What do you regret buying in your prep stash and lessons learned.

[RusticaRubra]

I regret buying tinned stuff. I don't have loads but probably have about 20 tins of beans, soup, veg and fruit. We will get through it but the family are all cats bum face about it. Tinned toms and Devon custard - yes, other tins just no. I won't do this again. Next time my focus will be on having external delivery supply chains of fresh fruit and veg if I can't get to the supermarket.

If there is a next time, I will cook and freeze.

What do you regret buying in your prep stash and lessons learned.

We used everything apart from the soup as no one was ill, but that has a long life on it so will be fine to keep for the future.

I also bought a lot of microwaveable popcorn. I think we are just sick of it now so the last box has gone untouched - but again - long life so will probably come out again in the autumn

I don't really regret buying anything because I am pretty sure we're not out of the woods yet and will need everything I have prepped. Maybe UHT milk although I haven't got much.

I more regret the things I haven't prepped, like a large chest freezer.

We opened the oat milk I had bought as part of my slight levels of panic - even though I was generally prepped, my family are fussy about having fresh organic low fat cows milk. So I bought 1 bottle of almond and 1 of oat milk as emergency options - I could only find almond initially, then spotted the oat. I will use both, and DD has expressed a liking for the oat milk - she's gone almost vegan in lots of things in recent months and while she still eats turkey, she won't eat red meat at all.

We haven't had time to do slow cooking all winter, and the weather was already moving away from it when we were home to be able to do it, so I still have packets of slow cooker sauces to use, next winter.

But no real regrets. We have been using up lots of older things we bought to try - some successes, others not. I didn't buy a lot of tins, only ones we normally use (tomatoes, coconut milk, tuna, beans, sweetcorn) and a few that I knew we would use (clams, bamboo shoots) to extend meals if we ran short of fresh things.

Other lessons learned include that you need to keep an eye on stocks of handwash always - I had stupidly not realised I was down to having no spare (I usually buy carex on offer and generally have 3-4 spare bottles, used to refill soap dispensers beside 3 sinks -2 bathrooms and the kitchen - DH had not told me we were halfway down the last one!). So 2 of the dispensers are currently filled with shower gel....but liquid soap was finally delivered this week in both the online supermarket shop (carex) and the Boots order (Dettol), so I have 2 to use and 2 spare in backup stocks to get me going again. But I will be adding a bottle to the shopping each week for the next few weeks, as we use a lot and I expect another couple of waves at least.

I did buy a large bottle of hand sanitiser before they became unavailable - we had a few handbag sized ones at home too. We have used some, but mostly in the car or pocket when going shopping (so the small ones). We have tended to come indoors and wash hands rather than sanitise, so the large bottle is still almost full. And I still have about 4 small ones full (I tended to pick them up a lot for camping and outdoors uses whenever I saw them for the past few years). But if anyone in the house DOES get sick, I think it will be well used at that stage.

I had to get a lot of preps in without making it obvious to my dh. And that depended heavily on cash flow. So I have a load of bread flour but it's running towards "best before".
My dh is more on board now although he raised an eyebrow at me getting a desk fan and upright fan for the summer. I worked from home last summer and it was ghastly hot.
In short, I wish he was more up for "preemptive " action rather than "glad to discover I took preemptive action".
He's coming around to it.

Regret buying? Nothing yet. Not tried everything yet though. And ex will use up stuff we won't.

Lessons learned?

I need more matches.
I could have stocked up more pasta ideally, though it is bulky so got a higher proportion of spaghetti as it takes less volume. And I was running out of space for pasta.

I am crap at updating lists.

Only really long life stuff should go at the back of the understairs cupboard.

That treats take on more significance than I thought. (nodded along to Bellinisurge in agreement as inline treats, but discovered how I really really needed treats)

That the "gets a bit tricky in the supermarket" Bellini talked about was worse than I imagined.

That I miss wandering round a supermarket. Haven't been to Aldi since February nor Asda since a week and a half before lockdown as we were symptomatic.

Mine was very different to what I expected. (FWIW I am in Australia, so different first wave to most of you, but I’m very much thinking of the second wave and prepping at the moment).

I had a lot of stuff - actually too much. I will prep less, but more intentionally from now on. Eg: I had 5 jars of Bolognese sauce (4 serves each), but only enough mince in the freezer to make up two of the jars. Plus there is only so much of that you can eat so often!

I’m now trying to match meat with meals, and vegetables that work across a lot of different meals Eg green beans with meat and 3 Bega or in a Thai green curry or in a stir fry.

Ditto other non-food products. Turns out I already had 50 rolls of TP in the house normally, so I never ran out and could give some away, which was nice. Also my normal handwash is antibacterial and I use it in 5 different places in the house. So 2 big refill bottles of this on hand, means I am right for months. I also appear to have been stockpiling shampoo and conditioner and face masks just for fun, so it was actually good to line them up and work through them, and I will be more careful about only
buying when needed next time.

On the other hand, I had half a 50ml bottle of hand sanitiser in the house. After a week, I almost cried with happiness when I found another almost full 50ml bottle in the car. I was able to trade some for TP later, and have since bought some from the stores, but it was an eye opener, as I didn’t expect to need it.

Entertainment too. I love to read and have a million books and DVDs, but more board games for family time is high on the list.

I also regret stocking up too well on the chocolate :) A bit of enforced no-treats might have done me good! But I see others saying it was good to have for morale on low nights, so perhaps I should keep the stash🤣

Anyone know where to buy hand sanitiser larger than 50ml bottles? I pop into Boots from time to time but they only seem to have 50ml bottles and always out of stock online (and have read that Superdrug Allie you to buy online then email you telling you it’s out of stock). I do have a large bottle at home but it’s only 57% alcohol 😤

Amazon, or YesStyle. The lattyr does take quite a while to arrive.

