Decided thsi is all just a waste of my time

[Rightleftupdown]

NC. Have been on this board lots since the start of the pandemic and don't want posts linked. I started off in Feb getting really worried and came onto these boards for information, advice and ideas. All of which I got in a considered and measured way, and which for the time I was grateful for. I can't help think now though that it was such a load of bollocks though (the prepping, not aimed at any individuals on here). I got myself into a state, spent a fortune on stuff. Water purifying tablets? Out of date, in the bin. Medicine items? Out of date, in the bin. Oxymeter? Unused, waste of money. Nebulizer? Unused, fucking hundreds of pounds. I could weep when I think about how much I spent. Good wise, I bought very little I won't eat but I don't think I can look at another piece of bloody cous cous. I don't think any of this was helpful to a healthy state of mind for me, it just gave me a false sense of control despite contribiting to me being really fucking anxious. At least my shopping bills this month have been slim.

I’m not a prepper at all, but please hang on to the oximeter.

The oximeter is potentially useful.

Just to add, this isn't an attack on anyone on here, I just feel like 'what did I do all that for' kind of foolish. And poorer. I could have saved some money but nope, spent it all on stuff that most like will never ever get used

I get it; there’s definitely an element of anxiety management in my prepping too. I think it’s useful to take a step back and ask yourself what you’ve learned, rather than beating yourself up over decisions. Vision is always 20-20 through the retrospectoscope.

It’s easy to fall into a mindset if you get too immersed and that happens so incredibly easily online. In real life you rarely have these kinds of sustained, single-topic conversations. Our brains are wired for interactions with actually present people, and we just haven’t caught up with the effects of SM. It can be like a kind of reality distortion. If everyone in RL was frantically discussing prepping you’d be rightly concerned. And it’s genuinely hard to maintain an awareness that everyone here talks about lots of other things most of the time too. Even when you know it logically, it’s still hard to compete with the effects of the echo chamber.

I think you just have to keep asking yourself - “what have I learned?”, so you can retain the valid parts and confidently discard the parts that aren’t helpful to you along with the ood supplies!

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with an unprecedented pandemic. Last Feb was unsettling. If you’ve learned something useful about how you handle stress, and what you can cope with, then some of those purchases aren’t a total waste.

Personally I can’t handle prepping for every eventuality, but I’ve found it very helpful to have a couple of weeks groceries in- and that has increased to 3 months at the moment. I can’t manage more than that. I’m not as anxious knowing I have enough to manage for a while. But I would tip over into a dangerous place if I start thinking about every eventuality so I consciously choose not to.

It’s absolutely ok to decide where your line is.

It's like insurance. You pay for that and don't use it most years. You buy what level of cover you need.

Keep the oximeter.

Vision is always 20-20 through the retrospectoscope true, true. At the time I was thinking along the lines of 'when you're in a bad situation people underestimate how bad things can get' so don't get caught out type thing and this section was helpful. I got to the point where I was aware I was starting to gat more, not less anxious, and didn't want to be in that place.
As for insurance, yep, getting pissed off with that too.
It's good to be able to discuss this without being jumped on here or thought of as a nutter IRL. Thanksnks

Depends how you look at it. Prepping can be an insurance policy or it can be attitude. Ok by trade im a medic and teach first aid. So my kids all know basic first aid (and how to use an oxometer), they go for walks with me and can identify birds and some trees (helps with school work at the moment) we grew salad vegetables during the summer, they tast good, save money and teach the kids basic life skills. Ok im more into it than my family, but then i grew up on a hill farm in the 1960s and 70s. I would say basic first aid, including taking basic observations including using an oxometer and BP cuff is a skill everyone should have.

Ps dont bin anything, lots of people you can pass stuff on to if you dont want it.

Nebuliser? That's not money I would have spent but I imagine I have stuff you would think was a waste. It's not one size fits all. It's not "all or nothing ". Nothing wrong with taking a fresh eye to your previous approach. Best wishes.

I used the oximeter last weekend that showed me my sons sats level was 87%. We spent time in hospital this week.

They can be useful not just for covid.

Fair point. I have a severely asthmatic child so potential for both to be used at some point

I think you could still have used the water purifying tablets. They don't suddenly stop working on the date on the packet. They just become less effective and a less effective tablet is still better than no tablet!

Oximeter might still be useful to have?

Covid is not gone yet

Also, yes it is a shame you spent more than you should and bought too much stuff, but maybe it was worth it for the peace of mind?

And it wasn’t totally mad. After all, the world HAS gone pretty mad in many ways

There are definitely things we didnt use that ran out of date like powdered soup (only 2 packs) but having the stock in meant during the height of infection rates meant we could stretch out shop visits to once a fortnight. Long life orange juice was a mistake (only bought one carton) but I would still prep again in similar circumstances.

Also havent used any calpol since March which is a miracle but still glad we had it in

Now the worst is over we are running down our stocks. Having tinned dhal and jar of curry sauce with fresh veg for dinner tonight and running other stocks down.

We are lucky not to have had covid otherwise we would have eaten loads more tinned and packet food.

I dont consider it a waste of time

Yeah, before March 2019 I probably spent too much on food preps! I have lots of things I haven't used yet but still glad to have them, like a wind up radio, lifestraw, oximeter.

Financial prepping is currently my priority so although I really enjoy reading threads on here about various prepping gadgets and things, sadly I have had to tell myself I can't buy them yet! Using up my brexit food stash one jar at a time lol!

