A question for the preppers

[Curious78]

A question for the preppers who have been on the ball - In light of the shortages on the shelf, are you continuing to prep ? At what point is 'enough is enough' ?

I’m done prepping, supplies are stashed, I have been shopping normally for fresh produce and will shop normally until I can no longer do so.

As a long term light prepper is it wrong that I'm feeling a teeny tiny bit smug and vindicated at the moment? So many colleagues and mates made fun of me in the past few years. They're not laughing now. And as others said, I was not part of the mad dash to empty supermarket shelves in the past week or so.

Fellow preppers: this is our moment!

P.S. the above is very lighthearted. My main concern that as many people as possible survive this awful pandemic.

A long term light prepper, that's me too. I have one bag of most things in the shed. long life milk, tea bags, coffee, tuna, pasta sauces, crisps, biscuits, nuts, tinned pineapple (very enid blyton!)

It wasn't any trouble really.

@TheYearOfTheDog and lashings of ginger beer? 😂

What ho ! Next thing to buy. We'll have a midnight feast.

Yummy!!

I aim for 2-3 months in stock at all times, only thing done differently at the minute was additional per food upgraded deep freezer to a bigger and topped it up. But I don't use what I have stored except to rotate goods so don't go out of date. So I have "enough" to get by but I'll continue to shop weekly for fresh bread milk fruit and everything else use daily and will only fall back on supplies if a time calls where it is needed. I.e. illness isolation, job loss or disruption in supply chains.

@LaMarschallin yes - the information mid jan on Twitter was clear that covid was going to be a massive deal. The WHO has blood on its hands not demanding immediate tough action back then.

Yes, I'm no genius, leaving cert biology, but I remember Sars. I remember back then they said that if that was less lethal it would have spread around the world. When this was on the news 10/1, I knew it would get to my household. Ykwim. I mean, it hasn't YET, but I had no illusions that we would somehow be unaffected this time. Especially when govts weren't doing anything to contain it. If I'd been working for the who, on the 10th of January I would have made an announcement that you have 72 hours to get back to the country you live in. Then testing and quarantining upon landing.

Just think, if there had been NO flights in to the UK and Ireland since the 13th January. We could have contained that I think.

Yes just normal shop, I don't want to break in to my supplies unless I have to.

Just popped back to this thread and have realised that I'm a prepper.

In the face of obstacles (looking at you DH) I've inadvertently stocked up with BOGOFs and not throwing leftovers out and cooking for the freezer...

Now, how do I not murder DH while on lockdown?

No, I have a normal weekly shop coming on 1st April, I’m going to do the same every two weeks and then make all the other things we have saved work around what I can get on those shops.

I prepped specifically for brexit, so I ignored getting meat as readily available in this country. Problem is can't prep for everything.

We’re aiming to shop as usual now, cutting it down to two weeks between each food shop.

We prepped for Brexit, we actually started to run down our older supplies and freezer contents after the election in December knowing that we'd be going into a transition period with no interruption in supply chains. But we still had a good stock of non-perishables such as loo roll, detergent and soap.

When news of the novel virus started becoming noticeable in January, we stopped running down supplies and started prepping again, but geared a bit more towards healthcare (so paracetamol, extra vitamins, cleaning supplies, etc as well as the usual dry/store-cupboard foodstuffs).

Since all the panic buying started, we have not been one of those people desperately fighting over pasta, flour and enough toilet paper to build a fort. We have been doing our normal shops of normal quantities. I was slightly annoyed that this week's supermarket delivery was devoid of eggs, as frozen eggs were amongst the freezer stocks that we had been running down after December. But not a big issue, and we're not going to starve or have dirty bums.

I would not have called myself a prepper but it seems I am. We have not needed to go to the supermarket. I did go yesterday to see if they had any fresh fish and was damn glad I have been able to avoid it. DH and I like to be well enough stocked that we can avoid whatever panic buying is going on.

Loft is always full of bulk buy loo rolls @LaMarschallin because of the reasons someone else gave. It is always handy, cheaper to buy them in bulk and super easy to store if yoh've got loft or garage space. I couldn't bulk buy milk or chicken in the same way.

I am making a point of going to the local grocer, butcher and newsagent for fresh. Partly because they actually have nice food in stock, partly to help keep them afloat, partly because there are never more than a handful of people in the shop at one time.

I'm just doing my normal shop £40-50 a week. I havent bought any pasta, beans or toilet rolls because we have plenty. The only thing I've bought "extra" that I wouldnt usually buy is chocolate and cereal bars - and then only a few extra bars because it's not a "panic buy" food and nobody is going to starve without it.

