Prepping as insurance

[K9medic]

I know a lot of people class prepping as a physical type of insurance and that for the majority of us there is usually a perceived threat that starts us off.

For some it was Britexit, for others Covid19 or perhaps a bad winter or flood. For myself it was growing up on an English / Scottish borders hill farm in the 1960’s and 70s.

We had “real” winters in those days and of course the Cold War was very much in the forefront of peoples mind. Even if you did not think a nuclear strike was likely the political unrest and disruption during the winter of discontent sobering (though as a kid the rolling blackouts were just posh camping).

Both on here and on a couple of forums I hang out in I have heard people saying they are running there food / equipment stocks down, either because Britexit has happened or they can see the light at the end of the Covid19 tunnel.

So sticking with the Insurance analogy do you see Prepping as either;
a) Travel Insurance – in that you only have it when travelling, next time I see a problem coming I will restock relevant to that problem.
b) Life Insurance – in that you pay into it all the time, I keep a reasonable stock of food and equipment on rotation because eventually I will need it.

I would be interested in your thoughts are and why

Life. Just always had an intense need to have supplies and plans for emergencies. Covid caught me with my pants down as i was mid divorce and had emptied the freezers etc. Was ghastly for me! Back with a vengeance now. Yes, it is probably a form of anxiety.

Bit of both.
I'm more of a self- reliance wannabe than a stockpiler.

This is an interesting thread. There is only me and my husband at home now. We did stockpile a bit for brexit, and that was very useful when lockdown hit. As it's only us, and we're not that fussy as long as we have something to eat, our stash was mainly tins. Lots of tinned fish, meat, and veg, and long life milk, dried milk, pasta & rice. We also had spare toiletries and cleaning products.
We have been using up a lot of what we had by having a store-cupboard meal twice a week, and we've been running the freezer down too, but only because I wasn't on top of stock rotation and kept eating fresh and leaving things in freezer. Only 2 meals in freezer were wasted: both mince based and stored in freezer bags. They smelled odd when they thawed so I won't do that again.
I have been enjoying being inventive in my cookery, using the tinned items. I want to use it up as it's been in the loft all winter and that get very hot in summer.
I do intend to maintain ongoing full freezer and larder, but at the moment we're saving for some work to be done on the house so a few weeks of cheaper bills will help.
I think just one box of emergency tinned food under the spare bed is enough as an insurance.
My next step is to sort a bug out bag. Not far from us, there was a gas explosion this week and several families had to be evacuated. You never know what's around the corner, and I suppose I just want to have simple preparations in place.
I never let car go below half a tank, and I'm thinking about what I might keep to hand in the boot as well.
I find the whole thing quite interesting. It's become a bit of a hobby.

I see it as bad th.

I carry life assurance all the time, but add to it with specific additional insurances when there is need (such as travel)

So I have a level of preparedness all the time, and then augment if there is something likely to cause disruption in the offing. So generally check and add in the autumn (as foul weather more likely then).

As online delivery slots are reasonable available now, I'm less worried about running out of stuff if required to isolate for 10 days on no notice, so I'm letting stocks run down from about 2weeks worth to my usual level (eg keeping one spare of everything, not two)

I felt that the speed with which the shops emptied last year is a good reminder of how the unexpected can happen so quickly. So I do keep enough in just so that we can weather something like that. I was reassured at how fast businesses of all sizes rallied, and how local support groups acted, so I wouldn't go mad on prepping (and also would again support people who were in dire straits)

'bad th' is of course appalling typing for 'both'

And another angle is needing to keep domestic supplies at a level where you don't need to rush out on the eve of a predicted emergency, as panic-buying only causes disruption.

I think having wartime generation parents probably helped, as they were always thrifty and kept cupboards well stocked (often by buying non-perishables in bulk when on offer), grew own veg and some fruit, and knew about storage of that fresh produce. I think I picked up more than I realised just by growing up in a house like that.