Do you keep a lot of food in stock at all times?

[IsThisCluttered]

I'm an over shopper, I recognise that. We ALWAYS have food in the fridge, freezer & pantry.

I have an enormous range of herbs & spices & condiments & we use them all v regularly as we cook a lot & often make more complex dishes.

We pretty much always have stuff that could make a meal or several meals if anything happened & we couldn't get to the shops.

I have a lot of things like various types of rice, pasta, flours, sugars, tinned tomatoes & many types of beans & pulses.

I was in a friend's house recently & was a bit surprised how little food she had in her cupboard & fridge. It was spartan. She said she strictly only buys what's needed that week & by the end of the week the supplies are gone & the frudhd is literally empty.

I get that we're all different but I feel anxious when we start to run low (which would still mean there's a lot of food to someone else) & having a full fridge gives me a sense of calm & peace.

I did not grow up with a shortage of food so don't know why this is.

I'm curious how other people manage this?

We hardly ever waste food. Most of what's in cupboards gets regularly used and replaced and I never over buy on fresh stuff.

That's fair enough - you can only work with the space you have.

I'd say I'm halfway between you and your friend. I do a shop once a week and by the end of the week the fridge is getting quite bare. We'd always have staples like rice in the cupboard though.

We have a huge 8 drawer freezer which is well stocked and a store cupboard that's also really well stocked. We could live for a month I reckon easily.

We always have plenty of food available in fridge, freezer and pantry but I wouldn’t call myself an overshopper.

It’s a twenty mile round trip to the supermarket so I keep stocked up.

We have enough stuff to mean that I wouldn’t have to go shopping for at least a week or more but I still do

It was Covid that did it for me, so now I always shop as if we might suddenly be stuck at home for 2 weeks. We have very little food waste though.

I recently stayed with a friend who had 4 jars in her fridge. Came home and counted mine- 37 . . . . Includes 4 types of mustard, five types of chutneys, jarred ginger, lemongrass, etc.

I do cook from a lot of different cuisines including Thai, Japanese, Lebanese, Chinese and Indian all of which require lots of odds and ends of ingredients.

I’ve lived both ways, when I was broke I had nothing spare in my cupboards, I’d buy the bare essentials and that’s it. Now I’m in a better position plus because of where I live, fairly remote, I make sure to have a lot of stuff in and can afford to have stuff in just in case.

Apart from store cupboard things like rice, we only buy what we plan to eat that week.

I live alone in a city. Why would I need to stock pile food? When I run out of milk, I go to the shop to get another one even though it's UHT here and I could in theory have extra in the cupboard.
I also don't have a car so everything shop load has to be of a size I can comfortably carry.

I thought everyone was more like you OP until my sister years ago was fretting that she didn’t know how many nights she’d be in hospital giving birth and couldnt meal plan that week accordingly. It blew my mind a bit.

I have loads of herbs, spices, condiments etc, generally have white fish, chicken, mince and some veggie sausages or quorn mince or something in the freezer plus some frozen veg, and tins of tomatoes, pulses etc plus rice and pasta in the cupboard. I top these up as and when needed and just get fresh fruit and veg and meat (usually from the reduced section and will often be frozen if too much!) during the week.

So yes, I always have the makings of a meal (probably a weeks worth tbh!). I also usually have some batch cooked stuff in the freezer - dhal, curry, chilli, bolognaise etc.

Apart from anything else surely it makes sense to buy reduced/on offer stuff as and when and do a big shop from the supermarket in town! My DH used to buy bits and bobs daily from the corner shop but much as I'd like to support local businesses, the reality is that it's usually about twice the price...

I’ve never understood meal planning. How do you know what you want to eat four days from now? Does this mean buying only listed ingredients for given meals (plus presumably staples for breakfast and packed lunches?)? What do you do if one or more is out of stock when you get to the supermarket?

I buy “food”: whatever looks good quality and is a good price. I take it home. I cook it. I do this once a week. So generally on a weekly basis I buy fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, bread, milk, cheese. Kitchen always has pasta, rice, tinned goods, herbs and spices. I decide what to cook for dinner the night before/that morning and defrost/marinade as appropriate. This also means there’s no wastage: if something is looking a bit sorry it gets eaten first. There’s nothing to plan.

I think it’s a difference in mindset. I cook what I have (limited choice), rather than deciding what I want to eat days in advance and then shopping accordingly on the assumption I have endless choice available to me. That has to be utterly overwhelming.

