Do you have a storecupboard / larder / backup food?

[TheKitchenWitch]

I don't mean if you are a Prepper necessarily, just do you have deliberate extra food stored at home? And if so, what things do you have?

I set up a larder in the cellar during Covid (partly because of shortages it was good to have some backups, and partly as I had the time to do it!), and I've found it really useful since. I basically have all the regular essentials which then get replaced immediately as they get used up. I also add to it when things are on offer.

I have:
tins & jars - beans/pulses, tomatoes, veg (inc. potatoes), sauerkraut, pickles, fish, fruit
long-life milk, soy, coconut
jams, spreads, honey
teabags and coffee beans
dry baking ingredients - flour, sugar, cocoa, yeast, salt
oil, vinegar, condiments
rice, dried beans / pulses / grains
pasta and noodles
part-baked bread and rolls
savoury snacks - crisps, nuts, crackers etc
sweets snacks - biscuits, chocolates, sweets
pet food

I also have a toiletries section (def. learnt that lesson from covid!)

We buy drinks by the crate (not in UK, it's more usual to do here) so always have a lot of water/lemonade etc in.

It gives me a weird sense of pleasure to see it 😁 and obviously a certain amount of security - we can manage for a good while without needing to go shopping if necessary.

Just interested in who else does this and what sort of things you have?

No. We have a small house. We wouldn't have the space and tbh I live 5mins walk from 2 big supermarkets so wouldn't have the inclination either.

Preppers panic when they have to use 1 of their stash

Of course they were part of the problem

I have a famine cupboard. Tins of meat, fish, beans, tomatoes. Bags of rice and pasta. Coffee, tea. Deep freeze stuffed. Also loo rolls, paracetamol. I think most of us who grew up with parents who had been through rationing were brought up with a siege mentality. Then Covid just showed us we were right as we wouldn't need to go shopping if we caught it.

Always keep lots of long-life stuff in - tins, packets, jars. Makes me twitchy not to. I pay very little attention to the best before dates. They're not perishable like fresh food. My mum is the same.

Rubbish.

Yes, this! I had really bad anxiety at the start of covid and would have had a panic attack at the shops. My pantry and luckily an asda delivery i had already booked saved me having to go for weeks. Obviously, i got used to it in the end.

I like to have backups of the things we use a lot of ( tea, marmite, tinned beans, tinned tomatoes, pasta, rice, ketchup etc) however as I discovered during covid a few backups don’t last long when you’re feeding a family of six! I just don’t have the headspace to build up a proper store.

I have a larder cupboard in kitchen with just tins and jars mostly soup, beans with sausages, beans, plum and chopped tomatoes, salmon, corned beef, veg, custard, gravy granules, spaghetti, jam, etc

Another set of storage shelves in conservatory. There I keep washing powder, toothpaste, fabric softener, bleach, loo cleaner, kettle descale, salt, coffee X 6, tea bags X 4, passata, lots of different pasta, tomato puree, loo rolls, furniture polish, window cleaner, flour, cat food and dog food, cat litter, silver cleaner and air fresheners.

I keep large chest freezer in conservatory and American fridge freezer in kitchen. Both fully stocked up too. Large joints of beef, gammon ham, pork, steaks, salmon as well as sausages, fish fingers, turkey dinosaurs/drummers, chicken nuggets, pizzas, chips, spicy potato wedges, sliced apples and apple sauce from garden, raspberries from garden, breaded fish, batch cooked meals mostly Bolognese X 8, chicken pasta in blue cheese sauce X 5, stew X 2. Apple crumble. I use old Chinese cartons to freeze portions in.

I batch cook each time I make Bolognese or pasta bake as adult DS takes portions to work as he has a microwave he can heat up. He is saving hard for deposit so not having to buy lunches at work helps him.

Yes. We've got a big drawer under the spare bed, full of the things that we assumed would massively increase in price/be in short supply due to the Ukraine situation.
We have flour, pasta, lentils, rice, sunflower oil, tinned veg, tinned beans and so on.
However, I can no longer be arsed to care about shortages. We would always manage to adjust our diet to work around what IS available. So I've started to wind down our supplies, or certainly not actively add to them.

No. I buy what I need for the week and if I have any left over it gets used until it's gone. The only things I buy multiples of are things I often forget to pick up, such as stock pots and tomato puree as it's annoying to not have them.

I don't like having lots of stuff in the house, and in the kitchen I prefer to keep my cupboard space pretty free so that I don't have anything on my counters.

Yes but I'm being mindful of use by dates so I'm currently using up everything to start again. I normally have a month's worth of food in. We live rurally and normally get snowed in but it normally melts within a week. I did prep for covid and it was extremely useful. I was hunting for food to feed my 4 kids. I don't ever want to be in that situation where you have just enough for that week. Three of my kids have sen and one is severely disabled and I felt we was extremely vulnerable and on our own. Survival of the fittest type feeling

Yes, I do.

I have a larder cupboard with plenty of long life food in it. Mainly tins of veg, soup, tinned fruit, chickpeas, pasta, rice and pulses like lentils. Usually some jars too like honey, peanut butter, curry sauce and jam.

