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.

Hi just adding/refreshing my stocks so useful thread. One thing I wish we had more of last time was toiletries, shampoo etc. Any recommendations for good cheap online places to buy? Also essential household cleaning stuff. Thanks.

Ex has bought a big tub of bicarb online. Must ask him again.

None of the shops around here ran out of anything so we will continue to do our 2 shops a week.

Lucky you. We were trying to protect a vulnerable child by staying in and couldn't get a shop until over a week into May, and that staying up really late every night trying and only one shop every three weeks. We started self isolating on 16th March and relying on someone else to shop for us. Lots of things for my autistic child were out of stock for weeks until June or July. We were relying on the stock we held.

@BlackeyedSusan

Lucky you. We were trying to protect a vulnerable child by staying in and couldn't get a shop until over a week into May, and that staying up really late every night trying and only one shop every three weeks. We started self isolating on 16th March and relying on someone else to shop for us. Lots of things for my autistic child were out of stock for weeks until June or July. We were relying on the stock we held.

Have you got enough of his things stored now?

We had enough pasta and sauce but fresh milk.... Nope. Not possible! Did have lots of his alternative drinks, Thank God. But it was a bit of an exercise in faith that things would be back in stock before we ran out. Certainly replaced now.

DD needs at least 10 portions of fruit and veg per day to erm, keep things moving, I need about 7 or 8 most days. I had trouble adjusting to using not stashing. I hope that lock down will help me psychologically post Brexit into using what we have because it is what we prepared for ffs. ( Childhood fear of running out)

Building up the lemonade again. And the squash he currently tolerated. Also powdered milk so I can use that and keep fresh for him.

You need a little freezer just for your DD's fruit and veg really don't you Blackeyed that must be really difficult to get all those fruit & veg together. Does ex help? silly question sorry

I click, he collects.
Dried fruit helps. As do tinned beans and tinned tomatoes. Dd's guts don't know you are only supposed to count pulses once.

Bread flour, oat milk and a sack of potatoes - at the very height of the Easter covid wave my husband still refused to eat from any of my supplies of these and went to the one stop for cows milk, white sliced loaf and Aunt Bessie roasties...

(Sorry, just seen this was a zombie thread)

This wasn't a bad thread though. I don't regret anything we had (have) It'll all get used, given the long dates on them. If all is well come Jan, we will rotate fresh meals with tinned stuff for a while. And we'll have reduced shopping bills.
I am irritated by the amount of mental energy I've put into this, and frustrated that it's even conceivable that we could be looking at potential shortages in a wealthy country.
Grumpy today.

However, DH will eat anything and I was able to pass off tesco tinned meatballs and pasta as a family meal last week when I cba to cook, so really I have nowt to be grumbling about.
I really feel for those of you with kids, especially with food restrictions

So sad that we have to focus all of our energy on this horrendous Brexit Whenwillow, when we didn't want/vote for or support this decision.

Ditto. Whinging at ex today as he has been round to sort the computer on the same day as the shopping arrived. And he helped me climb down from the work surface where I had been stashing on the top of the cupboards.

The only thing that didn't go down well in our house was uht milk. Donated them to the food bank, discovered that the kids preferred almond milk instead.

*So sad that we have to focus all of our energy on this horrendous Brexit Whenwillow, when we didn't want/vote for or support this decision. sad

I share your sentiments. I feel as if prepping due to bloody Brexit and no deal is taking over my entire existence 🤣.

After reading the post about tinned veg I've realised I don't have enough, so that's on my to buy list. My reserve meals are going to be lentil curries with rice/naans. I have enough rice, flour and bags of lentils are cheap as chips.

I buy 8 bottles of oat milk at a time from my online shopping every month, and have just today discovered the use by date is 24 Dec 2020 on my Innocent oat milk bottles no wonder they were on offer!

Lesson learned: don't buy too many of a product online when they're on offer!

Bugger crumbs. I suppose that is a danger with online food shopping. Is it only the latest 8? Fwiw long life cow's milk appears to be perfectly tasty and safe a month beyond dates.

I have learnt to rummage right at the back when grocery shopping for best dates. DH has trouble remembering to look at dates at all when he does the food shop. He has many, many good qualities though so I shan't LTB just yet. Though if he keeps eating my crisps I probably will

Also can I send a group hug to all, because we wouldn't all be here if it weren't for bastard brexit

Your DH eating your crisps made me laugh, @Whenwillow yes hug to all!

I'll probably end up trying to use about 6 bottles in January that have gone past their dates so not too bad; how off can oat milk really get after all? There might be a bit more sediment but I can live with that.

I think it probably depends how long the date would normally be. So if from manufacture to bbe is 3 months, you wouldn't go more than say 3 weeks over? If it has 2 year shelf life - what's another couple of months? Bet your oat milk is somewhere in between.
Somewhere on the interweb are sites detailing this sort of thing. Quite useful.

I'll take the group hug. Been ganged up on by hormones having a last fling before menopause.

I have a lot of tinned veg but still worry it is not enough.

I need to find some net bags to hang up my veg in the garage. Or quickly crochet some from string. Tricky as making Christmas blankets and need to finish.

Also use food in proportion to BB/use by date.

Poor you Susan Have (am) been there. Sending commiserations and cake

Would love to give a massive hug to all Whenwillow yes we wouldn't be here if our government wasn't a bunch of sh*

Totally feel your pain Blackeyed I would like to give you a big fat hug as remember vividly what it used to be like. Thankfully in the past

I had a lovely four months off with no pmt. I was warned that it may have a comeback.