Your ‘emergency supplies/stockpile’.

[ohyouagainclarence]

Has anyone else started stashing a few things away in the event of some kind of ‘national emergency’ and if so, what sort of things are you storing?

I’m certainly not going to turn into a prepper but as I have plenty of storage space, I’ve got two big plastic boxes filled with dried goods (rice/pasta etc) and then some tinned stuff. I’ve also stocked up on batteries, candles and matches and I bought a solar charger. And oh, got two 5 litre bottles of water.

The temptation to go a bit nuts and plan for Armageddon is high! 😂😂 But I’m being sensible and just having enough for the basics to keep us going for about a week. I’m also cycling through the food so it doesn’t get wasted - use a tin of beans and then replace it etc.

After spending decades mocking those who plan and prepare, the population is getting whiplash from being told that actually it’s best to plan and prepare (like every other country already does).

I don’t need to do anything because I’ve been prepared my whole life as soon as I had money for it. Poverty in childhood will do that for you.

All these people banging on about sweetcorn it has pretty much zero nutritional value passes in then out!

I always have some in hand of quite a few things, ie always replace toilet rolls before we get close to running out, always have a spare packet of rice, pasta, chilli flakes (we use quite a few), biscuits, nuts, cereals, longlife milk, tins. I read a similar thread the other day, and it reminded me to check on tinned soup (always handy if you're ill) - actually took me a few days to get some tomato soup. I guess it's the time of year, but oats seem to be selling well - but they'll be warming and filling if you have the means to cook them. We've always got batteries, candles, matches. Thinking I should get some bottled water and maybe cranberry juice which we sometimes drink. After covid and problems with factory lines, I always have a months supply of cat food - try telling them their usual isn't available! Always makes sense to keep topped up with pain killers, cold remedies/other items which you use, in case of short supply or feeling too ill to go out and buy.

I live somewhere power cuts and water outages can happen randomly. So I've got bottled water in the shed and there are always cans and packets roaming around in the back of my cupboards. As long as the dog is catered for I reckon I can stand eating nothing but peanut butter off the spoon for 72 hours, if I have to.

It's always sensible to have some extra in. It's not just for emergencies, its also useful if you're ill or just can't be arsed to get to the shops. Just buy more of the non-perishable stuff that you'd normally eat.

Uhm no. I don’t see how lots of people adding a few extra tins to their weekly shop is going to disrupt the supply chain. However people who’ve done nothing, may well end up panic buying if a storm or emergency happens and they’ll be the ones emptying the shelves!

We have lots of tins of tuna and mackerel and those tuna salad tins, they have a very long date and not too big to store

I’ve checked the none perishable food stores and stock rotated things. Only got things we’d eat anyway. Keeping on top of dog food and will get some water in but limited storage space. Checked the torch situation

I started keeping some extra stuff in during Covid when I saw the insanity of people fighting in the shops over loo roll. It made me realise how fragile our supply chain can be and it makes sense to always have extra in the house, rather than living week by week.

At heart I’m an optimist so I’m not forecasting some doomsday scenario! However as I’m only buying things we’d actually eat, it’s not wasted money, it’s just thinking ahead.

And oh while remembering The Great Toilet Roll Disaster of 2020, I bought a 64 pack from Amazon. 😂

I really wouldn't go overboard with dried things because you're going to need so much water to use them! I think water supply is one of the most concerning problems imo. My sister in North London spent a few days without water this summer as the supply for the whole area got cut off.

I always have enough for food in the house for probably 2 weeks extra if you're prepared to eat some very odd meals though. Not because I'm prepping but because I don't generally meal plan and I keep a store cupboard of staples.

Having stocks of pasta rice etc is no bad thing but how do you plan to cook them if there is no electricity? Tinned is a better option.
I have more than enough food to last months but not because of government advice but because i grow and store.

I’ve got two big plastic boxes filled with dried goods (rice/pasta etc)

Bear in mind that you'll need extra water and some form of power to cook it......

Coffee sachets, Costa latte. It's decent.

I have a reasonable supply of bottled water.

food is a bit more difficult as I'm vegetarian. Very low carb due to diabetes.& have other health issues. I don't really eat tinned or dry food & whilst I would in a dire Emergency of course it means I can't stock rotate in the meantime. For Covid, I just kept donating food to the food Bank and re-buying, but I'm disabled now and not working and I can't afford to do that. If we're just looking at 72 hours, that's no problem at all, but that doesn't seem sufficient to me??

I need to get on with the other things like a wind up radio and torches lamps lights whatever.

I do still have quite a lot of candles and matches and things, but since I became disabled & part of that is I am easily distracted and forget things now, so I don't really trust myself with candles any more.

I started the day reading the news this morning. It's not a good way to start the day or start the week and the Govt telling us we should prepare for Russia to attack us in the next four years, has, I admit, scared me.

I've assumed I need enough to feed two of us for 10 days.

I make all our bread anyway so I always have a sack of bread flour, that's four months worth.

