Are you stockpiling for brexit?

[Downtroddenhousingass]

I am, chest freezer is full and my kitchen is overflowing with dry food.

Seeing as how the shops were empty last year with two days of snow a best case scenario will be a few weeks of shortages. Or am I crazy?

Good lord. Damned if I say 3days for being too hardcore and also too lightweight.
It is none of my business what people's individual situations are. Im a general prepper. I obviously have more than three days. But I know that it's really hard for the vast majority of people to even think about any sort of stocking up. Three days is a good target either to start with or finish with because it's doable in small bits.
If you want to freak people out and insist that they aren't "proper" Preppers unless they have [whatever unrealistic amount you want to set], go ahead.

No, not at all.

Here you go @WhentheDealGoesDown1 . If you have anything else to add , by all means.
This is what I have put on every thread of this type I can find. I'm reluctant to do it anymore because I will be accused of unrealistic scaremongering now we get close to the end of March.
Imagine you are snowed in for three days. What will you and your family actually eat? Get freezer friendly and/or shelf stable versions of that. What are your hygiene needs - toothpaste, sanpro, shampoo etc. Make-up too if it makes you feel good.
Think about snacks and treats. And entertainment. Because being stuck indoors is boring.
Why 3 days? It's doable and storable and keeps you away from the shops while you suss out how things are locally. Want to do more? Plenty of advice on MN.

And I thought I gave a useful tip about buying bulk from Amazon for prepping but obviously not. I was shot down instead

You appeared to say that you can get all your food from Amazon. This is not helpful.
If you are saying that bulk buying in advance can be done via Amazon, that is different. And useful for people that can afford it.

OK so just a post. I have found this thread interesting. Am I convinced Brexit will cause a breakdown in the supply chain - not sure I am. But some of @Bellinisurege 's post have made me think about e.g. bad weather or any other thing which could stop Lorry 1 getting to Lorry 2 and therefore to my local supermarket. It has made me think. possibly not in the way people want me to think but useful nonetheless. So thank you all for a very very interesting and thought provoking thread. It's pretty much supply chain ( is it not ) But thank you Bellinisurge I apologise if I sounded sarcastic up thread - I probably was , but thinking more now .

Basilisk

In regard to the person DP works with, they've absolutely been told to "unofficially" stock up. Initially I thought the idea was daft but given that officials in both DEFRA and HMRC have been advised to do this I'm erring on the side of caution.

We have a cellar so we've bought pasta/rice and plenty of tinned food. If nothing happens, we've bought our food for the next couple of months.

I think it probably won't cause a full on breakdown in the supply chain, just disruption in the short term and increased prices in the longer term.

@Uptheapplesandpears - short term disruption I can possibly mitigate - long term rprice rises , I seem to have singularly failed to be Chancellor of the Exchequer or indeed PM

Hey ho - but thank you too @uptheapplesandpears for an interesting thread - It was .

In January I started buying a couple of extra items each time I went to the shops, thanks to Bellinisurge's posts on the subject of prepping. When I couldn't get out of the house for three days because of the snow, I was very glad of my extras.

An added bonus is that I now take much more interest in where our food comes from, and in (very basic) home cooking.

Definitely not.

Do people really not have three days extra food?
I have about forty five individual home made meals in my freezer.

Last year, about this time, I had pneumonia and flu and I was very grateful for my little meals. And then we got snowed in!
Any normal week I'd have a month of food. With my Brexit planning easily more than two months.
Freezer is full though.

Some people can't routinely afford three days of extra food. Some people live in cities where everything is easily available just round the corner or on the way home from work and prefer to shop frequently and not buy things they might end up not using. Some people (like me) live in a place where they don't really have much weather disruption and so don't feel the need to stock up. Never been snowed in or seen empty shelves in a supermarket.

I also don't think three days of food are going to cut it in the event of no deal. Your 45 meals will last a family of three two weeks at one meal each a day. Even that might be iffy.

Well, I'm not a family of three am I? 🙄

And that was only a summary of the meals in the freezer, there's plenty of other stuff in there plus a ton of dried, long life and tinned foods. I have two months worth of food, easily.

