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.

Great idea MotherWol... there's a Polish shop in the next town so I'll check it out. Another thing that's good is the "foreign" weeks in Lidl - French, Greek etc. They have large jars of eg french cassoulet etc. The "look what we found" ready meals in shelf stable sachets are also good, the ones I bought have a BBE date of around may next year. Keep in your normal kitchen cupboards, not the cellar stash as more vulnerable to mice etc than jars.

Hand sanitiser is half price at Superdrug's website, £0.59 instead of £1.25 each. Not sure how that compares to Lidl's version though.

I agree with @KimCheesePickle , great idea, @MotherWol .
I would add another yes please to Look What We Found. It's been a staple in our house for any "can"t be arsed/back home late/I NEED a decent meal" situation for ages. First night on a self catering holiday must have. In fact, I use it to win over my dh to pressure canned food - me luvli pressure canner- "just like Look What I Found", I tell him.

Reuse old surface spray bottles to wash yourself in any scarce water situation.
As anyone whose kids use them for spray guns will tell you, you can get pretty wet with a couple of sprays

Thanks to these boards and some very insightful posts, today I have begun to prep a little stash. Already I am a fan.

I have always been the type of person who has bought in a few extra bits, made sure I had cupboard staples always in, kept a torch by the bed and had a well stocked first aid kit (plus a car first aid kit). Now after reading some of the very sensible advice here, I have started to prep properly, and by properly I mean in an organised, thought through way. I love it already, I can tell it is going to make me feel more secure, more in control and ready for a variety of situations.

I decided to start with the advice of having a 3 day stash of essentials for my family. Thinking back to the snow last winter, when we lost power and the shops ran out of everything, I decided it’s the only sensible thing to do. I do think the supply chain will be majorly disrupted with Brexit so this is one of my reasons. We are quite strapped for cash, so I am also planning to try and stock up on some things ahead of a post brexit price hike.

So I have

• made a 3 day meal plan which can be made from packet / tinned ingredients
• Made a big prepping shopping list based on the meal plan and including pet items, toiletries etc
• Made a start on shopping and stashing

As I mentioned, budget is a factor so I am adding a few things on each weekly shop.

Today I spent £5 extra on my shop and got 12 litres of spring water (17p for a 2L bottle! Get thee to Aldi!), a good few tins, rice, pasta, crackers, tomato purée, painkillers.

I’ve still loads to get obviously but having made a start feels great.

Space to store things is a slight issue so I’m having to put things in various places... maybe I should make a list of where everything is? And leave it in the main stash place?

I don’t really know what I’m posting for, other than to say thank you for galvanising me into action. Thanks all from a beginner prepper!

@Magpiefeather -sounds excellent. As for where to put it - it's tricky because you don't want it to stick out and keep reminding you (or have visitors noseying at it). Space underneath furniture is the first suggestion if you don't have a garage or spare cupboards (who has that?!). If keeping a note helps you then do that.

Today I stashed:

Food:
4 tubes of tomato paste
3 tins of soup
A tub of hot chocolate
A jar of tahini

Health:
2 packs of paracetamol
Some pseudoephedrine

General:
A couple of batteries for my work watch

I’ve dug out our reusable nappies and have started laundering them and old baby clothes for the one on the way.

@UglyCathKidstonBag - all good stuff.

Feeling pretty good today - baked beans in bulk, washing powder, baby wipes, juice boxes, bulk oxo cubes, Ovaltine and choc milk powder with added vitamins, and more all cluttering up the living room. Sprouting seeds & sprout jar arriving tomorrow, as well as dried yogurt sachets in bulk. Superdrug order placed, went for Christmas present toiletries and loads of savlon, plasters, paracetamol, lemsip, hand sanitiser, that sort of thing. One thing I thought of today, not that they are likely to run out but if they did, 9v batteries for the smoke alarm. Most annoying sound possible surely is the chirp of a dying smoke alarm. And button batteries for bank card readers. Expensive day but we're in a good position now.

Newsnight about to do a piece on the stockpiling announcement so hopefully that will encourage more to start preparing. The more people prepare the better we all are.

Hello guys, new to this thread. Staunch remainer, as is DH! He's a research scientist - obviously outlook isn't great in that area. I'm an artist so no employer to answer to but obviously, STARVING artist wasn't something I ever hoped to be.

The stockpiling news is freaking me out, I've been aware for some time but the household leafleting is insane. How can they think this is acceptable? Especially if they don't leaflet families until it's too late. At least if they spread the word now, enough people might be spurred to protest about the situation.

I'm doubly concerned because we are in the throes of buying our first house. Prospects are not wonderful for settling here (UK citizens but we have lived in other EU countries) even though it seemed like what we wanted a few years ago (we now have nieces and nephews, parents who are getting more dependent, FIL lost his wife last year and is by himself now). We are also thinking of having children ourselves as it's getting late in the day for me! It seems like completely the wrong time to be doing all this - buying a house and the baby thing. Are we absolutely nuts? We had so many plans - not major renovation, but changes and decor for house, now a mortgage to pay, some large outgoings at the beginning (new white goods etc). DH is currently applying for funding because his contract only runs until a certain date, his employer are working to keep him around but of course nothing is certain.

