Never have a tank of fuel less than half full" - share your Prepper everday stuff

[bellinisurge]

Only store the food people in your house will actually eat. There's another.

At the risk of being a Viz comic parody, what tips would you share with others on here.

Never run out of baked beans

Never run out of baked beans

So good you said it twice @lynmilne65

I'm rubbish at suggestions but I'm here for tips

Always have plenty of candles / matches / firelighters in the cupboard.

Have food in the cupboard that doesn't need cooking or just a heat through.

Have a bag of cat litter in the cupboard. Can be useful for a few scenarios such as gritting icy paths, making an emergency toilet in the house (not that I have any intention of doing this) and for lining an actual litter tray...

(Note, when it snowed our outdoor cats became indoor cats and needed their tray which hadn't been used in a long time. Fortunately we had some litter at the back of the cupboard, we now make sure to have a couple of bags should it happen again).

Cat litter one is excellent. It's worth having a conversation with yourself about loos. And "what if?". You may need an emergency glass of wine (or beverage of choice) after you've had this conversation
There's a Jonathan Creek episode with cat litter .
If you are feeling strong, take a look at composting toilets - actually not as scary as you think.
Let's hope we never need it!

Even if you don't have a grab bag, keep copies of essential documents in a fireproof box (if you can run to it) or a waterproof ziplock if you can't. Also useful to have pictures of them on your phone/email and backed up to the cloud, just in case.

Keep an eye on the dates of tins etc and use them up and replace.

Get a small camping stove to use in the event of a power cut. We had no power over Christmas once, - only in the south east so not used to lengthy power cuts - and oh to have had that to heat up some soup or pasta and have a hot meal. Would have made all the difference to a miserable cold experience.

We had a really long hot spell here and I thought my water collection skills from an earlier time in my life living abroad would see me right. Turns out, I needed to think a bit harder about using grey water etc.
We also had the moorland fires nearby and really bad air from the smoke. That was something I'd never really thought about before. Of course, there was the risk of short notice evacuation too. Made me check what I had in place for us because, living In Manchester area , drought and out of control fire in nearby countryside wasn't in my radar.

@bellinisurge I shall look into those! Blimey I haven't seen Jonathan Creek in years! May have to have a watch!

@ThroughThickAndThin01 I'm regards to dates on tins, I have this rack from Amazon in my larder/pantry. Well worth the money, I wish I had room for 2 of them.

You can fit 3 tins across and 4 tins deep. (More if the tins are shorter / narrower) It's on a slope, so when you take a ton out to use, the rest drop down. And you just refill from the back. It's very useful and keeps everything organised and helps use up the oldest tins first.

@torthecatlady Nice!

I quite like that Tor, I have quite a large kitchen cupboard which could do with some organisation,.

It's great. I love finding new bits and pieces to keep me organised. What good is preparing if you can't find something when you need it?

Making sure that, as I finish one packet of something (rice, pasta, flour etc) and refill the storecupboard container (kilner jars) from the new packet in my stockpile - I immediately put the need for a new packet on my shopping list so I have one when the current one runs out.

Always having a few tins of things that I can make a dinner from - tuna, sweetcorn, Chinese beansprouts, tomatoes, ...rice, pasta, stock cubes etc. And long life things in the fridge - Lidl lardons, Lidl chorizo, frozen peas, natural yoghurt, carrots, etc (and always potatoes, onions, garlic in the cupboard). So if disaster strikes (snow, life gets manic and no shopping can get done, unexpected people turn up needing a dinner rather than egg/chips/leftovers......), I can manage.

Every few years, use up the bottled water that went out of date a few years ago, and buy a couple of fresh bottles for emergency use (I only keep about 2x2l bottles for utter emergencies - there's usually some warning to allow you to fill a couple of pots etc). Watering plants can be a good way to use them up if you don't want to drink it.

Always have a nightlight and some matches easily accessible in sitting room on mantelpiece - if the power goes out, you know the path to that and can figure out more lighting once you have 1 going.

Or a windup torch in the bedside locker.

Make sure you still have gas for the BBQ at the end of summer - we've cooked dinners on ours in snow and in powercuts in the past, just wrap up well to go outdoors!

And always have enough fuel in the bunker for at least 2 days of the stove/fire in winter - more if bad weather is looking likely.

Save the lint from the tumble drier, push into an empty toilet roll middle, and use that as a firelighter - great on scout camp, but also works well indoors! (And reduces waste at the same time).

