Frugaleers dripping their way through a wet January...

[SneakyGremlins]

Hang on, that makes us sound like alcoholics

I am think (with no evidence) that initially we will see empty shelves and then we will see a return of some products. Hopefully shortages of staples will be short lived and much more seasonal after that. Therefore I am working on having the things that transform a bag of flour into a wider variety of things than a poorly risen loaf of bread. Our prepping is based on making self sufficiency and seasonal shortages more bearable. We don't have enough room to store a long term supply of food that is based on how we eat and cook at the moment so we will have to adapt if it drifts on.

We have been doing inhalers and OTC medicines, the spice cupboard is well stocked (if I am reduced to eating swede it is going to be a tasty swede), cereals (not breakfast ones - flour, pasta, barley, etal), dried legumes (beans, chickpeas, lentils, split peas) Sugars, oils and stable fats - esp olive oil (some things I can't live without). Condiments and specialist cooking ingredients - tasty swede syndrome (soy, miso, fish sauce, MSG, citric acid, vinegars, raising agents, tomato puree - I see you sea). Preserved tasty things - dried fruit, nuts, jars of ante pasta. Dry goods - bog roll, tampax, soap, shampoo, washing powder , bo spray, sugar soap, dishwasher tabs, washing up liquid, bleach, plastic bags, foil. I have also stocked up on tinned tom, butter, cheese, chocolate, cocoa. With the best will in the world I am not going to eat tinned stew - unseasoned swede holds more appeal.

We are fortunate in that there is an egg farm, grass fed dairy farm, hills sheep farming and local abattoir and spring water all within cycling distance. So the bike bits are being sworn at less and cleaned and carefully put away. I am helping my mum build up her wood store, we are fixing the fences on the fields (so we can swap grass/ grazing for end product) , buying in extra water filters, Making sure the seeds I buy are not hybrids, making proper compost bins, nails, string, screws and sewing thread are all carefully tidied away and cared for rather than randomly thrown in draws.

I may be overthinking this.

Cag check out iWill it funds volunteer social projects for kids and you can search by area so should be able to come up with something in your area.

£5 toastie and coffee at said social enterprise
£35 diesel
Nails, lashes and brows later so that’ll be £40

I've though about a Brexit cupboard and think I will get some bits. I've screen shot unescorted post to add to my list.

Run to the tip this morning, some toys donated to the hospital.
Gonna sort my camping stuff into boxes and books today.
Just usual spends on activities £15 though cinema snacks will be got later.
Turned over ripe bananas into cake not envy hate banana.

Unescorted I don't think you are overthinking it. However having local food/farming availability may not mean those products are actually accessible to you if things went tits up. It is conceivable that the authorities would be heavily involved in distribution of our domestic farmed products particularly given that we do not produce anywhere near enough to feed the population even a boring, bland diet, and then you have the potential problem of angry hungry people who generally won't just sit around with no food, especially if they know where there is food...obviously none of that would happen overnight, so it depends how quickly things can get sorted but definitely both issues are possible. All really scary!

I'm loosely with you unescorted but much, much less organised!!

Thats all the sort of stuff I have copious quantities of anyway.

My work trades largely with Europe (you would not believe how much Notre Dame buys from us) so its getting a bit twitchy! I think we will end up leaving with no deal, and that it will take a fair while to sort out a lot if the day to day trading.

So many people voted leave and just said "no more immigrants won't happen and we'll be better off on our own" without a second thought to how this actually comes about. Some people I know simply have no idea where the food they buy comes from.

I also think most shops will use this as an oppertunity to really ramp up prices, deal or no deal.

Been shopping. £80 aldi, £30 lidl. Weekly food shop. £50 in the range, storage, fimo, fish stuff and got my fat spaniel "weight control" food! He won't care. They have both eaten Wagg for 7 years, but my visla is starting to look skinny (might just have been the 2 nights at the kennels last week), so I have put him on large breed Wainrights, and my wee boy is going on Bakers now. I did this with my cat 5 years ago, when he lost condition, swapped him from Felix to gourmet, and now he eats Sheba and looks better than ever!

£14 in the pet shop on frozen mice and rats. I'm buying 2 weeks worth every week now, just in case. If we lose supply then we can easily feed them every 10-14 days and use the stash, it's not ideal, but you can't just buy frozen rodents from anywhere (I know they are uk bred, so why am I worrying??).

Unescorted df helps on a small holding so I’m also hoping I’ll be ok on the egg front.

I’m trying to think about my stash as a no freezer option for now which limits my options. Next week I will be buying pulses

£58 Aldi
£15 Iceland
£20 fuel
£2 the range. Ds thought he would stick all of my work stickers onto his top

Will post meal plan later

Not sure whether to start a cupboard or not. I think about it sometimes. Part of me says it’s entirely sensible. The other part says it’s ridiculous and it’s the stockpiling which will mean no food iyswim.

That said if it came to it we could eat out of DMs freezer and cupboards for at least 3 months....!

