How much food do you have at home?

[Caspianberg]

From reading some other threads, I am surprised that so many need to go to the shops at the last minute to be able to eat next meal. People talk about child being ill, food order cancelled, them with flu etc and then being left down to nothing.

Not including if that is because you are down to last pennies so it has to be that way, do many of you really have to rush out in whatever circumstances to get something for next meal?

I always have a stock in due to rural location and weather, but even before would have some simple pasta, beans on toast type thing we could rustle up for a few days if we couldn't get out to the shops for whatever reason.

Probably a couple of weeks worth in cupboard and freezer but we have a lack of space - just one cupboard to hold tins and packets and jars and three drawer fridge freezer.

We don't have a lot in at the moment as our freezer is broken but when it's back up and running i'll start batch cooking again.

Normally have 4-5 days worth of fresh food in the fridge plus we've recently been dipping into our Brexit supplies!

A fair bit. We are quite rural, and in past cold weather have struggled to get from our lane to the main road due to the incline. And I hate being unprepared.

I only order enough fresh food (meat, veg, cheese) etc for the week/fortnight but have cupboards full of pasta, tins, rice, dried milk/uht etc. I bake a fair bit so have the dry ingredients for snacks, bread, granola etc.

I usually have about 3/4 days worth of food in. But I live in a city surrounded by 24 supermarkets (nearest is about 10 mins walk away) so really don’t need more than that.

Also have Deliveroo that is used more often than I’d like!

I have to caveat that I do have well stocked cupboards and do a weekly online shop (yes despite living close to supermarket) and with 3 young kids I could always knock something up even if I dont feel fully stocked. I also always have a selection of cereals and a few types of bread on the go (loaf / pitta / rolls)

For example the fridge is quite empty at the moment but I do have essentials (ham, cheese, eggs, milk, chicken breasts, humus, butter, yogurts) and the freezer has some portions of chilli and bolognese along with various frozen veg / oven chips / frozen mince and chicken I didn't get a chance to use etc.

I always keep fruit in and we have a snack box in the cupboard.

So actually I'm a complete liar and I am pretty well stocked

We eat fresh/healthy too 98% of the time, but if we were out of fresh stuff we could eat out the cupboards for a fair few meals.

My DH doesn't like us to have too much food in and always says we have plenty to eat. I like to have a choice and a full fridge, so it depends on whether I've been shopping on not. I get stressed with an empty fridge. He gets stressed with a full one.

I'm not a stocker as we are a family of 2 (just me and DS) and we don't eat tinned or freezer food, I have pasta and cereal and a few bits like that but I make all sauces from scratch. I don't bulk buy as I hate like food wastage so I only buy enough fresh fruit and veg that we won't end up throwing away as it goes off so quickly. Same with meat.

I keep things like eggs and bread, and I do batch cook and freeze it so we would have something if I didn't have time to go shopping but I don't keep much else in the way of non perishable food items!

We keep non perishables especially for occasions like delivery cancelled, snowed in etc

@Crunchymum - even so. With 24hr supermarkets, that doesnt help when you wake up with sickness and can barely get out of bed.

Someone i know (no money issues), regularly runs out of formula so has to rush out whatever the circumstances after making the last bottle. Mad rushes at 3am to a 24hr supermarket or whatever. It would stress me out.

A few days, but not much more than that. We only moved back to UK at the end of August and it takes time to build a stockpile. Our freezer is only small so we can't build a massive collection of frozen stuff.
We can get to the shops most days so it's not an issue really. We have a corner shop within a few minutes walk for emergencies of bread or milk.

Quite a bit. Could survive a month at a push.

There's always tins in the cupboard and frozen stuff. Never been down to the bare bones even when I was really poor. Frozen stuff costs nothing. It might not be what you fancy that night but we wouldn't ever starve.