Otherwise I have UHT milk, beans, rice, pasta, porridge oats, tinned & frozen veg, tinned & frozen fruit, coffee. Frozen meat & fish fillets. An extra litre of oil. A spare tub of dried yeast. Plus there are some veggies left in the garden.

Protein might be difficult if the freezer ran out. Beans, eggs, cheese and nuts would have to stretch.

Water is a query, but we have a well in the garden and we live rurally on chalk so it's good enough in an emergency if boiled. We've tasted it before and it's ok. Certainly ok for washing & flushing loos.

We have a log burner & a winter's worth of logs, candles & hurricane lamps. Also a little solar charger for my phone that I used when travelling. We're used to power cuts lasting a couple of days.

If an emergency went beyond that, we're into unknown territory but neighbours have hens, and plenty round here shoot so I guess we'd end up eating pigeon and rabbit. I think we'd be ok if not very comfortable.

I also buy the large toilet roll packs from Amazon, either 24 or 48 Andrex, whichever has best offer.

But what is the emergency? It's long been official advice to have 3 days of food & water in the house (I can manage the former but not the latter) but I think that's been more weather-related. Civil unrest, even war - 3 days' supplies not going to help much really. And if theres no gas or electricity to heat water/ to cook, or to keep your fridge freezer on - again, no good.

War doesn’t just cover eg a nuclear attack (where obviously tins of beans are neither here nor there) but also things like foreign cyberattacks on infrastructure or supply chains. Having a few days’ food and water would definitely be beneficial in that situation. It should be stuff that doesn’t need refrigeration and can be eaten uncooked if necessary- tinned soup, beans, veg, tuna etc etc.

There’s no need for name calling. Just because my opinion is different to yours, it doesn’t mean I’m wrong. I was there in lockdown when the shelves were bare, it was the result of greedy hoarders.

Can I ask the best camping stoves for indoors that won't kill us all with fumes please? Oh and the best wind up radio and torch.

I have tins, dried stuff, water and a wood burner to cook on but a stove would be good

I’m rural, most people round here will have supplies to survive week or two if the power grid went out.

I think it’s trickiest to store enough water as some have pumped water and it’s amazing how fast even a 1500 litre tank will run down when a family is all using it. Im lucky thst I have a gravity system but the u.v light filter doesnt run if no power so need to purify by boiling or tablets.

Wood stove and ye olde oil Aga thst doesnt need electric. Tins, packets, uht milk, few spare packs of loo rolls.

I think my top tip is buy stuff you actually like and use. We get through six tins of tomatoes a week, it’s not a hardship to have a few dozen tins and rotate forward do there isnt any waste.

Following.

It was the result of panic buying. If people simply add a couple of tins here and there over time that safeguard against empty shelves

We should not need an emergency defined to prepare for it. That's the whole point. It's being prepared for the unexpected.

I would say that the risk of the unexpected is currently higher than it has been in a long time, hence the advice, but it doesn't mean something will conclusively happen.

I would say the biggest risk ATM is a diesel and gas shortage. This has worldwide implications.

Some places worldwide are already facing rationing or blackouts. This has an impact on manufacturing and UK imports.

The biggest concern would be medication.

But more widely the entire global logistics network operates using diesel. Think trains, tractors and trucks. As well as cargo ships. This means transport, haulage and farming.

Even without a lack of supply prices are going through the roof and this will have an impact on everything.

In addition to this, next year will see high food prices. Fertiliser wasn't available or was too expensive for farmers around the world earlier this year and currently. So crops that are already in the ground or haven't been planted at all are going to have much lower yields. For parts of the world this will mean starvation and civil unrest. This is now an inevitability.

The UK is unlikely to run out of food, but it could skyrocket in price and there may be gaps on the shelves - because of lower crops and higher costs to get the crop to you and higher costs to process the crop.

Not to mention that the energy price cap is almost certainly going up 25% in January

Being prepared may not merely be about an incident.

Every time my dad comes round he brings tinned stuff. It’s actually very nice of him, but we do have a lot of Frey Bentos pie and bacon grill. I’ve also been buying some tinned veggies with the shop, but tbh if the power really did go out I’d probably be so scared I want a pie in a tin for comfort. He also says if the power goes out he’ll come round to “protect the gaff” which is a little bit funny because he’s in his 70s and the place we live isn’t exactly rough… but at the same time he was a scrapper back in his day so I won’t say no. Also I’ve got a load of water but I’ve been doing that since uni because of an incident in student accommodation.

I doubt it. We’re permanently stocked with pasta, tins, jars, toilet roll and toiletries. We bulk buy when they’re on offer and have plenty of money and storage space to do so.

When COVID hit we didn’t need to shop for weeks and the only thing we ran out of was butter (and fresh fruit/veg/meat but we just defrosted what we had until supply chains normalised). Given we’ve literally always been in this position, we were absolutely not disrupting the supply chain and causing panic buying. We did a bit of an audit at the weekend and have topped up, which has involved us buying a couple of extra tins than normal and replacing our frozen loaf of bread. I don’t think a few more people doing that will cripple the whole economy.