Do you keep a lot of food in stock at all times?

@Polyp0 it doesn't all have to be fresh food though. I have enough fresh 'meal' food for about 4 days in the fridge, plus eggs, cheese, milk, spread etc. Then I have food in the freezer from batch cooking and ordinary frozen stuff like peas and fish. I have several kinds of pasta, lots of rice, oats, dried fruit and baking ingredients in one cupboard, several different kinds of cereal, crackers, honey, Peanut butter, marmite tea and coffee in another. I have two shelves full of home made jam, and another cupboard full of tinned goods, custard, gravy granules etc. And a wire basket for potatoes and onions. I like to think that if I had several unexpected guests or family staying for a week I would have enough to do nice meals for a week at least before we had to go shopping, and when it's just us I know we could eat for at least a month.

I just don't know how anyone would know what they'll fancy eating in a few days time.

Most fresh food starts to deteriorate if its not used in a day or two.

When people open their fridge and you can't see to the back, I feel revolted knowing there's probably stuff out of date hidden under or behind something else.

If we weren't too fussy we could probably live for at least 6 weeks or more on what I have in store except for milk.

We have lots in store. DH is the one who likes to keep fridge, freezer and cupboards well stocked. We have never run out of milk, tea, coffee, bread etc in thirty years since I met him. I reckon our store cupboards could feed us for several weeks if we needed.

I do tend to overbuy so we always have spares of things in the cupboard, just in case I become ill or the weather turns or not able to get to the shops.

My MIL only ever had the bare minimum in. Which was fine when FIL was alive as he would go to the shops incessantly. When he died it was a nightmare as she only liked having a single small milk in etc. she would do some shopping herself she just wanted others to take her incessantly so she could carry on like that.

I do have plenty in store cupboard stuff. Didn’t had to go and panic buy pasta etc during the loo roll gate of March 2020.

I have lots of food in. We have loads of dry staples such as pasta, rice, buckwheat, quinoa, lentils etc

Freezer is full of meat, veg and cooked beans such as chickpeas and soya beans.

I've tried to simplify our meals. Ie porridge for breakfasts, dinners are dhals/curries/pasta bakes. I make all the bread. I do lots of batch cooking and buy stuff in bulk.

I could probably live for 2-3 months on quire basic foods but we would miss all the fruit/yogurts etc that we seem to devour.

Yes.
I reckon we could easily do a month with only having to buy bread milk ham fruit and veg.

Tins. We only use beans and tin toms. I have 10 at all times. We use them maybe 1x fortnight. If I use 1 I replace immediately the day after.

Cleaning products I have so many it's ridiculous. Think 10 Bleach. 10 washing up liquid and so forth .
However I don't hoard anything else. And everything has a place.
At one point I had shelves full in the shed of stuff. This is no longer

Food currently in cupboards: tins of tuna, one tin of beans, various packets of nuts, porridge, savoury biscuits, short bread and kitkats. My fridge is well stocked with smoothies, various cartons of fresh juice, ginger shots, high protein yoghurts, cheese, cottage cheese, meat pate and mackerel mousse and milk.

I overbuy because I grew up only doing a big shop once a month. I don't like fresh milk because we only ever had uht so I never run out now :-)

I am a yellow sticker holder

First Sunday of the month I organise and list the freezer food

I meal plan from it weekly and once a week specifically we have freezer night (code for previously frozen left overs night)

It's the only way I can keep on top of yellow sticker Mountain

Me too. When DM was alive, she would always ask if I was expecting a siege.

I also seem to have a thing for buying hand soap and bar soap especially reduced
Which everyone mocked. Then Covid hit...

I always keep quite alot of non perishables in, and I thought that was fairly normal.

Quite a full freezer (just ordinary sized) most of the time too.

I do try not to waste anything and usually succeed- so fresh food is only bought in a weekly, with something resembling a meal plan.

Buy your cheese and freeze it! it works out perfectly in our house as we do this lots..always tastes the same too!

I reckon we could leave 4-6 weeks on what's in the freezer and cupboards. there might be a few odd meals and we'd have to use powdered milk after a bit but i think we could survive quite well.

I was bought up in a very rural area where we frequently got snowed in in the winter so mum always kept everything well stocked up and I suppose I just do it automatically kind of passing over the fact I've got 3 supermarkets within a 20 minute walk!!

Also in all honesty I just like knowing it's there

Always make sure I've got extra food in with a monthly shop and weekly shops at times too.
we have a small chest freezer, fridge freezer and an additional fridge too.
We also have a breakfast cupboard (cereal, bread, squash and protein powders)
cupboard for dried goods such as rice, noodles, pasta, couscous, bulgar wheat and baking goods are (flour, sugar, icing, sprinkles, syrups)
Then a food cupboard where the tins and packets are kept alongside ice cream cones and confectionary.

All affordable - we shop around

But I think if we got snowed in for two weeks we would be fine

It's just me at home. I have a lot of dried goods and a reasonable amount of canned tomatoes and beans etc. I have things like spices, flour, sugar, oils. I only have a freezer box in the fridge so it can't hold much but I would usually have something like chicken breasts or a couple of salmon fillets in it. I eat fresh so I tend to buy meat and veg as needed. And I'll have the non-perishables to hand. This suits because I'm close to many shops.

I always have lots of food, frozen, dried, tinned and get fresh food weekly. When my children were growing up I had no money and it was a real struggle to feed them. Also when I was a child there was always 'enough' food, but never anything extra. Never snacks, or yoghurts, or treats. So now I have more than I need, to ensure there is always enough.

I'm like your friend - plan meals, shop for this week and that's all that's ever in.

I always think people who buy mountains of random food without having a plan for it must be rolling in money, which I am not. I have a weekly budget for food and if I went over it would not be able to pay other bills.

I do this - but on a smaller scale. I make a variety of meals (Chinese, Indian, Italian, English) but they all revolve around a few staples. Chinese for example soy sauce, oyster sauce and 5 spice powder. Indian curry powder, chili powder. Ginger and garlic. I don't have burger sauce, mayonnaise, onion jam or anything like that.

I always have a big bag of rice, a couple of types of pasta, noodles and flour. Also herbs and spices, frozen chopped vegetables, garlic and ginger. That's about it. Perishables we buy every couple of weeks.

This thread has got me thinking about a disaster scenario. I could make loads of carbs and veg but that's about it.

I'd love to have cheese in but I'm the only person who eats dairy, so it goes off too quickly.

Do you waste food?

I have full cupboards and can always cook something from my stock, but I never hi food so it doesn’t matter.

My DH always says we could feed the street for a week or out family for a month very easily on our cupboard stocks

I probably do have a bit much following on from how my Mum always was

Has been useful though sometimes!

I’m like you op, I get it from my mother. I grew up in a rural village with no shop. We were often cut off by floods or snow. Mum’s larder is very well stocked and the fridge always full.
My larder is fairly well stocked. If I needed to we could cope for a couple of weeks. I was surprised at all the people during Covid who were saying that they couldn’t isolate for a week at short notice.

I remember during Covid that those of us who keep a well stocked kitchen were being blamed by some on here for panic buying and they couldn’t be persuaded that it was the opposite.

Same as you loads of stuff haha. X