What would you keep at home for a few days' emergency supplies?

[Somewhereovertherainbowwewillmeetagain]

Day off today and I’m doing a big clean/declutter of the house… and apparently I’ve decided to prepare for the apocalypse 😂

I’m a hope for the best but plan for the worst type of person, so while I’m sorting the house I thought I’d also get my emergency supplies organised.

So far I’ve got:

12L water
5 tins of soup
2 tins of tuna
16 toilet rolls
1 hand soap
1 shampoo
1 conditioner
1 tin of rice pudding 😂

What am I missing from my list?

I’m going to have a good search around the house first to see what I already have, then buy anything I’m missing.

I’m thinking food, water, toiletries, household stuff etc. Basically things that would be useful if we had a few days without being able to get to the shops.

What would you make sure you had? And what things have you got tucked away that you’d never normally think of? 😆

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst!

I watched this last week. It was very scary and very realistic. Sort of like threads but in some ways even scarier as we are more likely to lose power through a cyber attack than to be hit by a nuke.

They did it quite well covering many different aspects like ordinary people, infrastructure, supply of food, hospital and emergency services, fuel, law & order and dependence on electricity..also from a prepper’s view (no bbq’s in the garden..!!)

We have most of this in already without doing anything-

1. heat and light- torches, candles, matches, gas stove, bbq fuel
2. first aid (bit shocked if people do not have this)
3. dried food like pasta and rice, lentils, mushrooms, oats but now this year loads of dried beans from the allotment
4. tins tomatoes, olives, tuna, coconut milk, jars pesto curry sauce, uht milk
5. toilet roll we buy in bulk anyway, plenty of soap and outside water butts that we may not drink but could wash from
6. solar charger for phones and other usb c, wind up radio (from allotment)
7. A wallop of catfood
8. drinks- but not enough water I think
9. Fresh veg we can pick- salad greens beets
10. up to bum in jam, pickle, chutney

We would need

1. more drinkable water
2. some more long lasting cheese- like parmesan etc that does not need to be super cold

This is not meant to be smug as what I have realized is that the opposite of storing -we should run some of our freezer stock down as there is meat in it that is expensive and we would be very out of pocket if the power went down for a while

I think my focus would be if neighbours were ok and getting together to share
If the freezer goes down it is going to be a party

Toilet rolls.
Cat food.

They're the only two I'd make sure of.

Depends where you live really , if you are in a Town or city then I would worry about failure if power and how you will cook . If people are rural then keeping generators etc is easier . Altough you can have solar ones too that do no noise .
But basic supplies is water , food easy to cook , emergency first aid , ways to keep warm , ways to keep safe , any health things you need are a priority ( insulin being kept cold or a ventilator as a example )

The car radio could be used just to get the news with using the engine to keep the battery charged maybe once every 3/4 times?

I live in Spain & when we lost power for those 24hours it surprised us how quickly everything came to a stop. No power means shops cant sell anything because the tills don’t work, the card machines don’t work, for safety larger shops couldn’t let you in because there are no windows for light so cash didn’t help either, petrol pumps don’t work, some internet companies went down instantly some lasted a few hours. Mobile phones didn’t work (calls/internet/some games), we also had no water because there was no electric for the pumps, no electric ovens/hobs, no kettle. I had a new born at the time & was really stressed about trying to sterilise bottles, We prepped after this with foods & snacks that don’t need cooking, batteries & torches easily reached. We bought a camping stove for heating bottled water & charcoal for the BBQ for a longer outage. Board games & cards for entertainment, a phone tree system so that if you have limited phone battery of connection you can contact 1 person who may be in a safe area (for us it was family in UK) & that person could let everyone else know we were ok. It was a scary experience not knowing what had happened or why & when it would be resolved. Loosing contact was probably the worst part, we knew we were ok but family didn’t know we were ok. Its weird the things you do automatically without thinking every day & it really throws you when you realise you can’t do simple things like make a phone call.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0FHF3HJTM?ref=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_104A9WSAYGGCMTH235WY&ref_=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_104A9WSAYGGCMTH235WY&social_share=cm_sw_r_ffobk_cso_cp_apin_dp_104A9WSAYGGCMTH235WY&bestFormat=true&fbclid=IwdGRjcAUjyVpjbGNrBSPJVGV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHBkb2YFc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEevozTusFSAEAb5rif6aNXJzQ-nHwR1FwIbv8qfmjpe0rjfLapC4YChuVO89w_aem_0YU9dSuIfW13QKI06iJz4w

I have this book - it's brilliant.
Almost every scenario you could think of....

If you have camping stove and canisters and / or a log burner with a flat top - boiling water for food is totally doable.