Last year was insane though, please don't be hard on yourself.

Is it possible to see yourself as part of something larger?

A lot of people were less anxious when they didn’t need to shop around the first lockdown, you were part of those preparations so you helped those people be less anxious at that time.

Supermarkets, other food and medicine providers and governments were influenced by people discussing and doing prepping. Plans and agreements were made, more good sense and sanity prevailed than it might have done. You were part of that.

Someone might need that nebuliser, you might even find a bag of unwanted preppings finds a buyer on eBay.

It’s so understandable to be distressed by loss, financial or any other, and the feeling that maybe if we’d acted differently the loss wouldn’t have happened.

With hindsight I could have avoided some massive housing expenses but I would also have had to be superwoman. I honestly do sympathise.

I think it depends on what you define as “prepping” really. If you bought all that stuff in response to a specific event, and didn’t need it, then yes you’re going to feel like it was a waste of money. (Though I maintain we’re not free of COVID yet, and even if we were I see my preps like insurance - I don’t get fucked off that I haven’t needed to claim for a house fire and refuse to renew the house insurance for next year)

Maybe try and shift your mindset away from COVID prepping and consider more general preparedness?

Powercuts, water outages etc are all still just as likely now as they were before. People are always going to panic at the slightest whiff of snow and wipe out the bread and milk supplies. Hell, the recent cockup with the EU and the Irish border for vaccines have shown that we’re still not safe from Brexit shenanigans.

Maybe pare it all down a bit - get to the point where you’re keeping a month or so’s worth of food which is easily rotated and then as you’re topping it all up more gradually it’s easier not to see it as a “waste” if it doesn’t get used.

Last February, we got a bulk shop of groceries (things we use anyway), toiletries and general first aid items (Calpol, ibuprofen, plasters, wipes etc). The aim was to have a 3-4 week cushion in case we couldn't shop for any reason. We now rotate our stocks and are fortunate to have space in the understairs cupboard to do this.

I do think that this is a good general idea, and I feel more in control knowing we can manage if necessary.

The next level of prepping is a step too far for me. Maybe do what you are comfortable with and don't beat yourself up about money you think is wasted. They were scary times for a lot of people, and you had the best intentions.

What gets you through at the time is important though.

I've always been of a prepper-lite mindset, and was building stocks of food/toiletries long before covid came on the scene (Brexit partly, but also child of hoarders/war survivors, and having children with severely restricted diets). In April, DH went full-on prep mode, sorted OFRSs, detailed plans etc. He is CV, and has health anxiety, and this was how he handled living through a pandemic. He felt more in control and ready should something go down, and that helped his MH enormously, probably stopped him spiralling off into severe depression by taking practical steps.

If what you did worked at the time, do not regret it. If nothing else, the experience helped you learn something.

Thank you kind souls, you're making me feel better I have started to resent paying insurance though too

@haba great point that the action of prepping in and of itself can be beneficial - I certainly feel so much calmer knowing I’ve got things sorted for lockdown to drag on, that family photos and important documents are backed up in case of fire etc etc.

I know this can go the other way for some people and so it’s finding that balance that works for each individual - I’d never necessarily recommend a complete head-in-the-sand, buy-what-you-need-for-the-day approach; but appreciate that some may need to err on the lighter side of prepping to avoid spiralling into “what-ifs”.

Similar to pp I always just feel less anxious and more prepared if I have a few weeks food and meds in. I did buy a few daft things last January but they didn't cost that much and I've learnt what we will never ever eat vs what we will work our way through. I was so glad when the first lockdown came that I had tonnes of flour, tinned tomatoes, loo roll and calpol. We didn't need anything for a month. Now I've just packed a covid hospital grab bag for each of us with a label on them. Nothing new in any of them but given current rates I don't want to be scurrying about trying to find some clean socks for someone if one of us has to go in. Once covid and brexit are calmer I will probably lower how much I have in but I'll always be self sufficient for a month. Just keeps me from worrying but I don't think about it much once I'm sorted out.

I find knowing I have a few mths of food in which I rotate from stocks to cupboard and new into stock gives me peace of mind if one mth something large /unexpected needs to be dealt with. Having first aid supplies and knowing how to use them is important and something you should be proud of yourself for learning, new skills is never a waste, plus think how thankful you will be if someone you love needs something you can help them with. The world at the moment is a very unstable place but it's nice to know your probably better prepared than most

Sorry you feel it was a waste. But I'd definitely check those dates again - if you started at the beginning of the pandemic then very little should be out of date now. I bought water purification tablets for a couple of pounds probably 2 years ago. They're foil-wrapped and they don't go out of date until 2027 or 2028, so you might have misread the date - could be 2031 instead of 2021.

A family member works with imports for their business and there's a lot of stuff getting stuck en route to the UK, which might be hidden a bit because the supermarkets themselves stocked up before Brexit. So don't get rid of your stockpile quite yet. Again, it may all sort out in the next month or two, but if not then there's no harm in having been prepared a bit.

Another change in checks coming on the first of April and first of July I think, so maybe not all over yet. Hopefully it will be like the millennium bug which had potential to be awful but with a lot of work behind the scenes didn't turn out as bad as it could have done.

I look at it as insurance. Say you spent £200 and didn’t use it, but then you didn’t buy it and if the worst had of happened would you have thought “I wish I had spent £200 for this not to happen?”
The oximetry I promise you will be grateful of if any of you get covid.