Reasons I will probably give up prepping

[supergloo]

I've been prepping where I can for years now but am starting to come to some pretty stark realisations. Sadly, these will probably make me prep less and less now.

1. Being the only one in the family who does this/thinks about it and takes it even the slightest bit seriously. I think the family needs to be "on board" rather than one person almost stealth-prepping.


2. Having had a look at suggested food amounts for a family of 4, there is no WAY in hell I would be able to store that much in my house. The amounts are HUGE in reality. I honestly think a few cans and extra grains are not going to touch it. (e.g 1 month for 4 people - 59Kg grains, 3 Kg canned meats, 11Kg beans/lentils etc, 9Kg sugar etc etc, water is HUGE amounts too)


3. It is actually quite a costly thing for the possibility of never being "used" . (Which I agree is ideal, obviously).

I wouldn't abandon prepping altogether. I am obviously only talking about the full storage method here and this way just seems unrealistic for me. I think I might have to focus on prepping in a different way - learning how to provide/source our food (though I am the opposite of a green thumb), learning how to purify the water we have everywhere, trying to get something going "self sustainability" style, learning how to be clever with very little (war-time rationing level skills).

Has anyone else come to this conclusion? How are you working around it?

Who eats half a kilo of grain and 75g of sugar per day??

Perhaps a more achievable method (though I don't know what you're prepping for) would be a philosophy of always having couple in the cupboard for every item that is in use. Just a buffer, rather than full supplies.

That's what shocked me too!

A month's supply. The suggested is 3 months but I would need a bigger house!

Food Storage Calculator: How much food should I have stored? – EZ-Prepping Simply Prepared (ezprepping.com)

I couldn't be bothered with full on prepping. I just know I wouldn't rotate food stores and we would end up with pests. If anything so bad happens that I would need 3 months plus of food then I hope I take a direct hit. Seriously why would anyone want to live through some of the things that people are prepping for, have they not seen the road?

I have a well stocked pantry. I bulk buy to save money and always have enough food for a week or two. It's ideal because we live in the middle of nowhere.

How about a water purifier
I had one for my birthday. Doesn't take a lot of room to keep.

Also bags of dried pulses and beans instead of canned meat

But that's a Mormon site! (I assume you're not an American Mormon?)

Which is of course fine, but surely you know that it is encouraged for Mormons to prep to cover ALL needs for at least 3 months. And that the majority of the sites are US based, where natural disasters, loss of power etc are much more likely than they are in the UK and where people tend to be further from shops any way. And lots of those guidelines were written decades ago.

So figure out why you were prepping and if you want to carry on, and if so, how.

They must have HUGE appetites!

If anything so bad happens that I would need 3 months plus of food then I hope I take a direct hit. Seriously why would anyone want to live through some of the things that people are prepping for, have they not seen the road?

This.

I see my prepping more as a buffer for shortages until supply chains are sorted out. Especially with neurodiversity and allergies in my household.

During lockdown my family finally understood my perspective and came 'on board' with me.

But also during lockdown the futility of disaster prepping was rammed home to me when one of my dc became very ill and was diagnosed with a life-long condition. If this dc does not take a certain medicine every day for the rest of their life they will die. Painfully. Neither I nor they can prep for this. It's not like switching from tap water to bottled water. The best my dc can do is build up a buffer of the medication in case of supply issues.

I think prepping a small amount is better than nothing at all. Try to keep a stock just for a week or two in case of a bad storm or supply chain issues. Not all preppers are Doomsday preppers.

The only thing I prep for is a wine/alcohol shortage.

@BreakorMake

Until your comment I would have vehemently denied being a prepper😁

I'm very much of the "what suits you and your family " point of view. Early days of the pandemic and, later, a recent 3 day power cut showed my family the good sense of having something set up to cope when normal food/power supply wasn't there. I don't expect them to think about it all the time (I certainly don't) but I happen to have done a bit more thinking than them.
If all you ever have is enough to hunker down for 3 days, that is a good thing.
I'm growing veg, not because I think I can be self sufficient, but because I like to have access to a bit of fresh stuff on my doorstep. I have ways of preserving any glut because "why not?".

My Grandma did not call herself a prepper but always had a store of extra food. She also prepped for retirement and had a bottom drawer full of household items, sheets, towels, tea towels and lots of other items so her pension would go a bit further. My Mum is not a prepper but still has a good pantry full of food and household items and despite being ECV during the pandemic rarely required anything outside of her normal weekly shop to eat well and if she did run out of something which was in short supply she managed without or used an alternative. I do consider myself to be a prepper, although not as prepared as many, but I was able to help out my adult children during the pandemic because I had extras of food, cleaning items, toiletries and medical supplies. I grow some of our food, very little in the grand scheme of things but it is fun, keeps me active and there is nothing nicer than eating a meal where most of the ingredients have come from your garden. If we have a tight month money wise, I know that I can still feed us without having to spend a fortune. And yes, I do consider myself to be very lucky

Pasta and rice are about 75-100 grams per serving/person and a big loaf of bread is only 500 grams of flour. I know Americans are big but that is insane so either the calculator is very wrong or those are very portly preppers.