We could eat what's in the house- plenty of tinned tomatoes, pasta, rice and herbs and spices, but for preference we'd just go to the shop. It's only across the road and does a good selection of easy to cook stuff which would definitely be my preference when ill. Otherwise, DP drives past 2 Tescos, 2 Aldis and a Sainsburys within a 15 minute commute from work so we don't worry too much about forgetting something in the online shop!

We never have extra milk, only wherever we've got to in a litre, and sometimes don't have spare bread in the freezer, so breakfast could be a problem if we couldn't get out, but there would always be something for other meals. However in inner London with a minimarket that never closes at the top of the road, we're unlikely to have a problem!

I always make sure we have eaten every last thing before I do a shop. Usually I just do a week's shop and write up a menu so I don't waste food or over spend. Single parent and can't afford to waste food or money. My GIL is always mortified my cupboards and fridge isn't full to the brim but I've always got a menu in place and it's amazing what you can make with barely anything. In my experience you don't need to stock up everything unless you're predicted snow or flooding!

We meal plan and shop monthly for store cupboard stuff like pasta, rice, beans, tomatoes etc

We also shop for meat monthly like mince for chilli etc but we're reducing our meat intake.
There's very little processed food in the house because I'm dieting.

We often have to get fresh veg and fruit on the day we need it.

So we could eat find out of the cupboard if we needed to but we often run out of bread/milk and other fresh stuff.

There's always something in the freezer or cupboards here.

I sometimes think quite a lot (but obviously not all) of the posters who claim to have bare cupboards, fridges and freezers say it to add weight to whatever they're moaning about - whether that's a cancelled grocery shop, a stupid DH who can't get the shopping right or a late takeaway delivery.

I always make sure we have eaten every last thing before I do a shop.

My GIL is always mortified my cupboards and fridge isn't full to the brim

I doubt it's because they're not 'full to the brim' (no-one's are 24/7)

They're probably just confused as to why you'd risk eating every last thing and not at least leaving a packet of pasta and a few other bits for an emergency meal.

We could probably live with nice meals for a week, and then using things up for another week. We also have lots of cereal so we wouldn't starve.

I like to keep relatively stocked up, but not too much, as it annoys me when I find things that are out of date because I'd over-stocked.

I dislike planning meals in advance as I never know what I'm going to fancy.

I currently only have tonight's dinner and tomorrows breakfast in the house.

I have lots staples that I use all the time for cooking, such as tinned tomatoes, red kidney beans, black beans, green lentils, chickpeas, and coconut milk, red lentils, yellow split peas, quinoa and brown rice. I have granola, oats, sultanas, mixed seeds, and nuts. I still need to go shopping for fresh fruit and vegetables at least once a week though.

We don't meal plan either, like i said day to day i am assuming most people shop for what they want that week for the key and fresh ingredients. But without meal planning dried goods like rice, herbs, pasta, herbs will last months to use in any meal.
On a tight budget it makes even more sense to keep a simple meal or two from store ingredients, as an emergency takeaway would cost way more.

We also don't really ever waste food. Hence why there is usually a small supply in the house as if i make too much sauce/soup/casserole I would just freeze the remainder. Handy for above mentioned occasions Its not like i throw away the pasta each week if not eaten.

Hardly anything at the moment! We do a weekly shop on a Saturday and I'm running down our tiny freezer at the moment to make way for Christmas (turkey, fresh bread etc.) so we have tonight's dinner and probably a couple of days worth of dried/frozen food that we could make meals of. Usually (on a Saturday morning) I'd have a weeks worth of fresh food, meal planned for the week, plus probably another weeks worth of frozen/dried food. We don't have huge amounts of storage space for food, I'm hoping when we move house I'll have room for a chest freezer for batch cooked meals, but we have 4 big supermarkets within 2 miles and 3 smaller supermarkets within 1 mile. We also live less than a mile from my dp and they always have a massive stock of freezer food so I don't think there's any danger of us starving if there was an adverse event.

We're the same loads of store cupboard basics, pasta rice noodles spices beans ect. Then usually quite a selection of meat in the freezer as well as quorn stuff which is great for last minute meals. It's just fridge stuff that we need weekly