Ok, so we come out of lockdown. After you have breathed a sigh of relief (or whatever) what top ups do you need for No Deal Brexit/Second wave of this shit/Normal stuff you prep for

[bellinisurge]

I'm sure we'd all like to pretend this is all going away. I'm sure we have lists of places we want to go and people we want to hug.
Assuming we're going to do some of that, we also have an opportunity to take a look at our preps.
A second wave of this horribleness is not impossible. Neither is a lurch out of Brexit transition.
What are you going to top up on?

(This thread is for preppers in the Preppers topic so don't waste your time whining at us if you happen upon it. It's our thing, just move on)

I'm going to get another phone line put in so we have a backup broadband - no internet has been very difficult, especially for the children (schoolwork, socialising etc.) as very little mobile signal here.

Big delivery of compost. I will keep up with the smaller, local suppliers I have found for meat, flour, dairy. And I'm trialing a fruit/veg box next week so will keep that up too if it works. The less reliant I am on supermarkets, the more secure I will feel. I will restock some of our more depleted items, but on the whole we have had enough of what we needed.

I'm considering a dehydrator...

@Coughsyrupsucks ..... [sleeves still rolled up], mine's a Callow. No, I didn't know who that was either. Especially as I keep calling it a Carew.
It was second cheapest on Amazon with good reviews.
The holy grail of dehydrators is an Excalibur. (Still love that pun ). But that's out of my price range.

@bellinisurge Thankyou!! Off to have a look, I like cheap at the moment

Seeds and compost
More tinned vegetables
Treats
Flour
Organise a milk delivery

Chick peas : tinned. Stock was running close to none

I have already started on stocking up as did an Asda order click and collect. Got rather more tinned tomatoes than expected as they all arrived.

I have relied on the church to shop for us plus a fruit veg delivery box. We have managed on supplies plus top up shops. We could have lived on the stocks but it wouldn't have been so nice.

Going to dig the church garden we have access to, to increase the growing space.

Beg for a compost bin for church. ( Think the archbishop/ bishops said we ought to be more environmentally friendly, shall quote them)

Ensure all my hiding places are full of supplies. There was space in one.

Pull everything out and check dates.

Restock dried fruit as it has limited shelf life.

New glasses...that was on the Brexit list.

Buy a dehydrator, and retrieve the stuff I need from Mum's. Dehydrate peas, sweetcorn and mixed veg. Useful for chucking in soups and curry so I am told.

I have found that treat food is really important. Something to cheer me and the children up.

Ds has needed pudding everyday. I have been able to get fruit delivered but I am going to stock up on things like tinned fruit for winter's double whammy of Covid and Brexit.

Going to send the vicar a list of things that people may want to stock up on for the second wave.

We still have tons of fucking food stashed and 150+ bog rolls ( bought for March 2019 or whenever it was we were supposed to leave, I have only bought 9 this year about a month before lockdown)

Eat up the food that is short dated and replace with new.

Buy more printer paper.

Replace fridge freezer. Get ex to buy a fridge freezer.

Hide food in ex's house. Not difficult, he did not remember the four carrier bags of food he had in his room.

Make sure ex has food for the children as I really need to send them there for a break.

We are growing stuff in the flat and in ex's yard. Trying to make compost.

I prep most winters anyway ever since I got snowed in and so bought random bits for Brexit and then a couple of bits when I was concerned about coronavirus.

I did well in terms of stocking up on rice, tuna fish, tinned tomatoes, tinned soup, pasta, toilet paper, herbs and spices, frozen foods. I also had enough yeast to give a tub to a friend. I make bread anyway so this wasn't prepping, just normality.

Being a single mum I probably best stocked up on frozen stuff that my oldest dd could put in the oven (chicken nuggets, fishfingers, chips, potato waffles) in case I got sick but I've taken the opportunity of this lockdown to teach her how to cook more and safely use the hob so will probably buy more pasta sauces, baked beans, frozen vegetables so that if necessary she can make a spag bol, chilli or perhaps a curry.

I see the freezer as being valuable space and don't like that it had four packets of potato waffles and oven chips when I could have more healthy food there - so next time that space will be veg and/ or meat. Or ice cream? I also had 4 packs of frozen sausages just because they don't take up much space yet 8 sausages can be used to make toad in the hole one day and added to pasta the next for my dc (I don't eat sausages myself).

Another poster who lurked and learned from you all over the past few months.
I’m currently 40+3 weeks pregnant with my first, so this time has been awful and worrying. Ive always wanted to have a well stocked pantry and DP really got behind this. Well keep rotating and bringing in a steady stream of tins and dry stock as we’re hoping to carry on with minimal trips out once the baby is born. We’ve already switched to a local butcher and a greengrocer both who have been a godsend during this time so we’re happy to carry on supporting them. We do want to get a milk man if at all possible.

I will keep a stock of baking supplies as they have been really hard to come by. I will also make sure we’re up to date with all our appointments (dentist, doctors, opticians, hairdressers) as I wanted to treat myself to a little spa day and get a facial and hair cut when my maternity leave started but couldn’t so both me and my partner look like the Twits!

@N0ManJan, I'll be thinking of you on this thread - can't be long now

Thanks to Bellini's brexit advice I was pretty much sorted for lockdown. Thanks Bellini :)

The one thing that caught me out was dishwasher tablets. My dishwasher has been going twice or 3 times a day, instead of once a day.

