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?

People who keep spouting "don't buy one extra pack, that's stashing" your the kind of person that made me too terrified to go out and buy food for my kids during lockdown. Maybe you can make 500g of mince last a month but with four kids I can't. That is why I did click and collect throughout. Because unimaginative wankers was posting picture of people's shopping on the cash register belts with two packs of mince and people was threatening to kick their selfish heads in. I can not work and shop daily. I cannot fed six on 500g of mince. But by this kind of logic I'm a hoarder. Imagine the filthy judging looks people got for buying for their vulnerable neighbours. Use your imagination ffs. We don't all buy one tin of beans daily to do 3 x four meals. I will do me, you do you

We have a box in the garage with extras in just in case. Definitely wouldn't call myself a prepper but there's extra tins, packets, pasta and rice. We keep rotating it so stuff doesn't go out of date.

I started doing it when we all had covid back when you couldn't go out for 10 days and we were having to pay over the odds for Deliveroo to leave a bag at the door. Would much rather just have some emergency stock in just in case.

I can go a week without shopping, but I don’t buy any more than I need. I have an unopened jar or packet of most stuff in the cupboard.

Like I said, I wasn’t the one out stripping shelves during the pandemic.

@Mydogatemypurse thank you.

We are (hopefully) having extensive works done shortly and part of that will be a large pantry so we can stock up.

we have an extra fridge and freezer in garage as we grow a huge amount of fruit and veg so DH makes sauces etc and stores in freezer

@PriamFarrl

Well I wouldn't have judged you then. Hope that makes you feel better

This.

L

Thats not just 1 extra packet

It doesn’t matter if it is ten packets if it is the odd person spread around the country buying at a time of low demand.

The problem comes when demand outstrips supply. During periods when people are panic buying, for example.

To me it is sensible to have a good stock of food. I know people who go shopping every few days and there is no way I would be doing that.

It like people buying packs of 2 or 4 loo roll. Just why? You are always going to need loo roll and it works out cheaper to buy them in bulk.

I have always had some sort of food store but now we have a walk in larder and a fairly large brick shed we have a big store. When covid hit we didn't need to go to a shop for about 6 weeks.

We have tinned foods like tomatoes, baked beans and a few soups. Different lentils and beans, chickpeas, rice, pasta.

We have a fridge freezer in the kitchen and a tall freezer and an undercounter freezer in the shed.

We always have loads of bread and rolls in the freezers which we buy when it is yellow stickered (often get a loaf for 10p). We also have home made soups and sauces, veggie sausages and burgers, veggie mince, lots of frozen veg and fruit. Also freeze milk and cheese.

If we see yellow stickered food when we are shopping and it's very cheap we buy some and put it in one of the freezers.

We buy packs of 24 loo rolls and when we get down to about 10 we buy another. We always have a good stock of shampoo, shower gel, toothpaste, washing up liquid, washing liquid, fabric conditioner, hand wash etc. We only ever buy those items when they are on offer.

It's not just about not wanting to go shopping all the time though. There could be any number of reasons for not being able to get to a shop. Snow, flooding, illness, broken limb, car broken down etc. Yes, there is usually the option of online deliveries but they also could not get through bad snow or floods. Also during lockdown it was impossible to get a delivery.

40 years ago we got snowed in for a week. We didn't live in the middle of nowhere but on a large estate in a sizeable town.

We now live at the top of a hill and nowhere near a river. Two years ago we were cut off because of floods. There was so much rain and water was just pouring off of the fields. I never ever thought we would be flooded when we live high up.

I don't get why someone would judge the people being sensible. There's always one person on these threads with a weird superiority thing about being disorganised/living 2 minutes from a shop. I mean its truly living on the edge to run out of pasta..

Oh yes.... can't be bothered to keep going to supermarket so most staples are backed up and I just buy the odd fresh thing that runs out.