Wow. Thanks for the link, I’d neither seen nor heard of it. What a powerful drama.

Basically just wine

That’s the oven not older hobs.

More modern hobs cut the gas if the electric ignition switch doesn’t ignite (to avoid accidental release of gas if the gas is accidentally turned on) but older hobs should be OK lit with a match.

We have neurodivergence in the family and our young people will really struggle to eat foods they can’t tolerate. So, we’ve stocked up on jam, honey, peanut butter - all last forever and can be used with rice (I actually have that for breakfast sometimes!). Coconut milk, can cook rice in it / drink it etc. peanut butter is super high calorie, as is coconut oil. We’ve stocked up on honey favourite squash - could make water more palatable for every one.
We also have a celiac in the house - so making sure extra dietary needs are sorted.
Im trying to keep very up to date with washing of bedding and towels - as these are a bugger to suddenly hand wash and dry!
Write down key things stored online or on your phone - passwords / phone numbers / addresses.
Paracetamol - remember Covid? It vanished.
spaghetti takes up less room to store, you can store more of it in the same space.
Us adults could eat cold from tins, so are focusing on ensuring the kids would be as comfortable as possible.
This sounds paranoid - but it is sensible to not tell the world (or neighbours, or lots of friends) exactly what you have prepped and stored. Panic distorts people’s thinking. Decent Coffee. Tea bags. A type of milk. After all, we aren’t animals 🤣

I was a supply teacher mainly of Health and Social Care. One unit I taught and loved teaching was 'Equality and Diversity'. I would start with looking at diversity in the classroom.

When I was teaching in Birmingham I would have students who spoke multiple languages, had various faiths / cultures and dietary needs.

I then had a class in Oswestry, the only common language was English although most had smattering of Welsh.

All white students with more or less a Christian background. I don't even think there was a vegetarian in the class.

So the usual wasn't going to work. So we did 'Equality and Diversity for the Zombie Apocalypse'.

If there is ever a Zombie Apocalypse I am heading to the Welsh border.

The skills and knowledge these students had included:

Knife Throwing
Alcohol making
Tractor driving
Shooting rabbits and skinning / preparing for eating
I'm not sure but I think sheep shearing might have been in there too
Fishing
How to look after various farm animals

Surely if there’s no power and water what’s the use of a bag of pasta - I’m always baffled this is on the list

We have camping stoves that run on gas bottles, I also have a couple of jet boils and some old Trangias so would be able to cook.

Also, the pasta is generally useful even if people don’t have cooking facilities for a crisis that leads to supply disruption whether because the goods can’t be distributed or because changes in buying patterns mean they sell out. It’s intended for situations where the power stays on. COVID springs to mind.

People who have facilities to cook it in a power cut are a bonus.

Edited to say: A lot of the empty shelves in COVID weren’t due to panic buying, they were because families that previously ate one meal at home and had breakfast and lunch at nursery / school / work (including buying from sandwich shops) were trying to buy food for 3 meals plus snacks from supermarkets that were expecting to sell significantly less food. The commercial suppliers weren’t set up to sell to the consumer - they had the food, they just couldn’t package it for retail sale at the start.

Not the loo roll, though. That was down to panic buying.

Love it! ❤️

Long life milk

Well my Tesco emergency box delivery arrived today. Think I've went a little bit 🤪🤣 will sort out a cupboard during the week to store it all in. I bought a stock of wine in Aldi last night and ended up drinking a full bottle! 😳 safe to say I've been feeling rough today 😞

Looks interesting @dlystrgls thanks for sharing.

I think the discussion regarding helping neighbours is interesting. Probably be different for each of us and how well we know people. Our street has set up a group emergency WhatsApp for preping etc and a meeting is scheduled for everyone to get a job in an emergency situation. It's all very surreal hopefully it's all for nothing.

Brad Pitt and beaucoup chocolate

Chocolate is THE most important thing and yes I'm armed 😊

If you take any, aim to gradually build up a back up quantity of prescription tablets.

Most surgeries are strict about repeat prescribing dates under normal circumstances. If online systems are hit or power is fully out, that medical service could be inaccessible.

I'm thinking chocolate would be the new toilet roll 🤣

@Meteorite87 thankfully we don't take any medications. I seen the Government are going to start a public campaign soon with more information for the public so they should you would think cover medications and how people can access them easily if needed. For me prepping and getting organised helps me feel less anxious about things. It must be a huge worry for people who need medication or use medical equipment daily 😪

Torches, batteries, phone chargers

Still need to buy some extra batteries for the torches. You've just remembered me a few years ago I got dh a battery charge checker thing from Amazon as a stocking filler. That would be useful in my emergency box so we could check how much is left in the batteries.