And that's without prepping.

And noone has said three days of food would be enough. Maybe read the thread?

I've got no idea what your personal circumstances are. As it happens I have quite a few month's worth of food in the house and usually have two weeks or so if I was really forced to live on it (but it wouldn't be especially nice). I was just a bit eye rolly at your blithe comment that it was weird not to have three days worth of food in the house.

I would actually call having 45 meals in the freezer plus a ton of other stuff prepping. Even if you are not aware you've been doing it. And especially if it's just you or you and a partner. Most people don't have loads of long life food in the house.

I've got a shit load of shotgun cartridges (and some good stuff)

Its a lot easier to have 2 or 3 months food in if there is only 2 of you, like in our household, 2 of us and a 3 bedroom house so tons of room and we have a large garden to grow stuff. If you are a family of say 4 or 5 or more, all bedrooms most likely in use and a lot more mouths to feed it can be quite difficult to probably have more than a few days worth and there is the extra expense of more people to feed and stock up for.

We usually have 1-3 months worth of stuff in at any given time and store the excess in the spare room but there is only me and DH.

If you don’t normally have three days of food then it’s because either

You are on a very very low income
Or
You are not inclined to planning and life to decide what to eat on the day rather than meal plan
Or
You are disorganised

Option 1 will surely struggle to amass any kind of stockpile

Re Option 2&3 - it strikes me that this kind of person isn’t exactly a candidate for being a brexit prepper!

I’m any event, I don’t think stockpiling will be necessary. However it may seem that way as we approach simply because some people are stockpiling so shelves will be empty, but actually has bugger all to do with Brexit itself.

I have consistently recommended three days because it's better than nothing. I certainly would not presume to tell people to start with a target of three weeks or three months. That is overwhelming and frankly not realistic. It is for people as individuals to decide what they can do and whether they wish to , or more importantly, afford to do.
It's curious that now, the closer we get to possibly needing it because of unresolved Brexit, the more people are popping onto these threads declaiming that three days isn't enough. I have said repeatedly that beyond that is up to you.
I would add that starting from zero now would be tipping into panic buying. Panic buying happens when people realise at the last minute that they need loads of stuff. Up until now our Just In Time food supply distribution system could cope easily with extra demand. It was easier to stock up subtly.

I have been on these threads on and off quite a bit, I just namechange regulary, so really it is impossible to know how often people post. Though with the recent breach that may not be the case for some...

True @LightAsTheBreeze . There may be plenty of name changing with people trotting out the same tired old shit that was dismissed as nonsense when they posted it under their previous name.
I wonder if there will be lots of post Brexit whining by "new voices" who are too embarrassed to admit they were wrong.

However it may seem that way as we approach simply because some people are stockpiling so shelves will be empty, but actually has bugger all to do with Brexit itself

People have been stockpiling for a few months now. I've not seen any reports on empty shelves.

You are confusing stockpiling with panic buying, which does result in empty shelves and is not something that anyone is advocating, but could well happen.

@Epanoui

A bit if a waste of time rolling your eyes at something I didn't say. I never said it was weird, I am just surprised that people don't have enough food to last three days. Surely just a bag of pasta and couple of jars of sauce, a pack of bacon, some potatoes and baked beans, that would cover it.

I can't imagine not having food in. What do people actually have in their cupboards?

But I am a planner myself. It's not that I need to know in advance what I'll be eating, it's more that I've always worked quite long hours and it's better for me to have food in and know I won't be tempted to go to the take away. Plus the general health aspects of having decent food available and the reduction in waste, cost and packaging. And I live alone so there's noone else to rely on to get things if I am ill or stuck for any reason.

My parents have literally nothing in the house. In their fridge is normally a tub of dripping and that's it. Though my dad does grow some veg still. But, quite frankly, they are weird.

Imagine it@VanGoghsDog . Some people are not you.

@bellinisurge

Yes, I am aware. I was just fucking surprised at the three day thing. I know a lot of people and not one of them would not have three days of food in.

I wasn't suggesting everyone, or anyone, was "me".