Meadow I think you might be right about the govt stepping in to regulate limited supplies. However there doesn't appear the political will to put any plans in place. DEUEx ("ducks") has such a high turn over of staff and are down to barrel scraping for project managers - there is such a deficit of talent and experience, that I can't see it being well managed. DEFRA staff are being seconded, we are also being asked (and we have no supply chain experience) to help devise and implement post brexit chaos management plans. That leaves angry hungry people. Very scary indeed.

lonely I can't imagine how businesses go about planning in the current environment.

wolf my freezer has frozen up & needs a defrost too. This is not the weather for it. I am going to fill it just after March pay day.

em the theory is that buying now while goods are moving freely will make the shock of disruption less post 31/3 because people will already have enough to avoid the supermarkets in the short time. If no stockpiling took place then everyone would strip the shelves at the same time creating shortages. By encouraging ( I think a little nudge theory is happening) people to stockpile a little in each house there is more food in the country (the large warehouses are at capacity) it creates a lag period that enables supplies to catch up. In effect it creates a small buffer before the wheels fall off.

We've come to find some snow

Woo Wreck you got to use the sledge

Unescorted I agree about judge theory. Based on byline alone I thought there was a very obvious plant-article today

It’s a snow in issue as well as a Brexit issue for me. We do get snowed in quite easily and often the worst snow is early March. Having spent January eating all my snow stocks I need to replenish that too

I'm another reader @ChristmasSeacow and @Happierwithouthim; regular time curled up with my Kindle is essential to keep me on an even keel. Easy reading tends to be
what I got for these days though!

Today was NSD.

Posted too soon!
Yesterday was more spendy:
£50 gift voucher for DF's birthday
£21 in supermarket
£29 nice kitchen shop (all on items I actually need)

Meal plan for the week:

Puff pastry bake with pesto, ham and feta
BBQ chicken strips with couscous
Chicken burgers and chips (swimming might)
Chilli and jackets
Shepherds pie

DC's are at a friends Friday evening so not sure what dh and I will do might treat us to something from Cook or we might just find something in the freezer.

My ASOS order arrived. Yay!!

Have spent the day doing laundry. Dh went to work this afternoon so I had ds helping me. We then watched some friends and ate chocolate pennies. Yay.

Who was asking about Somerset? We’ve been a few times as it’s where h is from

That was me wolf as the assessment place is there :)

Hey Cag.

There are lots of great things to do. We’ve been twice. Once when ds was a toddler and once when he was in his last year of primary.

Things we loved:

Longleat it’s at least two days out!
Cheddar gorge and caves
Wells cathedral
Beaches (I am not a fan of Weston but if you go down the bottom end the beach is lovely)
Wookey hole caves is interesting but really it needs a deal to make it worthwhile I think it’s expensive
There are some nice nature reserves if you happen to like birds - chew valley for example or the Ebbor Gorge
I love the little towns and the fact you can buy the most amazing strawberries at the roadside
We also rented bikes and cycled along canal paths (ds was in one of those bike buggies and looked like he had mud chicken pox at the end from all the mud flying through the net)
You are not massively far from Glastonbury and Ailsbury and there are other Tor’s in the area
We also did the air museum (I think Yeovil maybe) but I remember that being a bit of a drive

One thing I did note about Somerset is that road signage is shite!

Ooo thanks! Loads to look at 💐

Not fussed about road signage as we don’t drive :o so will look up to see what is public transport friendly too :) thank you x

Also looking at booking our Sun 9.50 holiday this week

£11 cinema snacks. Left my travel cup behind though. Annoying. Will go on Monday as it's next to work.

Oh and dragons 3 is fabulous. I cried though.
Lego 2 next week

I agree Unescorted - stockpiling now won’t cause shortages. People panicking the week before Brexit and buying all the tins will. And I fully expect that to happen, if nothing else!

I have pretty good stocks of the usual dried /tinned stuff we use but we eat a lot of fresh fruit and veg. I am not sure what to do about that. I don’t really want to buy a load of tinned and frozen veg /fruit that we’d never choose to eat and would probably never use... but I don’t want to get a bit stuck, and it’s fresh stuff I think is most likely to be affected.

We can afford to stock up, luckily, but I need to be fairly careful because of space. And rodents /weevils have been known round these parts 🤢.

I’ve spent much of the day going through boxes of clothes and wardrobes (plural ) trying on summer clothes. I’ve chucked out a lot of stuff as I went along and found enough to wear on holiday, I think. I just need to find out whether I need to keep my arms and legs covered due to insects- if so I might need a light shirt or two. And I need a couple of bras as mine are too big. I will also need an Indian outfit for the wedding but will buy one in India. Need to try on my range of different sized swimwear but I’m sure I have something that will fit . So feeling much more sorted!

The upstairs of my house looks like Primark at 4pm on a Saturday though

I’m seeing it tomorrow! Three of us mums are seeing it in 4DX :o child freeeeee

I’m gonna have to watch number 2 in the morning though. I generally don’t watch it because 😭😭😭😭😭 and need to remind myself of the plot.

Morning all! I've been reading but haven't had time to post. Busy weekend with dd's social life!

Not too spendy though. £18 yesterday in butcher and green grocer then another £4 ish on drinks while out.

Might go to soft play or something today. We attempted the park yesterday but it really was too cold even for me!