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’ve built an air raid shelter and one for the cat too

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…

I know the one you mean. I had a sub there well before covid and have always got over 100 rolls stashed. They were mentioned a lot on threads here during covid. I reckon they at least tripled their subscriptions during that time.

If space is that limited. You could store some extra tins of food and bottles of water behind the kickboards below your kitchen cupboards. They usually just clip on.

😂😂😂

As soon as the sirens sound we’ll be in the bunkers having a sing song

I looked into this the other day and was dismayed by how much food and water we’d need to be comfortable for a week.

8000 calories (only one DAY of food for family of 4) is 24 tins of beans or 18 cans of sausage+beans.

There are specialist high calorie ration bars and they were very expensive (about £80 per family/day’s calories).

Maybe huge sacks of rice would be cheapest but you’d need enough spare water, and a stove.

I'm the same. I refuse to go down that rabbit hole because I know I'd just end up going way over the top.

I'd also waste loads because I dont have the time or motivation to rotate all the food etc to make sure none goes to waste.

But if your friend wants to do it, good for her. She's not harming anyone.

Most likely she won't need it for an actual emergency, but if she can afford it, has room, and feels better knowing it's there, I think there's no harm in being over-prepared. She really shouldn't be telling anyone (even friends) about her stockpile, though.

You obviously don't base the calculation all on one product, eg beans. That's the reason, to me, a non grid method of heating food/water is essential, and we have a camping stove and spare gas. There's been controversy about those on MN but sensible adults using common sense can operate them fine. Essential to me because carbohydrates such as pasta would be important to stretch the other ingredients, and could also be eaten cold once cooked, later or next day. Spare water can be stored, depending on available space.
Edited to add, normal budget price cereals and oats which can be soaked are a good option. I don't have any of the high priced protein products.

She's probably quite anxious and you're maybe a touch complacent.

When COVID kicked off, did you have enough food to stay at home for a little bit, or were you part of the panic buying masses?

So glad I'm not the only one. Looking at BBE dates on food as a regular rotation activity fills my ADHD heart with dread.

I think you’re right, I was hoping to just buy boxes of cheap tins and forget about them for a decade but you’d really need rice and pasta and oats to make enough calories for very long.

I think there was a middleground of people who didn't have food stores at home and who also didn't panic buy.

Are you John Denver ???😃

Try finding beef jerky without additives! Powdered eggs actually a good idea....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3x37lw1ndo?app-referrer=deep-link

Isn't stockpiling in advance (whether sensibly or OTT) the opposite of panic buying?

I'm stockpiling a small amount precisely so I don't have to face shops full of panic buyers if there are shortages. And that benefits everyone else as well as me!

6 months worth only really make sense if

1. she's planning to share generously or
2. she can can bunker up without anyone noticing she's there, including neighbours and burglars or
3. she has an equally impressive stockpile of weapons and ammunition with which to defend her supplies

We'd be fine eating pasta and veggie chilli for a couple of months if the gas and freezer stayed on, so I'd be ok in a collapsed supply chain or a small-to-medium pandemic but I'm fucked if I'm buying a camping stove just in case we have the wrong sort of armageddon. Loads of my friends will have one, or it'll just have to be barbecues at Matt and Katie's massive house. Bottled water goes rank if you keep it too long but I suppose we can trade them some San Pellegrino.

Do you have any outside space at all? You could buy a shed or even a plastic outdoor storage box would give you lots of storage. You can get one that functions as a bench.

It's interesting, I got extra stuff in when Brexit started and by a coincidence, it was very useful during the COVID era. The most useful thing I had was flour - I made my own bread for several months. However without an oven to bake it in, flour would have been useless. Getting tins and tins of beans in might look practical but if there's no emergency you've still got to eat the buggers and I'm not sure I would choose to live on beans for months at a time.

They were piled up in the living room, I kept forgetting to cancel the subscription, each box had 50 rolls and I had 4 boxes just sitting there… the company was called ‘who gives a crap’

You could just make flat bread or twist bread on a stick if you had a camping stove or open fire.

The MN prepper topic is actually very useful and sensible.

Storage places you might not have considered include behind kitchen kickboards as mentioned above, underneath sofa and behind bath panel.

For the pp with a DH with a restricted diet you can actually make your own beef jerky very easily if he really cant eat anything but meat or eggs (although I suspect in an emergency most people on restricted diets would actually prefer to eat foods which are not ideal than nothing at all.)