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?

I hate food shopping with a passion so I tend to buy lots so I need to do it less. I watch the you tube shopping hauls and I could put all of them to shame! I shop about 4 xs a year. Unpacking is a nightmare but so worth the time I free up for myself. I have a few freezers and fridges,and three pantries but I realise I am somewhat extreme compared to most.

I meal plan and do a weekly shop so usually only buy what we need for that week. Things like herbs we have in and I usually have tinned soups or something in.

Surely someone like that doesn't make meals from scratch?

Today I bought 8 tubes of Flahavans oats which will last until spring as we’ll have porridge nearly every morning when it’s really cold. It’s often difficult to find in winter. Normal oats are available but this is our favourite.

We could live for a week or so (prob more) on what we have in the freezer & cupboards - I always buy a little bit extra on 'non-perishable' items so only have to really get fresh veg/fruit/meat each week .
I grew up in a poor household & live relatively rurally so always have that in my mind.

Dad’s income was sporadic growing up so sometimes we’d have lots of money and other times not enough. So my Gran and Mum always bought in bulk when times were good - I do the same. Lots of frozen / tinned veg and meals, bags of flour / rice.

I always have some food in the cupboard and the freezer, enough for a day or 2 of meals minimum but I do leave my fridge go to nearly empty by the weekend. This is the way we minimise waste. We do a food shop on Sunday and all the meals and snacks get planned for the week. By the end of the week the fridge will only have condiments, milk and cheese, maybe a couple of veg or a bag of salad ( in case I need it to go with some freezer food). I also like it this way because I give the fridge a really good clean, wash the drawers and wipe the shelves with disinfectant spray etc before filling it up again so my fridge is normally very clean.

I meal plan for the week & do a food shop on a Saturday so by Friday the fridge is looking empty but there is always bits in the cupboards & freezer that we could make do with for 4/5 days if we needed to. I hate food waste so tend to buy what I know we need so that we throw very little away.

Same as you loads of stuff haha. X

I’m like you op, I get it from my mother. I grew up in a rural village with no shop. We were often cut off by floods or snow. Mum’s larder is very well stocked and the fridge always full.
My larder is fairly well stocked. If I needed to we could cope for a couple of weeks. I was surprised at all the people during Covid who were saying that they couldn’t isolate for a week at short notice.

I remember during Covid that those of us who keep a well stocked kitchen were being blamed by some on here for panic buying and they couldn’t be persuaded that it was the opposite.

My DH always says we could feed the street for a week or out family for a month very easily on our cupboard stocks

I probably do have a bit much following on from how my Mum always was

Has been useful though sometimes!

Do you waste food?

I have full cupboards and can always cook something from my stock, but I never hi food so it doesn’t matter.

I do this - but on a smaller scale. I make a variety of meals (Chinese, Indian, Italian, English) but they all revolve around a few staples. Chinese for example soy sauce, oyster sauce and 5 spice powder. Indian curry powder, chili powder. Ginger and garlic. I don't have burger sauce, mayonnaise, onion jam or anything like that.

I always have a big bag of rice, a couple of types of pasta, noodles and flour. Also herbs and spices, frozen chopped vegetables, garlic and ginger. That's about it. Perishables we buy every couple of weeks.

This thread has got me thinking about a disaster scenario. I could make loads of carbs and veg but that's about it.

I'd love to have cheese in but I'm the only person who eats dairy, so it goes off too quickly.

I'm like your friend - plan meals, shop for this week and that's all that's ever in.

I always think people who buy mountains of random food without having a plan for it must be rolling in money, which I am not. I have a weekly budget for food and if I went over it would not be able to pay other bills.

I always have lots of food, frozen, dried, tinned and get fresh food weekly. When my children were growing up I had no money and it was a real struggle to feed them. Also when I was a child there was always 'enough' food, but never anything extra. Never snacks, or yoghurts, or treats. So now I have more than I need, to ensure there is always enough.

It's just me at home. I have a lot of dried goods and a reasonable amount of canned tomatoes and beans etc. I have things like spices, flour, sugar, oils. I only have a freezer box in the fridge so it can't hold much but I would usually have something like chicken breasts or a couple of salmon fillets in it. I eat fresh so I tend to buy meat and veg as needed. And I'll have the non-perishables to hand. This suits because I'm close to many shops.

Always make sure I've got extra food in with a monthly shop and weekly shops at times too.
we have a small chest freezer, fridge freezer and an additional fridge too.
We also have a breakfast cupboard (cereal, bread, squash and protein powders)
cupboard for dried goods such as rice, noodles, pasta, couscous, bulgar wheat and baking goods are (flour, sugar, icing, sprinkles, syrups)
Then a food cupboard where the tins and packets are kept alongside ice cream cones and confectionary.

All affordable - we shop around

But I think if we got snowed in for two weeks we would be fine

I reckon we could leave 4-6 weeks on what's in the freezer and cupboards. there might be a few odd meals and we'd have to use powdered milk after a bit but i think we could survive quite well.

I was bought up in a very rural area where we frequently got snowed in in the winter so mum always kept everything well stocked up and I suppose I just do it automatically kind of passing over the fact I've got 3 supermarkets within a 20 minute walk!!

Also in all honesty I just like knowing it's there

Buy your cheese and freeze it! it works out perfectly in our house as we do this lots..always tastes the same too!

I always keep quite alot of non perishables in, and I thought that was fairly normal.

Quite a full freezer (just ordinary sized) most of the time too.

I do try not to waste anything and usually succeed- so fresh food is only bought in a weekly, with something resembling a meal plan.

I also seem to have a thing for buying hand soap and bar soap especially reduced
Which everyone mocked. Then Covid hit...

Me too. When DM was alive, she would always ask if I was expecting a siege.

I am a yellow sticker holder

First Sunday of the month I organise and list the freezer food

I meal plan from it weekly and once a week specifically we have freezer night (code for previously frozen left overs night)

It's the only way I can keep on top of yellow sticker Mountain

I overbuy because I grew up only doing a big shop once a month. I don't like fresh milk because we only ever had uht so I never run out now :-)

Food currently in cupboards: tins of tuna, one tin of beans, various packets of nuts, porridge, savoury biscuits, short bread and kitkats. My fridge is well stocked with smoothies, various cartons of fresh juice, ginger shots, high protein yoghurts, cheese, cottage cheese, meat pate and mackerel mousse and milk.