AIBU to think my friend is overdoing emergency stockpiling?

[bagpuss90]

I get that we have been advised to stock up on essentials, though I think it will encourage panic buying. I will probably get a few days worth of stuff at some point . My friend however has, at least in my opinion gone ott about it. She’s stocking up a six month supply of food. She’s bought head torches, a camping gas stove and various other stuff. She thinks I’m being naive …Am I missing something here ?

Agree with all. The only item in my store cupboard that I don't use routinely is the full cream milk powder which is dated end of 2028 and I will replace end of 2027 and use the current one up for trifles, milkshakes etc well before it runs out, if its not needed for emergency use it would not be wasted.

The immediate and most mundane (as opposed to cyber attacks etc) risk is that El Niño is predicted to bring increased storm and rain this autumn and winter which, on top of the drought increases liklihood of flooding.
So floods, trees down, road closures, electricity pylons down, all possibly or likely (depending where the storms strike and where you are) leading to temporary loss of services for possibly days including loss of power and closure of shops and other services like doctors and the crippling of emergency services due to too much demand plus they, too, will be contending with floods etc.
So the more people who can just kick back and take care of themselves for a week the quicker everything can be restored to normality.

Have I missed something?! What are you thinking could happen?

Where do you want me to start? Extreme weather, multiple wars, oil and energy prices constantly going up, cyber attacks every week, the latter being constantly managed but eventually may affect infrastructure. Russia for example is more interested in that kind of attack at the moment than open aggression. The weather issues themselves affect crops, logistics..

I'm seriously baffled by these posts.
Have you heard that there was a drought and how worried the farmers are? Have you heard of El Niño? Are you aware of the activities of Presidents Trump and Putin?

That's just for starters!

I haven’t done a thing either, no shopping, no dooms day prepping here! The issue is, as with Covid I will buy a lot of stuff we don’t ever eat and then have to throw it all out in a few months!

No she is saying she doesn't need to as there will be rich pickings around her estate. My mother has a dog, suppose desperate times?

Seriously though I think the challenge is that everything has to either have a label or be blown out of all proportion. It's just having a few things in , in case of a power cut or not being able to get to the shops. Doesn't make one a prepper. I will say though that we run out of food between weekly shops and my husband gets antsy if there is more than one of any item in the freezer - you have two bags of peas in the freezer, could really do with using them - he will lament. So no good coming to our house to loot.

They have believed we are in the end of time's since the beginning of the church. It used to be a store cupboard with a least a month's provisions, but since covid some of them have become preppers.

I know...Another one who thinks people have no common sense. Thousands of people in this country store calor gas, butane gas, petrol for lawnmowers.....Common sense and safety precautions can be followed by most adults.

Why would you do that? Just gradually buy a bit extra of what you already use and rotate through it. Where is your common sense?

Well why did you buy loads of stuff you never eat? Everything I've got in store I use regularly. I just rotate and replace. Buying things you don't normally use and then having to chuck them was down to you. If you don't eat/drink pasta, rice, cereal, tinned fish, oats, biscuits, baked beans, kidney beans, hot chocolate, tea, coffee, sugar, tinned fruit, custard, rice pudding, pasta sauce....then yes I can see you had a problem there.

We have two generators and masses of fuel so hopefully we could keep main things going in the house. I will be buying a few extra bits and pieces over the next few weeks though. I've always had a 'larder' in the garage with stocks of tinned fruit, jam, chicken and meat dishes, etc,.

Let her. How does it impact you. It doesnt.

This is building resilience though for emergency situations.

Then I think I have a different idea of what resilience means.

Id happily treat a 5 days stint with no electricity and water as a camping trip.
Water tablets (+ a portable water filter) and a water butt for rain water so we can at least flush the loo.
A Trangia for cooking
Wood for the wood burner in winter.
Solar panel to recharge the power bank so we still have access to the news
Cash in the house (we usually have very little)

The rest feels too ‘panicky’ to me.
Not helped by what is feel is the pressure to ‘try new foods’ just so I can stock my cupboard. 🙄🙄

Maybe it’s from having the lived experience of a natural disaster (hurricanes) that has shown me some stuff isn’t as important as it looks.

Same - We do weekly with maybe a few spare bits.

This.

You only have to look at the behaviour during lockdown to know how people will behave. Look what happened when they said we were going into down..

So why did you buy that stuff? I never eat spaghetti, I eat a lot of porridge and flapjacks are my go to quick bake. I therefore didn’t buy any spaghetti but bought an extra bag of oats so instead of finishing one and buying another, I now have one on the go and one behind it in the cupboard.

The same goes for tins. I don’t like sardines so I’ve bought extra tuna. I don’t like chickpeas / lentils so I’ve bought extra sweetcorn.

It will all get used within a few weeks, it’s just that I will replace each used tin when I still have 3 or 4 left rather than having 1 or 2 in, using them up then replacing them.

The only thing that might get discarded without consumption is the bottled water and that can wait for the next hosepipe ban and go on the garden if I don’t drink it.

I wonder what people think campers/caravanners do. I've got two bottles 7kg+ 4kg in the locker of my caravan and two 500g bottles of butane/propane mix in my camper van.

I've got lots of solar panels, a massive battery and it works if the grid goes down. Apart from that I only buy things I'll eat anyway but I store extra. Nothing gets thrown away, it just requires some stock rotation.

This. And unless I’ve managed to miss it, campers / caravans don’t regularly blow up because someone tries to make themselves a cup of tea.

Can I ask how much extra did the EPS cost? We are thinking about solar so trying to suss oit the costs of extras

Crack on then. Nobody is pressuring you to try new foods I simply listed what we have put aside.

If you only eat quinoa from that lot then just buy quinoa and live on that. Or don't buy anything and take your chances. But nobody knows that it will only last 3-5 days.

It's literally just a practical form of insurance. You either have that insurance or you don't. But the government is asking us all to.

I think that's a bit of a drip feed. You asked earlier "Yes I can buy 50l of water and store it but will it ever get used?" when you already know you've got a water butt, filter and purification tablets! Obviously if you already have an alternative arrangement then you don't need that.

I did suggest trying new things would be an option, but only as an afterthought after saying you'd be fine with nothing new at all, just the mackerel and couscous you already use.

Anyway - it's probably worth remembering that most people don't have water butts or trangias or camping gas stoves or water filters, and for them, it's precisely having some of the things on those lists people linked to (especially food that can be eaten cold in an emergency) that gives them the confidence that they too can "happily treat a 5 days stint with no electricity or water as a camping trip".

Basically everyone wants to be in that same position you're already in of being able to view disruption as a challenge but not a crisis - that's the whole point. Not everyone's there yet and also different people need different things in their inventory to get there, because everyone's living situations are different. It's fine to just ignore the things that aren't relevant to you.

Which stuff isn't as important as it looks?