Well my fridge was empty till this morning when I got my weekly shop but the thing that kept my anxiety down was the fact I could throw something together out of items from my cupboard and freezer

I am the same. I have always kept my chest freezer full just in case!!!.Yesterday freezer died and I had to throw out so much. I will never keep as much again!!! (and get a smaller freezer.) I will however keep up my stock of dried goods and tins just in case. All this started with Covid !!!

No I don't. I don't have the space and I don't want to waste food. I have things like big bags of pasta and rice but I don't keep tins as I don't eat anything tinned really apart from tomatoes when I make a bolognese or something. I don't keep much in the fridge either as fresh food spoils quicker and we're only a family of 2.

I usually buy what I want on the day. I live a 5 minute walk from both an Asda and a Tesco superstore.

We'd be ok for a month or so, just surviving, as we have tins of tuna,sardines, potatoes, beans and tomatoes.
. We could probably cobble a few meals out of our small freezer, with leftovers, and we usually have a big bag of rice and a box of porridge oats.
Our weekly shop of meat and fresh produce could probably be stretched to last longer.
I also have a couple of large water bottles as we've had water supplies cut off twice in the last few years. Wouldn't last long but would tide us over a few days.

I think it’s reasonable (if you can afford it) to keep canned and dry stuff in - tinned tomatoes, pulses, rice, pasta, lentils. I know I used to pick up stuff, often meat or fish on offer, stick it in the freezer, forget about it and find it in the pre Christmas freezer clear out covered in ice. Now I do a freezer week at least once every couple of months - I sort through and meal plan around what I find.

My freezer is well stocker. Mostly with yellow stickered bargains. I always have tins of beans,soup etc in the cupboard.Always have pasta and rice in too.

I’m the same as you with dried food, tins and there is always protein in the freezer. But fruit, veg and fresh food is bought in the big weekly shop. There’s always something still left over though like carrots which last ages. I know I can always make tuna pasta, scrambled eggs or fish and frozen veg if I can’t get to the shops.

I don’t understand people who go to the shops almost every day and only buy food for one or two days at a time. Especially small local supermarkets where it seems like the food is more expensive. I’d also feel quite stressed to open the cupboards and not see any basics like rice, pasta or tins.

I shop every 2nd or 3rd day and have a weekly shop delivered.

I don't keep stockpiles but I have enough in the cupboards that I could knock up a few simple dinners if need be (nothing fancy - omelette / pesto pasta / beans on toast, tuna and mayo pasta) for 5 of us.

I do batch cook so there is always something in the freezer. At the moment it's bolognese, chicken curry and tomato sauce (to go over meatballs / chicken breast). I have accompanying pasta / rice in the cupboard.

I buy yellow sticker fish and meat for the freezer. We currently have a few sirloin steaks, several chicken breasts and some cod fillet. Also some beef mince.

I also have some beige food (fishfingers, potato waffles etc) and a variety of frozen veg.

We wouldn't starve but aren't bursting at the seams. I don't have 4 different types of pasta for example. Just spaghetti and Fusilli at the moment.

I have fully stocked herbs, spices and condiments and buy / replace as required.

Always have fruit, bread, cheese, eggs, basic salad stuff (cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes), some type of cereal, porridge oats, tinned tuna, beans, passata, rice, pasta. Randomly always have hummus as DC3 has it everyday. Also usually have some crisps / biscuits about too.

(I also have the non food stuff - toilet roll, cleaning products, sanpro, toiletries, laundry stuff but I don't stockpile and buy as and when I need and shop around for special offers)

I've never, ever had nothing to eat or run out of loo roll but I'm lucky in that I live nearby a supermarket and have never been too poor to afford the basics.

This

I only buy what we will eat in a week. I used to be much more expansive with my shopping but we wasted too much food. I also meal plan so I know exactly what we will eat each day. Sounds really controlling written down. But I was concerned about waste and my partner doesn't cook, doesn't shop for food either but that's a different matter and I was bored of the "what are we going to have for dinner" conversation and the aggravation of thinking about it. Perfect scenario for me is that by the end of the week all that's in the fridge is milk. (Do have entire cupboard full of cake, biscuits and chocolate).

I hate wasting food, so tend to buy only what I need. That said I’ve got a few tins and a good stock of herbs & spices.

I will also have a perge once every couple of months and eat what’s in the cupboard to make sure it doesn’t go out of date

I’m the same as you OP.
When we had the first lockdown I didn’t need any shopping for 3 weeks. I had stocked up a bit though because I could see it coming.