Right NOW - how long could your food supply last you

[millerjane]

I would say a good month of eating twice a day (pasta, rice dishes) - ie no thrills just sustenance

I carefully prepped for being confined to the house for 6 weeks a month ago when it was on the cards we'd get to this point. At the time many people were taking the piss. I haven't contributed whatsoever to any panic buying or shortages now, if anything my preparedness means there's one fewer person in the supermarket.

Easily a month without thinking too much about it, so being careful, I reckon two.
If we're talking just essential calories, then longer.
I'm not really a hoarder or prepper either, just live on my own and take advantage of special offers etc, plus have a full size freezer.

Humans - about a month.

Dogs - about 3 months

That's just food for me though, nothing else or cat food.

A couple of weeks but maybe 3 if we halved all portions and ate every scrap in the house/freezer.

Probably a week max 😳 but we're moving house on Friday and are running the cupboards down deliberately

Probably 3-4 weeks but the kids would go through all their usual snack stuff/favourite meals in the first week. However, I have some stuff for baking so could eke it out with that. I haven't much bread/milk, though - we have a milkman but it would depend on whether he kept coming. If we were all in the house for every single meal though I'm not as sure - usually during the week no one's in for lunch, and we often get dinner out as well, or get takeaway. If all of that was off, we'd go through food (and toilet roll!) much faster than we do in a normal week.

Oh, and the bloody cats would be out of food in about 5 days and try to eat us. Must buy more cat food.

Fresh food about 5 days,rest about 2/3 weeks for me and Dd2 cos well eat anything,Dd1 would starve after 5 days cos she only eats pizza and chicken strippers and dippers.

Cats ok for about 3 months though

I got my food shop yesterday, so there's a week of food in the fridge. I love my slow cooker and batch cooking, so I probably have about 2 weeks of homemade meals in the freezer at the moment, plus 4 pizzas. We have oats for breakfast, so I reckon we could easily do a month. I think I've got half a bag of bread flour somewhere too. I've got about a week's worth of food portioned up for the toddler in the freezer, plus maybe a week of emergency pouches. He could always eat part of the adult meals I've got portioned up, but I've not consistently labelled what has chilli in and what hasn't. I've only got about 2 weeks worth of blue milk frozen for him too, but that could be maybe stretched to 3 weeks if we gave him more water.

I always buy a 48 pack of loo roll, and that was recently enough to mean we have about a 4 month supply. Same with cat food, we have about 5 months of that in, but only 2 months of litter (she's an indoor cat).

I use cloth nappies, but I've only got about 2 weeks of laundry powder in, I stupidly bought the little box rather than the giant box the other week. I would probably be able to stretch that by cramming the washing machine full every time and wearing things more (doesn't matter if it smells if you're not leaving the house?). I got a 72 pack of dishwasher tablets, so we're good for a couple of months on that.

My main problem is that I've maybe only got a 5 day supply of chocolate. I find it hard to stock up on that because I eat it as fast as I buy it. Wine, whisky and beer we're good for.

As someone upthread has said, I really don't think it will come down to that.

I think I prep because I grew up with very little in the house. I find it extremely comforting to know we have a lot of food/toiletries just there waiting to be used.

We are also a disabled family and currently rely on benefits. These have proved unreliable in the past and I never want dc to be in a position where they are hungry

I have never had to 'panic buy' anything.

A week as I do my weekly shop and I absolutely refuse to panic buy and add to this crisis!

About 3 months.
But I prep, so that's normal for me, infact a little low, as I haven't bought pasta, flour, loo rolls or tinned tomatoes for the last 3 weeks since the empty shelves started.

I looked around mid Feb, was a bit alarmed by the building news, so did a stocktake. DH has some stomach issues and there's lots he can't eat, so I have to be really mindful of what I keep in. Filled a couple of gaps, that was it.

At the point where loo roll and pasta shortages started, I'd moved on to ramping up my veg planting, I always mean to do it, but this gave me a kick, so that we have fresh veg later in the year. So I've really only been buying fresh veg and I usually go late afternoon, so just strategically avoiding anything there are shortages of, and only buying stuff where there's plenty to go round.

So effectively my prepping removes me from the panic.

There's only two of us, and about a month. We have a chest freezer that's full of home cooked meals, and an inside freezer that's full of meat/veg/carbs etc. Cupboard of staples like pasta, oats, flour, chopped tomatoes, chickpeas etc and a drawer full of spices. We have 20+ toilet rolls still as I get them in bulk once a month, plus about 4 bottles of bleach, extra dishwasher tablets, washing tablets etc. We usually shop for dry goods and freezer stuff once per month, and my chest freezer is never empty. I then do top ups for fruit etc as the month goes on. It started when we were short of money and it used to ease my anxiety to plan all the meals for the month, buy and then prep or cook everything first weekend after pay day. I knew we would never run out, and then we kept the money for top ups like milk in a jar and once it was gone it was gone. Have never been able to get out of the habit!!!! I'm so pleased right now as it means even though we are not self isolating, I haven't really needed to go to the shops which I hope means someone who really needs something will get it rather than me trying to stock up now.

Probably a fortnight.
We like to keep some backup staples but aren't preppers. Once the veg patch starts to have produce then we could probably do closer to a month if we kept it simple.

There's 6 of us, and we have about 2 months. All freezers and cupboards are stocked.

About a month, maybe 2. Might be a few weird combinations tho. Always keep the cupboards full as have been very skint in the past, plus have prepping tendencies since reading The Stand in my youth!

Apart from milk and fresh veg. about 6 weeks.

Sadly my attempts at building a gin stash have been drunk failed dismally

2 weeks as we shop every 2 weeks for 2 weeks worth of food and did that yesterday. If we really had to make it stretch I think I could stretch it to a month by being strict with portions and like others say going down to plain pasta or just cereal for dinner at some points.

There's only two of us, we're mostly veggie/vegan, and have an allotment. I think we could get by until the end of the year. It will be a good opportunity for me to use up some of the things that have been languishing in my cupboards for years. We get our toilet roll delivered by whogivesacrap with about six months worth at a time, and had just received a delivery before all this kicks off. I've only got half a bottle of gin in, so might be time to embrace teetotalism.

The one big issue is pet food. I think our dogs may have to get used to eating lentils and the cats will go back to their rodent eating roots if we run out.

Family of five and I think probably two weeks (and the cats a month). We will run out of toilet paper long before food!

Humans - about a month.
Dogs - about 3 months

Is that because the last 2 months they will be eating you?

Month and a half maybe? I live on my own and it's impossible to buy single portions on a sensible budget!