@Baystard

I never said other wise. In normal circumstances

During covid when there was panic buying I judged those adding to it by making sure there already big stash was even bigger

But other than that, meh, could care less

It's the stashers on this thread getting all judgy about chaos and disorganisation.

Cause doing a weekly shop is so wild

😂

But other than that, meh, could care less

I think you mean couldn't. If you "could" care less, then you're saying it bothers you (which it clearly does, so perhaps you could!)

@WednesdaysPlaits

www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/could-couldnt-care-less

I could care less about grammar..

You aren’t making sense.

How do you know it was ‘stashers’ who were panic buying?

@PriamFarrl

They said so

And they encouraged others to do the same

Social media eh?

Which ‘they’? What did ‘they’ say and when?

I think that given the current situation and everything we've learnt from Covid, I feel much more secure having a good stock of food in the house. I don't have anything that doesn't get used regularly, though, so there's absolutely no danger of anything going off or being wasted.
If you are happy going shopping every day and getting what you need for a few days, then that's fine! Everyone does what suits them, no?

@Mydogatemypurse I looked up tutorials online and then ordered from amazon and some gardening/sprouting websites. I also picked up a started kit at a local garden centre. But I've also been sprouting mustard seeds that I had in my spice cupboard and they've come up fab!

@Oblomov22
I don't run out of things, because I have them in 😜
But either you meal plan very well indeed to make sure you have exactly what you need for every meal with no deviations, or you go shopping very frequently.
I happily meal plan, but in quite a flexible way, and I can't and don't want to shop more than once a week at the very most. So having a well-stocked larder is a huge help.

I need to try that. Thanks for the suggestion!

Yes, always lived in rural areas and used to get cut off it snowed, sometimes for a week. The habit’s stuck and always have a month of tinned, frozen and packet food and a spare month of dog food. Tea bags, milk powder, oats and frozen fruit and veg are the essentials. Tinned beans, lentils, jars of curry paste. For me, not the dog!

I dont think doing a weekly shop is wild. Im not in a postion to do one. I shop fortnightly online, spending £60. In between I buy fruit, bread, yogurts and milk.

Everytime i shop i buy what i need for meals/cleaning/toiletries. I only buy bleach and washing up liquid to clean and a £1 anti bac spray.

I buy 1 or 2 extra items with every shop. It adds up as its surplus to what I need and allows me to cook meals when an unexpected bill comes in, during covid and when i was made unemployed twice during covid and had to wait 5 weeks for money.

Im not taking from anyone else, in fact my shopping is very frugal. If i didn't have it i would have had to use food banks more than the 2 occasions I did, so me being self reliant and prepared actually prevented me from taking from someone else in a worse position. Im not a prepper or horder. Im safeguarding my boys and relying on myself.

Not sure why you replied to me @Mydogatemypurse but OK?

You do you hun

A probably could survive on what's in my cupboard for a couple weeks if I didn't mind quite a samey menu. I've about ten of those microwaveable rice packets, pasta, a few jars of pasta sauce, tinned tuna, frozen veg and baked potatoes. I've got enough toothpaste and deodorant shampoo etc to last a couple months.
I'd run out of dog and cat food within a week though - I don't have the space to store a lot of that!

People went a bit mad over Covid. There were definitely some panic buying things which they never even used, which is just insane. But I'd have thought the ones who already had well-stocked larders weren't needing to buy stuff as they already had it - isn't that sort of the point?

Anyway, what I learnt from all that is is that it's definitely sensible for us to have a well-stocked larder because you never know what might happen. So DH was away last week, and I got ill, which meant I wasn't able to get to the shops. I could of course have asked friends to get stuff in for me, or sent DS1 to get things after school, but actually we just carried on pretty much as usual because I had food in. Just once less thing to worry about.

I also second the PP about buying from international shops - they often have very good deals on rice, lentils, pulses etc. We don't have one local, so I tend to stock up whenever I'm nearby. It just makes so much more sense (also with petrol prices, I've really cut down on popping out to get eg a pint of milk)