I'm going to be starting a small stockpile at the end of the month, just by buying extra when possible. But I still feel like I'm frittering away cash at the worst time. Paying for house surveys etc has been painful (previous house purchases fallen through and lost money). Am I digging a hole pre-Brexit? Will I get stuck in my new house that depreciates rapidly in value and then we can't sell/leave if the country descends into hell?

Wisdom/hand-holds appreciated. You all seem smart.

I'm not sure I'd be buying a house now, I'd be waiting to see what kind of price falls there are after Brexit.
OTOH given talk of general inflation too, that could affect mortgage affordability so that may be one reason to go for it, especially if you're sure you'd want to stay in the area. (If you don't want to move, negative equity would be less of an issue, but of course in terms of getting a long fix on a mortgage it's a possibility to bear in mind.)

Goodness knows I don't get on well with many of my relatives but if I did I would be thinking seriously about the multi-generational household thing. More incomes and more people to babysit and do housework under one roof. Seems like a good idea if tough times are potentially ahead and you like each other's company.

But obviously I am just a random person on the internet, not an IFA!

Actually we have just about benefited from a buyer's market here - one of the houses that fell through, earlier this year, was pushing us to the limit. Now we are comfortably in our budget range with a very good mortgage deal. We would like to stay in this area, work permitting. 5 year fix on the mortgage currently but our broker is excellent. Prices are stagnating around here, or being reduced... FTB properties are saturating the market it seems. It was more thin on the ground when we started. Things on the market now though need a lot more work and have been overpriced initially. The house we're buying was a decent price and needs little work so we swooped in despite misgivings about Brexit. It's basically not knowing whether we will get another chance to get on the ladder AND in a property that we love.

I don't think I could live with my mother directly but I wouldn't mind her moving nearer if need be! As it is she just downsized her house and moved (selling her house provided our house deposit).

We had a power cut last night so I had a trial run which was good. I knew exactly where the torch was and dd has a fun lightbox which runs on batteries. I might get one for ds too.

DS had a game in his tablet which doesn't need internet so I told dd to download one onto her phone too. DS has autism so things like power cuts freak him out, but the game kept him calm. I must get a power bank in case it cuts out and his tablet is out of charge. I also need more torches.

I have managed to put away two tins of soup and two tins of rice pudding this week. I'm working on tinned food first, as I think it will last longest and move on to dried food and packets next.

The polish food sounds nice. I might pop up to Lidl when I have a chance and see what they have.

Following with interest

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/24/contingencies-planned-to-ensure-uks-post-brexit-food-supply-says-raab?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

teethy I think it would be difficult to know with any degree of certainty that you should pull out of your house purchase. A significant amount of the problems we have around brexit are to do with the fact that there is so little certainty. I would say it depends on how confident you are that the price was good and whether its somewhere you could stay very long term if the market drops and you're left in negative equity (particularly if you're thinking about having DC). Also how far into the process you are.

However, personally in your situation I would definitely be delaying things like home improvements, expensive decorating and large purchases (other than the essentials). Those are things that can be done later once we do have a little more visibility about how life will be after March. We currently have a decent 2 x six figure household income but after today's delivery of a replacement tumble dryer we are battening down the hatches and not spending other than on essentials until we know whether we are crashing out and then facing recession shortages and inflation or we are just in a crappy half way house situation with longer term price inflation.

You should be good at this stuff SusanWalker. Make sure you have the pan for scrambled eggs over the campfire and a billycan to get the milk from the farm. 😊

I don't know about that, teethy. My instinct is to guard against a falling pound as much as we can if there is spare cash around. Put cash in useful things, not in the bank. Get teeth fixed, spare pairs of glasses, car tyres etc - even home improvements - right now in case they become unaffordable if the pound goes splat.

Hello, this is a great thread with lots of sound advice. I've made a list helped of course by all of your tips and intend to start putting things away in the next 4 weeks or so.

We might be moving in the next six weeks to a new rental property ( just waiting to see what our current landlord is doing as he may be selling our place ) as soon as I know where we are I'll start to gather things to put in the garage.

@bluescreen when I lived and worked in Russia (this was yonks ago) I was always amazed to go to people's apartments and find they had tech gear I couldn't afford back home albeit Soviet made. They explained that this was a better use of their cash than sticking it in a bank.

Very useful thread. We bought a new Fridge Freezer last month. Considering a washing machine in the autumn. Already started with a few extra tins of food a week. Storage will be problematic.

How does a first world country in peace time manage to bring itself to this?

How does a first world country in peace time manage to bring itself to this?

Absolutely.

This makes me so angry, and yet it seems loads of people are all for it.

Ghost Bewilderingly heartbreaking isn’t it, everything we are throwing away?

Mrsr8. You sound as well prepared as you possibly can be. At least you know you are doing the best you can for your family. We must hope it turns out to be largely unnecessary prepping (though as each day passes it seems my diminishes).

I’ve had two largely sleepless nights. Not helped by the weather but mainly due to anxiety over this whole sorry business. DH has Parkinson’s and, even fully medicated, always has huge mobility issues and on his worst days is virtually immobile (as in, can’t even lift a glass of water to his lips for example). I can’t begin to imagine the state he would be in if there were to be any sort of disruption to the medication supply line.