Also longer life bread like part baked rolls and naan bread.

I always keep a loaf of bread in the freezer, it's great for just putting straight in the toaster and means that I can have tinned tomatoes or beans on toast for a quick meal whenever I need it and can't be bothered going to the shop. Similarly I could make a lentil or chickpea curry with rice or pasta and pesto or Nigella's marmite spaghetti any night of the week if we haven't been to the supermarket.

I bulk buy things like hand soap for refilling our soap bottles, and trays of drinks and keep those in the garage.

I'm not a prepper or a stasher. How could you make,say a curry if you don't have the ingredients to hand. I don't panic buy anything. As for going out of date,dry goods last years, things like rice pasta,it's only best before. Toilet paper was always bought in bulk.We do also grow a lot of our own fruit and veg. I Used to have chicken in my last house,and a big built in,walk in larder. My grandson said there was no food. Pointed him at the larder and big fridge freezer,he said "that's not food,it's ingredients". I always batch cook, freeze for later,I have a disabled son I visit every few weeks and take food for.

That's crap
I use my "stash" weekly, it's my store cupboard, it's what I cook from

I don't get shopping any other way TBH. If tinned tomatoes are £1, and I see them on 2 for £1, I buy them on offer. If they're not, I don't buy them. It means I never run out, but at some points I might only have 1 in or 10

Why would I pay more money when I don't have to, for something I always use?
Same with shower gel, perfume, toilet roll, if I see a good deal I get it whether I need it then or not because it'll get used. When my conditioner was 10p instead of £8 would I walk past and say "nah I don't need it, I have a bottle?" Of course not!

I don't get buying more than I need

Special offers aren't special when you already have 10 of the thing

I have quite a lot in. I find it reassuring to have choice and easy meals to hand. I use everything within it’s best before date and never throw anything out.

So if you use say 10 tins of tomatoes a month you would just buy them as and when rather than just get the 10 when they're on offer?

If 10 were on offer, I'd get the 10.

I wouldn't get 2 packs of 10 so I could keep a spare 10

Stashing/prepping is not the same as buying special offers

No one buys 10kg of pasta to keep in a cupboard because it was on special offer

This made me laugh and glad, for one of the rare times in my life, to be autistic. First, I don't judge other people because I see their behaviour as just 'one of those unknowable things that neurotypicals do' and, second, after a lifetime of being judged and bullied by neurotypicals for being autistic I have developed a strong sense of 'What, me worry?'

So, judge away, @Botw1. The only person affected is yourself.

@Florissant

I love a good judge. Its great

Saying you never judge while using the sentence 'one of those unknowable things that neurotypicals do' is pretty funny though

Im glad you don't care what others think. It's the best way to be

For most things I have one I use and a spare, so an open bottle of ketchup I. The cupboard and a spare in reserve. If it's something I use very regularly like tinned tomatoes, tuna, (green giant) sweetcorn, I'll have a few spares, so would always get me through to the next week.
I don't always do this for ingredients I use relatively infrequently, like capers, certain herbs and spices, with them I just make a note to replace hen running low.
I don't have tons in the freezer, we just don't use it enough.
Part baked breads are handy to have a stock of and I usually like to have a decent supply of common medicines, you never know when you are going to need them and the last things anyone wants to do when I'll is shop.

We could probably last two or three months if necessary. The menu would be quite monotonous towards the end.

I have a cellar off the kitchen that I use as a pantry so not really any space issues.

Yes since COVID I have a quite basic 'back up' of tinned jarred stuff in the garage

We always used to buy when we needed stuff (meal plan every eight days for the next four working days, and OH would shop everyday on his four days off. We were really caught out at the beginning of COVID

We are no way near preppers but just have a few supplies in the garage, especially if we see something on offer will get in a few extra,

@Rosio

I use my stuff all the time. It's saved me from leaving the house when I'm sick loads of time. During covid I was very vulnerable as I was on low dose chemo and EVERYTHING made me sick. A tiny sniffle could turn into pneumonia in no time. I've had pneumonia 6 times in 3 years and shingles maybe 4 times in 6 years. So I use what I have when I'm sick to feed my family and to stock up my larder then replace it later. Stock does vary but it always gets used. I often donate to the "in need" People on my local free page. If for some reason an item has less than 8 weeks left on it I give it to somebody that will use it.

I think I've just always got pleasure and a sense of safety from having a really good back up. I think it's from my nan. She always had loads for emergencies.

Yes, I'm a conspiracy theorist/prepper so I have a huge amount of food in storage, it's very hard to judge how long it would last but I'd say maybe 9 months or so?

I have all the usual tinned goods including tuna, sardines, peanut butter, artichokes, jam, Amy's soup and thank goodness for that b/c its discontinued, olives, capers, rice, pasta, chocolate, toilet paper, sleeves of cookies, flour, golden syrup/molasses/ sugar, tea bags, soy sauce, Shreddies, oatmeal, crisps, olive oil, cleaning products, laundry products, confit of duck, medicine, etc etc.

I keep all this stuff in the cellar and rotate with kitchen cupboards so nothing gets too old.