How are you prepping for Brexit?

[DoYouRememberJustinBobby]

I know we don't know what will happen in the run up to Brexit or afterwards but in my book things are looking scary.
I have legitimate concerns about some of my contracts (one very large one has already pulled out and left me around £1700 pcm down) and I am scared witless about DP's job.

We are currently trying to cut loose any extra expenditure in our household and decided this morning to sell a couple of tech bits we no longer need for my business, in order to free up some cash. Ideally we would love to be saving a bit more but we have some urgent repair work needed on our home which we can't skip until the financial situation looks a bit more calm.
We are overpaying our mortgage by a small amount each month but are now trying to decide if it might be better to stop that and keep the money to one side incase everything goes tits up.

We have a vintage Airstream which is worth a decent amount of money and we use 2x a month min throughout the year (plus almost the entire summer). The value of it continued to rise during the credit crunch and keeps going up. We are trying to decide if it is worth hanging onto in the long term as an investment (and our only source of holidays) or to sell up.

We always have a decent stockpile of freezer, tinned and home preserved food but now I'm wondering if buying in some large bags of rice and pasta for long term could be useful. We have a tiny kitchen so storage is an issue, although not impossible. Does anyone know of any reliable, waterproof, food grade storage containers for keeping non jarred and tinned food in cellar type environments? Our cellar is a little on the damp side, so we tend to be very careful about what we keep down there, although airtight containers fair well.

I know some people will say this is an over reaction but our family is already feeling the direct impact of the leave vote and we are genuinely worried about the continued impact.

Are you worried? What are you doing to prep?

Good luck with it. We had a greenhouse attached to the house when I was a child but it was really only used for tomatoes. Friends used theirs for cacti. I think I'd be minded to keep on going but, given its size, to only use it for fairly easy 'exotica' that you know you'll eat and which will perk up your diet. Staple vegetables - e.g. root vegetables - will store and are grown/harvested in the U.K so are likely not to go up too much in price.

If I were you, I'd be tempted to start looking at and testing some of the old recipes as a primary task.

cozie I think we could have an almost constant supply of tomatoes and courgettes which are both staples in our cooking.
I'm going to research the best fruit and veg for the situation.
My mother in law (a keen gardener) thinks lemons my fair well out there. I wonder if the outlay for a fairly expensive plant is worth the risk of it not working.

Great idea about recipes. I have a few war time cook books which I might have a good look at in the coming weeks.

You have to be able to 'kid' plants into thinking it's fruiting time if you want a constant supply of fresh. (Which might be costly on power for heating and lighting and also might be draining on traditional soil without intervention.) Your MIL would be a good source of knowledge but you might also open your mind to preserving/canning and dehydration if you have freely cropping plants at any point in the year.

Think soup and stews as winter staples. I, unfortunately, am no more than a vaguely competent baker, not having that gift, but I'm a dab hand at soups. It's perfectly possible to make whole meals - vegetarian if appropriate - from soups of root vegetables (with or without pulses) with some bread and butter. Those recipe books sound interesting.

Would you mind posting some recipes from those books please DoYouRemember? I'm trying to plan how I would grow veg, never tried before.

I will post some of the recipes when I've tried them out. They are mostly Marguerite Patten recipes so I imagine a lot are online.
A number of ingredients aren't readily available these days but they certainly made the best of what they had at the time.

cozie We are heavy on soups here too. There is nothing as delicious to me as a thick root soup with a husk of bread, slathered in salty butter.

Sorry Hummus - that must feel horrible.

Malice - I actually snorted with laughter at the harvesting comment.

We're buying a big chest freezer and clearing out the shed to use as a dry food store. I'm very worried about the future and I think it's a foregone conclusion that food prices will rocket

It's a scary prospect isn't it Queen? The Preppers forum is very supportive and a goldmine of information, it really helps knowing it is here.

Which foods are you thinking of storing?

Pasta, rice, baked beans, tins of tomatoes, tinned meat for pie fillings, peaches and pears, custard and veg soup.
Am going to fill freezer with meat and veg. Am also going to start making my own wine

I've found the Morrisons basic range tinned tomatoes to be fantastic value. They aren't too juicy compared to others.

What kind of wine are you aiming for? I had some success with elderflower champagne over the last few summers but have mostly stuck to cider and beer so far. I would love to make some wines.

I'd recommend spices and 'extras' that will perk up basic foodstuffs. (If they'll store.)

Thanks op, I'll get some of those.
I'm going to get a merlot kit from wilkinsons, a friend used it and said it was ok.
Any other advice on what I should store will be most welcome, as I'm a prepping novice

Thanks cosie will add those to my list.
Our freezer will be in lieu of Christmas presents for dh and I.

Sorry just placemarking as l think this thread is a good idea. Dh had said right from the result cost of living is going to skyrocket. I'm planning on going back to work ft when we'd previously decided I'd go pt after dd2. We were also looking to move this time last year, so glad we didn't take on the monstrous mortgage we contemplated.

I think it is useful to make a note of what you use in a week from food (down to salt, spices etc.) through to shower gel, washing powder, cleaning products, dishwasher tablers etc. That way you get an idea of what you really are actually using. I was surprised how often I use tomatoe purée, gravy granules, cornflour and cumin, so I have stocked a few extra of those. Garlic paste is cheap and super useful too and worth having incase you can't get your hands on fresh.

Welcome to the thread Four, hoping it doesn't hit you too hard!

We're going to be stocking up here and there, mostly on nonperishables and tinned items. Not a lot of room to store things, so I'll have to be creative.

I think the whole thing with Unilever is a taste of things to come.
If Tesco and Unilever hadn't come to an agreement and perhaps the same had happened with another company like Nestle, then there might have been a 'run' on the supermarkets like there was in the fuel crisis.
I remember that well, I lived in Brighton at the time and all the shops were out of bread and milk. Fortunately I had yeast and flour so I could make bread.

All it would take would be for a couple of companies to stop stocking a couple of supermarket chains and there would be panic buying.

I've got a bread maker too and will be stocking up on dried yeast and flour.

I make bread by hand but never got the hand of dried yeast. I'm planning on trying again though.

cozie I'm still sporadically using dried herbs and spices from over five years ago. Thy taste fine and we haven't keeled over .

I've got a whole spare shelf in the cupboard. What shall I put on it?

@desolate The cat seems to be waging a campaign for a stash of kitty litter and dreamies.

There's actually a serious point there. Don't forget the pets if you have any.

I'm downsizing my (beautiful, refurbed period) house to a smaller, cheaper to run, modern house (weep) which is closer to work and school - while house prices are relatively stable. It all feels very ominous and my savings have been depleted through a number of unavoidable expenses. I want to bank the "change" I get from the sale to make sure I have a cushion just in case.