@TorkTorkBam

Loft is always full of bulk buy loo rolls @LaMarschallin* because of the reasons someone else gave.

Yes, I saw that post.
And I posted under it (and quoted it) that it made sense.

However, it's no bad thing to reiterate it for people who might not RTFT.

i'm not a prepper. Hate too much stuff. Hate clutter. Shop week to week for my large family.

BUT I already had a Brexit stash of coffee.

And back in Jan had a bad feeling about all this and thought about how difficult it would be to keep my family fed in a Wuhan situation and began slightly over ordering each week.

Just been buying as normal since the panic buying has started and to be honest have stayed away because I am able to.

My stock isn't crazy large but one or two items ahead of what I need. I will only use it if i can't get something in my weekly shop. it's like an insurance policy really.

Loo roll was the easiest decision £8 for 28 and straight in the attic. No brainier.

I feel lucky i have the £ to have done this. I feel for those that can't'.

Food bank donations lovely people!

I’m don’t think of myself as a prepper, maybe a prepper-lite? I don’t like being caught short so I tend to have a couple of weeks worth of food in my store cupboard and freezer, and shop early for Christmas and birthdays. I don’t worry too much about possible crisis scenarios but this one was clearly signposted. I’m genuinely perplexed at how many people didn’t react until the last minute.

I haven’t been to a shop for twelve days now; I have a delivery slot for late next week (but it remains to be seen what will arrive) and I won’t book another until that arrives as I don’t want to take from those who need it more desperately. The milkman is still delivering for now, and I’ve ordered 2 litres extra per week that I’m putting in the freezer in the gaps that are opening up. I suppose that still counts as prepping, but that’s the extent of it.

I prepped in order to be able to hide away at this time so I’m not going to go to a shop until it’s absolutely necessary. The dc have been off school for over a week now, and in the week before they broke up we dropped some extra curricular classes and the week before that reduced contact with extended family. Dh is still working and will have to continue even through a lockdown as he provides an essential service. He’s the weak point in my carefully laid plans

It is definitely unnerving to be eating our way through our stores now. I’m rationing, though not so much my family would feel it, yet. I’m starting a small vegetable garden (so prepping in that way) and I’ve worked out contingencies for a number of different scenarios varying from isolating a sick family member, how the dc will cope if I’m sick, if I/we die, etc. When I write this, I realise that, while I might not have a nuclear bunker filled with 20 years of canned goods I definitely have bone deep prepper instincts

Nope I'm avoiding the shops full stop I don't want to catch the virus while queuing.

Have hardly bought a thing in the last 3 weeks. Just eggs and milk and veg from the farm shop. I'm always prepped.

I did my prepping in January, mostly in the days 26-31, after watching and reading abut shortage in South East Asia. I bought my Cambridge Masks the 27th of January and have since sent them to my parents.

I used to live and work in China several months a year and to see them locking down millions of people made me realise the shit was crazy serious.

I started reading the local papers published in English, watched videos of huge queues stretching for kilometres for people who needed to buy supply and masks especially in February to such an extend that even toilet paper delivery trucks were robbed www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51527043 . On that day I bought got toilet paper, kitchen paper and tissues. That was mid February, more than a month ago.

So yes I knew.

And I warned my parents and siblings in Europe. Only parents believed me, brothers and sisters called me an alarmist, catastrophist , paranoid. I am so glad, my parents don't have to go to the shops.

There was such discrepancy between what politician were saying on tv and what was published on Pubmed, the online library for medical papers . I didn't and I don't trust what politicians are saying.

And if you want to know what I am buying now as reading what is happening in Italy, France, Spain

• latex / vinyl gloves (use one pair every time you push trolley, hold shopping basket, touch self cashier at supermarkets) and remove and bin before entering car. Strictly single usage)
• alcool, glycol and peroxide to do my own hand sanitiser following the WHO formula . This is becoming hard to find, so this should be first on your to-do list as of today.

www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf (doses are to do 10 litres, just round the last digit to make 1 litre at a time)

• printer ink (non food shops will soon close ) . Well I bought 2 black, 2 colours and don't plan in buying more.
• light gym equipment (no machine) but bands and weights to work out from home
• my supplements . I am vegan, I must supplement with B12 and a couple more things.

Auto correct changed glycerol for glycol. It is glycerol (or glycerin which is 95% glycerol) that you need.