I do the dryer lint thing too @BiddyPop !

We were cut off for over a week with the snow earlier this year and what I really struggled with was the cat and dog food. This year an enormous bag of dry food will be in the utility room in case. We're rural so used to power cuts but the first time even the tractors couldn't get through. Milk freezes well if you get semi-skimmed or skimmed in plastic but you need store cupboard stuff rather than fridge as you can't keep opening the fridge door with no power as the temperature will rise. I always used to have a camping stove (like my mother, also rural) until I got my current LPG hob so I have a stove top kettle for power cuts. Worth making sure that there's plenty of wood for the wood burner too for heating.

Don’t discount rubbish storage: bins not being collected can quickly cause big problems so double/treble wrapping, reducing waste, splitting “smelly” waste from “clean” waste etc. Nappy bags are useful for potentially smelly waste.

Dirty water collection too: a large (builders rubble type) bucket can be used to store old washing water that can be used to flush toilets (or water plants).

Provisions for periods - don’t wait until the week before you think you are due!

Anti-bac hand wipes and anti-back surface wipes in event of water shortages.

Evaporated milk. Lasts longer than the long-life stuff and takes up less space.

Peanut butter. 1 jar is 2000 calories!

Knowing where the closest water sources are (ie. pond/lake/river). Just in case, or at least for extra washing water.

Some sensible ideas here.

Anyone have an EDC (every day carry)?

I’ve just realized my mother was a prepper, I do all of these things simply because that was how I was brought up (she was a war baby).

My dad was (mum from neutral country). Both born before WWII. It doesn't seem that weird to me although I know they wanted me to live in a world where you don't need to worry too much about disruption.

Thanks for the evaporated milk tip Patricia! I’ve been looking for powdered milk as well, used to be common but can’t seem to find any anymore.....

My tip is to rat proof your stash. Speaking from experience here .

In the event either of a major disaster or a minor hitch to bin collections rats are likely to be a big problem especially in urban areas.

I've now got my tins in two sets of those deep plastic drawers you can get in Wilco, and everything else in Really Useful Boxes which are v durable and airtight but easy to open to rotate stock.

I keep refillable rat traps and a box of rat poison, but it'd have to be a full on apocalypse for me to consider using them (boak)

Totally agree about rat proofing- I reseal stuff in Mylar bags, glass jars and big plastic box. Plastic box not perfect but at least an extra layer for beasties to get through.

I have a number of small hot water bottles & a small separate camping kettle which I use for boiling 'dirty' water only (e.g. water from hot water bottle used last night can be reused in hot water bottle even though it stinks of rubber, or from the condenser unit on tumble dryer etc...).

You don't want to use the same kettle for clean drinking water.

If you store water in plastic, once it's got past it's bb date, you need to change it out every 6 months or so, the reason water has a bb date on it is that the plastic leeches small amounts of chemicals into the water after so long & it will taste odd.

Buy a bucket.
Buckets are incredibly useful for all sorts of things, you can transport water to the toilet, put it outside in the rain to catch water etc..., use it to store your 'dirty' water if needed, but if you don't have a bucket, what will you use?

Make a very short list on masking tape of what you have that you would need if there was a power cut in the middle of the night & where it is (e.g. camping gear in shed, water in cupboard etc...) because if you store it there in e.g. 2012, by 2019 you might well not remember immediately where it is.

Have a small hand held torch somewhere you can find in the dark so probably best on a window sill e.g.
www.amazon.co.uk/Desk-lamp-torch-light-Technology/dp/B076SZQFT9/ref=sr_1_155?s=kitchen&keywords=torch%2Flamp&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1532219285&sr=1-155

& stick your list to it, so if you need it, you won't have to spend forever stumbling round in the dark trying to find a light or where you put the whatever it is you need.
I've got battery operated motion sensor nightlights so I can see like these
www.amazon.co.uk/Signstek-Wireless-Hallway-Staircase-Wardrobe/dp/B00M1L92QO/ref=sr_1_5?s=kitchen&keywords=motion+sensor+wall+light&tag=mumsnetforum-21&ie=UTF8&qid=1532219423&sr=1-5

Ideally have a mini emergency box with ability to make hot water, light things, some spare batteries etc... in it which includes a more detailed list.
Some of this stuff might be stored for years in odd nooks & crannies that seemed to make perfect sense at the time & it's no good keeping a nice spreadsheet on your laptop if you forgot to charge it.

And of course, only store what you eat/use & eat/use what you store.