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 ?

I'm not a panicker either, and I definitely don't have a lot of money. Its a couple of items a week and I have a vulnerable other person to think of, so I see it as sensible not panic. And I don't buy anything I don't use regularly. It gets used and replaced.
Edited to add: 6 months worth though to me would be unaffordable and I think too much. If it was a 6 month scenario we'd obviously actually be at war which is a whole different kettle of fish.

Tinned water in now a thing - not sure how much they cost and have only so far been handed them for free - but if you do not want plastic bottels tins of water are an option now.

Yes you are missing that there are already 4 threads about this, which you could join.

The original posters just post and don’t really engage after that, so not sure if this daily post will be just like that too.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/chat/5570978-hm-gov-telling-us-to-get-tinned-food-and-bottled-water?page=22&reply=154561241

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/preppers/5571022-uk-to-warn-citizens-to-stock-up-on-food?page=3&reply=154589651

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5573921-aibu-to-think-the-stockpile-advice-suggests-something-to-come?page=15&reply=154664834

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5576178-do-we-actually-need-to-get-two-weeks-of-food-in?page=15&reply=154668927

Hopefully you've dug a tunnel to the coast with a boat awaiting underground, should you need it. Good Luck and Well done!

juat before covid I signed up to a toilet paper subscription company… which I over ordered their giant boxes.. and when Covid hit I had about 200 rolls of toilet paper… guess who was laughing as ai watched people scurry up to the supermarket at the top of our road at first light and carry toilet paper in huge bundles back. I didn’t tell people though… in case we got ransacked 🤣

🙄 The UK government has suggested a three day supply. Now I think most of us probably have about a weeks worth in our cupboards (pasta, rice, sauces etc), boring but you won’t starve. The countries that have suggested two weeks are doing so for people who live in more rural communities.

Updated Government advice.
Possible issues include: floods, power outages, storms meaning trees are down, roads unusable etc, cyber attacks, food shortages due to climate disruption, war.
Any of these could mean you are unable to access shops or shops close or have nothing to sell you.

It's definitely worth reading this and thinking about your personal circumstances and what steps you might need to take to be at least able to take care of yourself with no outside resources for a few days.

prepare.campaign.gov.uk/get-prepared-for-emergencies/

This is the maddest thread I’ve ever read. I’ve got a normal supply of food in for me, which will more than see me through a few days of being unable to get to the shops. I might have a camping stove and some gas somewhere. If not, I’m still pretty sure I’ll be ok.

Oh, we had such fun times back then🙄

Do people honestly think that if the things get that bad, that people won't just be breaking into peoples houses anyway? Of course those that tell all, will be the first to be targeted, but no one's house will be completely safe, regardless.

You feed your family dry, raw pasta? We’re being asked to think the unthinkable: that what we’ve taken for granted for so long might temporarily not be available.

The advice is to think how you would manage in a power or water outage.

To be fair, complacency is by no means a new phenomenon. Many people in the UK thought that there would not be another world war after World War I: it was unthinkable. My grandfather, a working class man who had been invalided out of World War I just before Ypres, took his family for a holiday in Italy in 1939 because it was blindingly obvious that this country would never go to war again.

I think the list of possible scenarios is helpful - a lot of people associate 'prepping' with 'nuclear war' when in fact there are a lot of much less severe but more likely reasons why people might not be able to shop or cook normally for a period of days.

I'd let her get on with it, she's not harming anyone. We have a fairly well stocked pantry most of the time and are regular campers so we've got all the stoves, torches, gas canisters etc. The only thing we don't have is water so I might grab a few 5 litre bottles and stick them in the utility room so we could get through a few days without water if we needed to. Those "drink from any source" filtration straws have been following me round the internet for a while too. Might have to give in and get one!

I started keeping a bit extra in stock before the Brexit rules were enforced, in case trade problems interrupted supply routes. I bumped it up a bit when I saw what Covid was doing in other countries, and had about 3 months before our lockdown to stockpile slightly more. I’ve more or less kept up that level ever since, thinking that if there were a flood/power outage etc it would be helpful. In my head I’m not a prepper, I just keep a well stocked home.

Maybe he has, but he's keeping quiet so he can look really heroic if/when it all goes tit's up.
We already have camping stoves etc/water purification tablets from camping but I've bought a wind up radio I'm keeping quiet about 😁

Head torch, camping stove, battery packs is pretty sensible and not OTT but a lot probably depends on where you live.

For us the above is common we get several days of power cuts each storm season regardless.
Would say 6 months worth of food is OTT though. We have about 2 weeks which has been about the time it has taken for supplies to return to normal.

We laughed at these people a few years ago. Then Covid happened. I can barely manage getting enough supplies in for the day we're in, let alone the following 6 months.

Hopefully a few people around here will mention they are stocking up. I’ll then know who to ram raid when I run out.

If I honestly thought we were at risk of needing a 6 month stock pile of food I wouldn't be telling a soul if I had a stash!

I would just see it as a quirky hobby, takes all sorts I suppose.

I’d have to live off foxes and moths.

neither have I @OhhhChihuahua 🤔I'm starting to think that I should start buying extras...

Prepping is not panic buying! It avoids having to panic buy and makes life easier for others with no stocks if a bad situation arises.

am I missing something? what are we prepping for?

I just thought - what I would do in a powercut/water cut off? I prepared for that with roughly three days of food that doesn't need cooking, a few large bottles of water, and torches/power bank. That's more or less it.

Yeah, this.

And plus, if anything happens the requires a 6 month stockpile.. who would want to survive it anyway?!