets have a mix of bags in them, usually about 4 bags per bucket.  I only have used the 1 gallon bags and some of the measurements are as follows:

3 lbs of elbow pasta
1 cannister of quick oats
5 lbs of rice
5 lbs of beans
a box of powdered milk from wal-mart gets split into 2 bags.

Some things like flour and sugar and cornbread or pancake mix doesn't get measured, just eyeballed into the bags.

I thought about doing something similar because it makes sense (to me).

But once I packed a few buckets, I realized that they just take too much space to store.
There is a lot of wasted space both inside the buckets and around the outsides of the buckets.

ETA: Have you tried the powdered milk from walmart?  

No, I haven't.  I'm not much of a milk drinker, but if I need some for cereal or baking purposes, I wanted to have a little on hand.

No offense was intended, as I said, I like the idea of packing buckets like this.
I tried it, but I realized that I simply don't have a good place to store that many buckets.
example: 225lbs of rice @ 5.5 lbs/bag = 40 bags @ 1 bag/bucket = 40 buckets

I do the exact same thing and use the same bags.  

5lbs of wheat or rice fit perfectly.

I apologize if I sounded snippy, because I wasn't trying to.  My point was that any plan/situation is imperfect, but I gotta go with something.

Also, if you fill 40 1 gallon mylar bags, and put 4 bags in a bucket, that would be 10 buckets, not 40.  

True, but I was thinking 40 buckets if I was mixing the contents (rice, beans, pasta, etc) which I still think is a neat idea.

Anyway, I decided to pack the mylar bags into boxes and they take up very little room.

10 bags of rice per box box. 40 bags (225lbs of rice) fits into an area 2' x 2' x 4'

Which bags did you use? I was thinking of ordering some bags from Sorbent, but was a bit confused. Sorbent said a particular bag was equivalent to a #10 can, but then they said that it holds 7.5 lbs when I know for a fact that a #10 can holds about 5 lbs.