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 ?

No, John Denver would already have left on his jet plane.

But how will your cat open the cat food tins? Cats have no thumbs you know.

He’ll have his own ration of biscuits. I’ll make sure the packet is snipped open

what does ‘goes rank’ mean? how does this manifest itself?
as in degrades?
because it is in plastic? does it smell badly?
I have a couple of 5l flagons from Tesco when it was 99p, now
something like 1.50£ so do you think I should open it?
We had nowhere cool to store anything like water, even the
solid garage floor was warm.
I will be miffed if its gone off, I could have been watering salad
and fruit bushes with it in the drought!

The only thing that stops me is space. I just don’t have any. Otherwise 6 months seems reasonable. Good Mormons have a year!

For what would be emergency rations during short oeriod like storm shop blackout, you can go under 2000cal per day...
Fish in oil is calorie high in tins.
Or you can wash tinned pasta 😬 you know...

Oh good. Now I can sleep tonight.

There is nothing wrong with being prepared, that's why we build retirement funds, pay insurance, practice fire drills and such.

Being also house ready is good too, as long as you aren't just willy nilly buying shit.
Storms, war, cyber attacks, serious income stopping accident/illness, and bubbles bursting happen every day to someone somewhere, and it might happen to you too.

The key is to only buy in what you actually use, and then to use it, regularly. A stock should be rotating, not kept for ages.
First in, first out, nothing perishable in the stock should be there more than six months.

Well I didn’t have anywhere to put it.. I had a big lounge 🤣

Hmm

Why?? Am I missing something too....??

🫢

I’m a prepper. I prepare for anything that I think could credibly happen. Power cuts. Hot summers. Winter weather. Cyber attacks. Occasional disruption to supply chains. I do not assume I’d be living off tinned food for six months, and I don’t have bottled water. (I do have a hiking filter system and some water butts).

I do make sure I have a month’s worth of coffee available. It’s all about priorities.

Not made any plans to stockpile anything.
Is it going to end up like Covid when there's no toilet paper or pasta to be found anywhere?

After seeing the massive power blackouts in Spain last year, we also keep a battery-powered radio and torch in a handy spot. That's the only specific "prepping" I've done.

We generally have enough shelf-stable food in to survive for a week or more, and I replenish regularly, but none of it is specifically set aside for emergencies.

I live in a town with probably hundreds of shops within possible walking distance. It would be an unprecedented level of disaster if there was over a week where I couldn't buy enough food to survive. If a disaster required six months of stockpiles, I'm not sure how keen I'd be to survive that long anyway!

Yabu imo, she needs to prep as best she can

Next months food shop is ASTRONOMICAL for me but I need dd to be looked after 🥺

Yep, there was still plenty of shops that had food. The only thing I remember being hard to get was yeast but I didn’t want it.

What have I missed ? Don’t read the news anymore as it’s all doom and gloom

Flour was also a nightmare - I ended up ordering in from a company that supplied restaurants who had pivoted to consumer amounts. Odd looking unbranded bags but the contents (plain and self raising) were fine at a time flour was completely unavailable at 4 separate supermarkets (one large, two medium sized and one small) near me.

The government has recommended having 3 days food and water in.

One advantage of getting in supplies for longer is that you'll also have enough to share a certain amount with neighbours, who may then be able to support you in other ways. That's valuable for anyone who lives alone.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean, but some people including me are preparing for possible (not inevitable) power issues, extreme weather, cyber attacks. Some of us do it anyway if used to power issues in bad weather or in very rural areas. I personally am not talking all out war and a Walking Dead lifestyle as if it went on that long all bets are off, really.

So when you see people proudly showing their food stores, and saying they have enough to feed the family for a year (or two), how do they manage the storage? Do they eat the oldest stuff and replace it with fresh, or do they chuck it when it reaches 2 years old, or do they just keep accumulating more and more. I don’t fancy living off 2 year old food to avoid wasting it.