I am shifting stuff about and repacking it in various places.

Contemplating keeping the list in the storage place with a pen or pencil so it can be amended as required. Just been through and dated a storage hideyhole. Got to pack it full now. I have loads of tins on the bed but there is not much of any one thing.

The thing I most need is pasta. We use more of it than rice volume wise as it takes up a lot of space in storage. Very annoying.

That's my job for the morning. Rotate stocks and date checks, pretty sure everything is well in date but better to be sure than waste it.

Reading the thread as some things really did catch me out despite having prepped for years.

Peas, tomato purée and calpol were hard to come by. I got 6 big family sized hand sanitisers from boots online last week (only selling in packs of 6 strangely) so that's solved an issue.

Vitamin C fizzy capsules! Haven't had any since the beginning of March

have already started borderline prepping for the second wave of this .. made a list of the things that I had underestimated previously. My top priority and the thing I can’t now stock rotate is my savings - we are living off our savings. lol but to be practical yes I would buy more non essential things - like lots of paper rolls for drawing, super tips and crayon stuff, outdoor and indoor activity stuff etc . Food wise we are sorted. I am also repenting the meds I could have bought back from India to have in stock. dd has asked for nintendo switch for her birthday and couldn’t find it available anywhere , forget affording it! I really wish things would get back to normal but can see it’s not happening anytime now

I’ve just put in a huge order for vinegars and citric acid for bottling and pickling foods.

IMO peak two is going to be much worse, especially because people will be less compliant.

The only thing I missed this time round was self raising flour and icing sugar. I had plenty of plain, figuring I could just add the relevant ingredients to use as self raising but it's not the same in drop scones. 😂 And icing sugar...I normally have a sensible baking stash for day to day anyway but missed this.

Yes to more ketchup, and rice noodles.

We have weekly fruit and veg deliveries from a local place, and milk/eggs/butter from the milkman. Will be continuing those too.

Over the summer I want to clear the garage back a bit and organise my spaces a bit better. Take a proper freezer inventory and keep on top of dates etc.

What I discovered this time around was how important it was to me to try to keep things normal as possible for the kids. So stocking up on sweets for pocket money on a Saturday, having a good supply of the normal foods we eat every day as well as the long life supplies. While everyone else was still in the 'it's just flu, wash your hands' phase I bought a second freezer and filled it with meat from a local supplier, frozen veg, oven chips, wraps, pastries etc so we could try to keep some of our usual food traditions going through the weeks. Glad I did, as freezers were in short supply for ages.

I prepped quite a bit, but could have done more. Switching to filtered milk helped as much longer between deliveries, when I probably popped to the shop for something at least 4 times a week before. I am really glad I started making my own yoghurt as it just takes uht milk and a starter. No need to worry about storing or getting hold of fresh. Am going to try making it with milk powder next, seems more expensive than uht, but lasts longer and takes up less space.

The realisation that the amount of food we get through substantially increased once we weren't eating at work / school / out. Cheese, bread and fruit seem to vanish. I froze some eggs and was glad I did as they were impossible to get for a few weeks.

I would like a small chest freezer for the shed if we can get electrics going out there. Garden is being turned over to fruit and veg in tubs and the flower bed if the bloody pigeons don't scoff the lot first.

I need Ice lollies and more treats for the DC. Also, silly little things like those £1 face masks for DD to keep her spirits up and a bit of pampering.
And chicken noodles as DC are mad for them and the rations on those didn't go down well.
We had enough rice but need to replenish.
Also the cooking oil!
Replenish the printer paper. We did order more ink, so we will top up again if it looks like a second lockdown.
Rotate stocks - we did quite well except for the above, thanks to the Brexit prepping threads.
I need to make more masks too!

We also have a local veg supplier now that we will keep. We can also order eggs and milk from them if needed.

Just a quick question as I'm off to bed!! How long can eggs be frozen for?

My aunt has chickens & they lay more or less depending on weather/time of year etc so sometimes we have loads other times not enough so would like to freeze some.

Oh & I'm working on filling a floor to ceiling shelving rack for my preps (would love a basement!)

Just added spare keyboard ,paper and computer mouse to prep cupboard .Keyboard died and was a struggle to find one in stock

Oh and we discovered that we eat lot more rice than pasta .But struggled to buy our normal 15kg sacks .Definitely need more in

We have a spare mouse and keyboard as ds got a.new one for Christmas. The mouse has migrated to ds's sock drawer. Suits me.

I have been stocking up on Dettol spray and wipes (other brands exist)! I also managed to get hand gel for the first time since February.
Flour will be my next step!

Nearly all my storage spaces are full as I managed to get a click and collect. I do need to fiddle with ratios though. More chickpeas are required.

Need to clear out understairs and use up short dated stuff and restock.

I have just done a huge paper order from Hope Education who predominantly supply schools, I have several primary aged kids and they get through paper so fast! We use several sheets each every day.

I didnt realise how much oil we use. I'll try and keep on top of that. And eggs & flour.

I have a small business so have a wholesalers card which is very useful for bulk buying. Flour & sugar mostly.

In prep for the future I think I need to think "wintery" - games? Jigsaws? Baking. dried fruit. Comfort food.

I have found tinned custard good as it doesn't require me to add milk like custard powder does. Really long shelf life too!