What did i miss

[leiela]

Hey all, I've always been abit of a prepper although I didn't realise it actually had a name.

Over the years my family has been though financial difficulties several times. One of which was so bad the only people eating in our house some days was the kids.

Since then I've always made sure when times where good we had plenty of food in the cupboards ready for when times where bad.

My job is pretty unstable atm, i'm self employed and some weeks we have loads of money and other weeks we barely cover the bills …. I didn't work at all from November till end of Jan and only finally got to pay myself in March!

We had gotten abit complacent after we moved house 2 years ago because times where good and I wasn't as well prepped as I used to be, suffice to say I was glad I had abit of extra food in but it was a wake up call that I wasn't as well prepared as I needed.

The new house is great, I have a nice big basement and there is no reason why I can't fill it to the brim!

I want to be sensible, store what we eat … but that is really hard as lots of what we eat doesn't have a great shelf life and doesn't make good prep's! so I have been forced to pad out my list with some food i'm not sure we even like!! anyhoo heres the list ………

Red Lentils 7kg
Pinto 11kg
Green Lentils 6.5 kg
TVP Veggy Mince 1 kg
Black Beans (Dried) 5kg
Barley 2kg
Pasta 8kg
Quinoa 1.2 kg
Oats 2 kg
Porridge Packets 78 packets
Dehydrated Chicken (Preppers) 24 servings
Dehydrated Beef (Preppers) 24 servings
Egg Powder 1 kg
Mug Pasta/Rice 20 packets
Instant Noodles 20 packets
Rice (Dry) 23kg
Broth/Soup mix 2kg
Instant Mash 2 boxes
Dried Onions 2 kg
Dried Mixed Veg 2 Kg

Baked Beans 44 Tins
Baked Beans with Sausages 18 Tins
Baked Beans with Veggy Sausages 10 Tins
Tuna 4 tins
Hot Dogs (Giant) 4 jars
Hot Dogs (Regular) 10 Tins
Corned Beef 6 Tins
Spam 2 Tins
Chicken Curry 26 Tins
Chicken in White Sauce 6 Tins
Kidney Beans 4 tins
Chickpeas 4 Tins
Beef Chilli 5 tins
Stewed steak 8 tins
Meatballs 4 tins
Tinned Breast 2 tins (small)
Tinned Burgers 2 tins
Refried Beans 6 Tins
Bolognaise (V) 2 tins
Fray Bentos 2 pies
Cured Ham 1 large ham
Tinned chicken (large) 12 tins
Macaroni Cheese 11 tins
Soup (Tinned) 24 tins
Pasta Bake sauce 6 Jars
Pasta Sauce (Tomato) 24 Jars
Stir in Sauce (Tomato) 4 tubs
Stir in Sauce (Cheese) 6 tubs
Micro Rice 15 packets
Olives- Jar 2 jars
Olives- small tin 2 Tins

Evaporated Milk 6 Tins
Coconut Milk 4 Tins

Whole Milk Powder 1 large Tin
Skimmed Milk Powder 2 tins
Coffee Whitener 2 tins
Tea bags 2 boxes (240bags)
Coffee 2 (500g tubs)
Sugar 1 large bag

Coconut Oil 2 Jars
Olive Oil 2.5 ltrs

Peanut Butter 1 large Jar
Lemon curd 2 jars
Jam/Marmalade 5 jars
Honey 2 jars
Maple Syrup 2 jars


Mandarins 16 tins
Pears 2 tins
Grape Fruit 4 tins
Pineapples 4 tins
Peach's 3 tins
Rice Pudding 6 tins
Cartons of Fruit Juice 14 (1 litre)

Salt 2 large tubs
Mayonaise, mustard, ketchup Various
Curry Sauce mix 1 tub mix

Tinned Tomatos/passata 52 tins
Carrots 4 tins
Sweetcorn 12 tins
Mushy Peas 10 tins
Peas 2 tins
New Potatos 12 tins

2 big bags of Dog food for my fluffy friends. (enough to last 2 months)

Kitchen Roll 12 rolls
Toilet Rolls 40 rolls
Water purifying tablets 200
Water 56 litres
Shampoo/Conditioner/shower gel/Soap Various
Paracetamol 12 boxes
Ibrobufin 12 boxes
Aspirin 2 boxes
Lemsip 4 Boxes
Toothpaste 4 tubes
Toothbrushes 2 packs (x4)
Cleaning products Various


These are just my 'basement' stores … in my main kitchen I anticipate I have at least 1 full months worth of dry/tinned goods....herbs/spices/condiments etc...…

I also have 3 freezers full of meat/veg...…. One of which is a 500ltr!!

