Preppers Paradise: Pickled Turnips and Sovereignty Spam

[RedToothBrush]

Despite all the accusations of hysteria for those saying they intend to prep, today Theresa May said households were going to be given guidelines in August and September on how to prepare in the event of No Deal.

Robert Peston@Peston
@theresa_may says 70 "technical notices" for businesses and households will be published in Aug and Sept setting out how we can all prepare for a no-deal Brexit (should that be what happens). Yikes

Arla are already warning that milk product may be scare and baby formula will be 'an occasional luxury' even if we do get a deal
Dairy products 'may become luxuries' after UK leaves EU

Whilst we wait for the government to advise us on what action we all need to consider taking, this is a thread dedicated for those people who wish to share tips, advice and what they plan to do rather than clogging up other threads.

Thanks for starting this thread.....I've been thinking about doing this for a while but thought I might have been letting my anxiety get the better of me which it often does.
I have cleared a shelf in our big hallway cupboard and so far have 4 tins of sweetcorn, 3kgs of rice and 1kg of pasta. I've also popped some wet wipes in there. I'm going to get a bit every time I go shopping and have my little stock pile in there. I've also made my family aware of the potential disruption so if the s**t hits the fan, they cant say I didn't warn them.
I've made a list of all the things I think we will need in there......my question is quantity. How much of everything should I stock?
As a family of 4 we can easily eat a 500g bag of pasta in 1 meal (maybe with a portion left for my lunch)
How much do I keep without looking like I've completely lost the plot to dp?

That space under your bottom IKEA drawer....

@KissMeLikeYouMissMe - start with building 3 days worth. Supermarkets only have 3 days worth because of the Just In Time system. Think about that and, if you like, menu plan those 3 days. Include tea and coffee and shelf stable milk.
Anything after that is, frankly, a bonus if you are uncertain or have a house of uncertainty. Maybe ask your your partner to sort booze and sweets. Which is more fun and doesn't feel too depressing.

Oh, and @KissMeLikeYouMissMe , don't tell anyone you have it. And tell your partner not to tell anyone. Or "friends", who had plenty of time to sort this stuff out for themselves, may come calling.

My boyfriend should be on board.....he works for Rolls Royce....I'm petrified of him losing his job.
In a way I don't care what he thinks, I had a chat with the kids and they thought it was a good idea.....both said there are things that they like (ribeana/haribo/nutella) that they'd really miss of it was in short supply. They both also pointed out that the list we've made is all food that we'd normally use any way so why not get a bit extra each week. (it cost me £2.50 this week on top of my usual shop) I was quite proud of how sensible and level headed they both were about it.

no I've asked the kids to keep it to themselves.
My mum and sisters are aware that I'm doing it- I've shared a few article links from posters on here with them and I think they will be doing their own stock at home.

We are lucky to have lots of places to stash stuff here so if I see anything on offer that will keep I'll probably just pick it up.
Might also look at coupons as that can be a cost effective way of buying stuff.

Good progress @KissMeLikeYouMissMe . Focus on the stuff you would eat. Hopefully it'll be short term, if it happens, and it won't feel so grim.
Treats and morale boosters are really important, especially for kids - and for you if you are doing a lot of "heavy lifting ", as they say.

Yeah. I've made a list of things we could eat with the food stored and have a notebook with the start of my supplies so I can tick things off my list as I buy them. as pp's have said, it's good just to have a supply of things incase anything goes wrong. I have IBD and can end up in bed for days when it flares up, at least we will have a supply of food the kids can prepare themselves if I get sick in the future. It's kind of exciting and has helped my anxiety about brexit because I have control over this aspect.

Exactly @KissMeLikeYouMissMe . I have MS and need to plan for not being on top form to lead on this stuff.
Stay well. IBS is rotten to put up with.

Kiss
My 7yr old has ibd.
Truly horrific disease.

Will think about sweets/ juice etc
Infact carton is better than cordial if water supply is short!

bellinisurge I wish it was IBS. Unfortunately I have inflammatory bowel disease, I've been able to control a lot of my symptoms through diet and not getting stressed but my body regularly decides it doesn't like another food and I have a reaction to it, last time my bowel nearly perforated. I worry about flare ups and infections and not being able to get hold of the medication I will need. Not a lot I can do until it happens though. hopefully i wont have to find out.
Lost I'm so sorry your child has to put up with such a crap illness. It's horrible :-(

Took us years for the drs to ' believe him' despite his calprotectin levels coming back over 7000+ (should be around 50) as he smiles through his pain.

Thankfully since hes started on meds and they've been increased hes not been too bad. He does still suffer with pain a lot but nothing compared to what he's been through- 20+ loose bloody stools a day, blockages, hosp trips etc

Tinned green beans are great in a curry. We often use them for camping trips.