Marks and Spencer had huge containers of hand sanitizer at the checkouts today. They were about £11 each

I bought a lot of tinned and frozen fruit and veg.
We didn't really need any of it because we never had any problems getting hold of fresh. I'm not sure that means it was a mistake though - in a different sort of situation we might well have needed it.

We had plenty of flour (some of our flour is past its best before but still seems to be fine) but not so many other baking ingredients so would buy more of those next time. I'd not realised how much DD would want to bake (for something to do as much as anything) and how much everyone would appreciate her creations as "treats".

All the ones saying you are not using the UHT milk you are breaking my heart! We normally drink UHT milk, not fresh one, and I still can't find any

I've got four litres you are welcome to. Went out of date in Dec with zero sense of irony!

I quickly learned that I had far too much pasta sauces and far too little actual pasta!! I will be buying more over the next few months but currently struggle to buy enough to feed us each week.

Thanks for the hand sanitiser recommendations/ I will check them out 👍

Things that I’m glad I bought: pasta, chopped toms, loo roll, hand wash, freezer stitched with various meats and veg
Regrets - curry sauce and bread mix - didn’t like either do went to food bank. Don’t know if it’s my bread maker but shop bought was much better and hasn’t been too bad for being in stock.

No real regrets but the frozen leeks aren't great (taste). The frozen onions and carrots were a good discovery though. We still buy fresh when shopping but have needed to dip into them occasionally.

The frozen chicken breasts were a brilliant discovery- nicer than the fresh we used to buy and freeze. Not always easy to get hold of though. Have been looking for weeks.

I regret the massive amount of hand sanitiser I bought. What with being unwell with Covid so literally not going out for over 4 weeks and then generally reducing how often we go in shops we really haven't used a great deal. I have 2 massive bottles to fill the minis which hasn't been touched. The cold and flu and cough medicine not needed either.

The cough sweets we were so glad of and the ice poles as well as the extra paracetamol. I was glad I got lots of easy things like noodles and pasta and sauce and freezer things so my 13 year old could cook meals for him and his sister.

Hello, can I join? I had a Brexit cupboard which has served us well as I’m asthmatic, DH is diabetic and my Mum is shielding. We had a bread maker but I’ve learnt to make my own more successfully - I still have some yeast left but now also make sour dough. Tinned potatoes and any other veg go in soups, stews, casseroles and curry. We grow veg in the garden and get a veg box every fortnight. We have a milkman now but also keep a stash of UHT and powdered for soups and sauces. We also have an account with a wholesaler who delivers so we can buy items like flour, cleaning products and other items in bulk which is cheaper and lasts longer. Between us all we have used everything but that’s because me and my mum are less fussy than DH and the kids and will eat things to use them up! I have continued to top up throughout this and have also bought ahead for kids birthdays, Christmas and school uniform (for when it is safe). I’ve never really considered myself a prepper - just someone who is prepared but I literally don’t know what we would have done if I hadn’t had my store to go to. I’m not sure whether I’ll still have a job past September I’m trying to use everything and be as frugal as possible as well! x

February me bought lots of winter food but it went into nice weather quicker than most years so I have extra soup/gravy/stock/tinned veg, but have been eating salads and bbq meat! Its all dated until next winter so will get used then.

Oh I thought of one regret - not being organised enough! I couldn’t remember where I had stored the rest of our FFP3 masks, I had given a few to family elders and had one handy I’d used for shopping trips, but couldn’t remember where I stored the rest of the pack. Then had a nasty fall and had to go to hospital in the middle of the night with a suspected fracture, and could only find the one FFP3 mask between the two of us (this was right at the height of the worst bit and the thought of trooping off to A&E felt like it should have “highway to the danger zone” as a soundtrack). As it turns out DP wasn’t allowed past A&E entrance anyway, and was asked to leave pretty much as soon as I got in the door, so it wasn’t too bad. I found the masks in the store cupboard where I keep extra cleaning products/paper towels etc a few weeks later (am sure I asked him to check there.....meh).
So keeping better track of where things are is my lesson learnt.

I bought a 24 pack of these lol honestly what was I thinking

Long life milk.

I only bought one thing thinking that I wouldn't use it and that's vegan egg replacer, in case we wanted to make but didn't have eggs. I froze some eggs and turns out there are plenty of guides on what you can use instead. Have managed to get hold of eggs again more recently, but at one point there were none.

I would really like a second small freezer as ours has been full from the offset. We do manage to get deliveries roughly every week to 10 days, but bread doesn't last that long. So more freezer space for bread, milk, veg and protein would be good, plus a back up if something goes wrong with one of them.

Have flour and can bake bread if I need, but wouldn't say it's one of my talents. Not got loads as it hasn't got the longest shelf life and I don't want to waste food if we can always get bread.

Long life milk which I will never drink (unless in danger of starvation obvs but luckily we haven't come close to that).

Long life fruit juice - I tried some yesterday and it's disgusting. It's some random purple one that was all that was left in the supermarket.

Don't regret the loo roll or the pasta as we'll use those.

Don't regret the breadmaker as it's so nice having fresh bread and I'd never make it by hand as I have a dodgy shoulder.

Tinned meatballs were a near miss. they seemed like a good idea. But fortunately I only bought one and we tried them before stocking up in more and we all agreed we’d try cannibalism before resorting to those again.
I overdid the soups and stews as I wasn’t anticipating such glorious weather when I was filling the freezer in February. But they’ll get eaten eventually.