Most of the food we eat day-to-day is fresh or frozen.

i'm trying to branch out into shelf stable products …. but it's so hard!!! my family really doesn't like tinned veg too much, about the only one we use 'day to day' is tinned tomatos so right now 99% of my veg is in the freezers, this is fine when freezers work!! but if they break or electric goes down then i'm likely to lose months worth of food.

[Dyrne]

It depends what you’re prepping for... To be honest I think for you the best Prep you can do is financial prepping as that is the number one risk for you, being self employed. You say some weeks you have loads of money but then others you can barely cover the bills.

Have you looked at your finances to see if you can cut back or re-prioritise? Have you paid off credit card debt etc? In your situation I’d be aiming to build a significant savings cushion over spending £££ on more expensive freeze dried food that may never get eaten.

Do you have all the right insurances in place? What happens if your boiler breaks? Or your dogs get ill/injured? Do you have copies of all documents saved somewhere in case of house fire? What if the basement floods? Would the food all be ruined?

[leiela]

Hi there, good questions!
Dogs are insured, so is the boiler! As for other stuff … I have ‘Income protection insurance’ which covers me if I’m sick or dead. Which is really important because I’m the main earner in the household. My husband does earn and if push comes to shove and I’m not working he can pay the important bills which keeps a roof over our head but it wouldn’t be fun.
When I have a contract and getting regular income I only draw out when I need for the house/bills so the excess builds up in the company pot and can be drawn out when things are leaner. That is how I managed to survive from November to March. We tightened our belts (we didn’t splurge on treats, dinners out or anything we didn’t need) and lived off the food storage just topping up with bread/milk etc. Going into the ‘Lean time’ in November I had the bills money for 6 months in the company pot, the lean time lasted 5 months due (which is highly un-usual) … so there was abit of worry coming to the end of feb, as it was touch and go for a while.
Since I’ve manage to straighten myself out after the gap, getting myself back to a debt free state and managing to squirrel the food above away (Some of it I already had).
As of next payday (end of May) I’ll be back to squirrelling money away ready for the next break between jobs.
This winter was tough, but was highly unusual for me to be out of work that long. My contract ended in November and as we had a family holiday booked in December we knew I wouldn’t find a 1 month placement, so we just needed to hang tight till January when people started hiring again. (People don’t really hire over Christmas anyway and it takes a while for things to pick up in january)
I don’t think the basement flooding is likely, we live on a hill and the whole of the town would need to be underwater before we had big problems. But all the same because my basement is naturally damp, Tins are all on shelves and packets/fresh are all in air/water tight containers so pretty safe. Also I think if things did start looking bad in the area, because of where we were are, I think we’d have enough advance warning to ferry things upstairs.
The big worry for me is the freezer, if the big freezer/electric’s go I’d be looking at £500 worth of food lost. I hate relying on my freezers so much because they are such an easy thing to break. Also my house is old, the electrics are OLD!! I’m saving to have them replaced but it’s not inconceivable that we’d have a problem with them in the nearish future and if that happens we’d lose so much food, which is why im trying to modify what we eat to reduce our reliance. Getting veg/meat that is nice and shelf stable is really tricky.

[ElyElyOy]

There’s an app called Olio where you can find people giving away stuff they don’t want/can’t use. Often you will find fresh veg/fruit on there which can be used/dried/frozen/repurposed etc.

You could look at dehydration as an alternative to freezing and tins. Also look at using tinned food and making it more edible for your family: Jack Monroe has a tinned food cook book coming out but she also has a few tinned food recipes on her blog for free (and her general recipes are often easy and very cheaply costed).

[Atalune]

Pickling! You should pickle things, and make jams and chutneys. They add such a delicious tartness to everything!

[bellinisurge]

Not sure how old you are or whether there are other women/girls in your household but I didn't see sanpro.
If that is an issue in your household look at reusables. I'm too old for periods but my dd has just started and is really into cloth pads and period pants. I bought a few samples for her in advance and also some patterns so we could make some customised ones. I do the laundry for them just now - I figured I'd cut her some slack while she gets used to having periods and to show her how low maintenance it actually is.