Today I’ve stashed:
Stuffing mix
Jelly (lime)
AAA batteries (24)
Tinned chickpeas x8
A lemon and poppy seed cake mix

We have battery powered motion detected lights on our cellar steps (because the light switch is in a weird place half way down) which work fantastically and the batteries have never needed charging in 3 years. I’m thinking of getting another couple of sets to put on the other staircases in case of power cuts.

So sorry, I misread @KissMeLikeYouMissMe . That's even more rubbish.
Very sensible to try to plan the things you can plan.

Ooo yes ive got a few packs of strawberry jelly in 😋

Watch the dates on jelly.

I've moved my bits and bobs into a mouseproof box after being in the loft earlier. I was moving stuff, heard some very loud squeaks in what I was moving and a mouse ran down my leg. I screamed like a girl

I'd love a cellar.

I have the jelly and other sweet stuff in glass jars and the dates are mid next year, so hopefully they will be ok. A mouse would have brought about the same reaction from me too.

We are v lucky that all the houses in our area come with cellars. Ours isn’t tanked so has some damp corners but there are dry enough areas that make for decent storage. We store our brewing stuff and bottles in one chamber.
We store very little food down there though - we have a strange, hard to access mezzanine cupboard thing between the stairs and the cellar which is the place for our main stash (we would redistribute into pre-organised places if things got dicey) and even use a huge pallet of tins covered in a gorgeous old blanket as a sort of makeshift coffee table for our games room.

Unfortunately we live in an upper conversion (big Victorian stone villa divided in two: dh calls it a horizontal semi ) so no cellar for us! We do however have lots of space in the eaves (and two good mousers for cats; the old cat doesn't catch anything any more)

Might start keeping the pigeons they bring in though and learn to pluck and hang them

KissMe could you get some of the medication you need, or is it only on prescription?

Also, I don’t mean to worry you, but don’t assume that your DM and sisters will follow suit. Some people who know someone who preps think they have no need, they’ll just go to the prepper’s house and be fed there. I would drop into conversation that you wouldn’t be able to help/feed anyone. Unless of course you do want to.

One more thing, if your boyfriend isn’t on board then just tell him X item was on special offer so you picked up some spares.

prettybird my dogs have been catching mice recently, maybe I’ll train them to bring stuff back for me instead of wolfing it down 😂

Lost that sounds awful, your poor DS.

We've made a start in a small way. The veg patch was extended this year and may be again next year, though the drought is affecting it. I've got 8 weeks' worth of antihistamines put by for next summer, and today I started on food - bought three bags of pasta rather than 1, and extra tins of tomatoes. I have plans to get some extra torches and batteries in soon too.

It's not only Brexit, although that's the main reason - but in the past year DH and I have both been ill enough to end up in bed, though fortunately not at the same time, we had an 8 hour plus power cut when someone drove a tractor into a power line, and of course there was the snow, which cut us off for a week or so. It makes sense to have various bits and bobs handy for all these sorts of eventualities.

I am so, so pissed off about feeling the need to stockpile for something so avoidable as Brexit though, and even more so at the blind arrogance of the government over this. I was a civil servant and then a lobbyist for years and I was always the one trying to persuade people not to be cynical about politics - well not any more. I've never seen a bigger bunch of venal, self-serving, arrogant idiots in all my life. That they should let us come to this, then try and blame everyone else! Outrageous.

Boyfriend laughed when he saw the stash and made a joke of it. later that night he went out to grab some beer and returned with a bag of rice and appologised, said he knows that I'm only doing what I think is right for the family so that's nice :-)

A good thing to stockpile is hand sanitiser and wipes as you can do a kind of bath with those, flannels too as they are useful for lots of stuff. Little things that you don't think will be useful are safety pins and sewing kit, lots of tissues.

Storage boxes for food etc can come in useful especially if you're storing stuff under beds or sofas or any other odd places.

There are loads of foodstuff that are good to store, that hot chocolate that only needs water, the jars last for ages and Aldi's version is cheap and quite nice. There are soups you can make from tinned veg if you're creative, chickpeas are great in soup and fill you up.

Get kids doing board games and books rather than tablets as if internet is down they just won't work (our internet goes off a lot and we've learnt to manage!).

Weirdly prepping can be quite addictive and save you quite a bit of cash and is not necessarily a sign that you want to decamp to the woods and live off-grid. But that might be some people's cup of tea and good luck to them!

@sportinguista really good stuff. Most children naturally want to lark about, even the device addicted ones. Putting a bit of time into establishing fave board games is a good idea. Even card games.
Most preppers recommend colouring books and packs of cards for kids for their "bug out bags" or "go bags". Not saying Brexit will have us all bugging out but the principle of thinking about entertaining kids is there.

Got some jars of ready meals from our local Polish shop - goulash, beans and pork in tomato sauce and pork and sauerkraut stew. They've all been very tasty so far, they've got a long shelf-life, and they're in glass jars so reusable/recyclable and mouse-proof. I'm not a big fan of spam/corned beef so this is a nice alternative. They had a good range of pickled veg as well so will be back to check that out.