Since being a single parent, I've always tried to keep my pantry and freezer well stocked, more in case of being poorly and not being able to go shopping than anything (when dc weren't old enough to deal with an online shop).

I'm trying to run through stocks and reduce what I keep in now dc are older and my situation has changed. I can't imagine ever wanting to have more than a few weeks worth of food in though, unless I lived somewhere very remote or I was trying to be self sufficient and grow and preserve my own food.

I think the American sites are way off to be honest.
Also extreme prepping seems to be parr of the morman faith.
I'm crap at cooking rice so use boil in bag rice this is sometime easier on portion control we family 6 abd 2 bags does one meal.
4 bah box is 45p aldi and 89p 8 in lilds .
8 would last us a 4 week month .
Spagetti I have of those measuring tool's circles where tells you how much spagetti cook for upto 5 people.
6th family member is a toddler so small potion.
But 1 pack 20p spagetti we wouldn't use whole pack .
With the value penne we use whole pack either with a source or pasta bake .
I would maybe have pasta twice week and rice once.

In a ideal world I would like a 3months supply but other factors are making me want to prep some selective items longer.

There was recently a lot of panic buying in Germany not only did oils and flour run out but tinned tomatoes pasta and rice.

I cook a lot from scratch so use 2 tins tomatoes per week as well as passatta and tomato puree.

Indonesia is banning exports on rice and think palm oil.
Egypt currently has 3months ban on anything.
Then we have Ukraine / Russia war which will be worse when harvest is here as presumably all stuff in shops was from last year.

Other factors playing on my mind
Husband income reducing if we in a recession.
Biometric testing 1st July slowing down ports and causing gridlock.
Our government food task force have never met they have no plan .

A big factor for me and appreciate we all have different financial budgets/ considerations is food inflation all the time going up.
Concerned autumn with energy rise followed by xmas we be super skint abd really appreciate pantry stock.
So I'm seeing it as food savings account.

In the past 3months aldi and lilds coffee gold instant gone up 40p.
Kind wish I had stockpiled this.
Chocolate nut spread aldi 16p.
Cheese just gone up 10p.
Milk 20 to 30p depending where we shop.
My stockpile ketchup worn out and lilds not had any ketchup for weeks.
Aldi and lilds seldom have the cheap pasta.

I think if items we regularly buy went up a lot i would regret not buying more.
But I don't have infinite space to store so I'm trying be selective and buy the everyday basics we can use and rotate into our working pantry.
I'm not using my preps as a doomsday I case if emergency separate space.
I'm using under the stairs cupboard to store bulk buy items as family if 6 we bulk buy cereals/ soft drinks and biscuits just once a month.
Buf also use it like a shop so when something runs out or low check under stairs and make a note that have to buy replacement next time I shop.

I will keep prepping as feel like we either have shortages or huge price rises or both.
No ones wages can keep up with energy bills and inflation.

The panic buying and rationing in 2020 did my head in as we larger familiy it always looks like we hoarders.
We like to buy in bulk and the idea

www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/asda-boss-warns-food-prices-26843520

I think @cafetropical has an important point that not all preppers are doomsday preppers. I need to reframe my thinking.

@Echo40 yes, it's a slow creep with the prices. We go through at least 4 cans chopped tomatoes each week as it is. I do stockpile aldi ketchup as it is the nicest, I think.

I'm not a true prepper, but have always had a bit of extra stock in my house so to speak. Rather than making me think prepping is futile, Covid and the associated food shortages have made me reassured that actually minimal prep is what's needed. You need to be ok until food stocks are replenished. I keep a minimum of one back up for what we consider essentials - toilet and kitchen roll (I have one extra large pack of each in the garage), essential cleaning items, milk in freezer, extra bottle of cooking oil - and always have pasta, lentils, cous cous, dried noodles, rice... and I have a small chest freezer with meat in (I used to batch cook but actually the space is better used for meat as one pack of meat can make 2 x bolognese for example but 2 x bolognese cooked takes up more space). Extra bottle of calpol and toothpaste etc. Tinned fruit and plenty of frozen veg. So if the shops shut tomorrow I would miss fresh fruit and veg but I could feed my family for probably about a month reasonably healthily. I might have to change my meals a bit compared to normal but it would be ok. I don't see the need to keep tinned meat as we would never eat it? We lost power once for nearly a week and my chest freezer stayed frozen, and we have a log burner so I could boil water/cook on it if needed so I don't think I need to go further than that. It's about what you're comfortable with I think?

This is pretty much my perspective on prepping. I do keep tinned meat and fish, though, because we eat times fish and corned beef makes an excellent substitute for fresh mince in every dish I've tested.

I will always prep. But not to that extent. I just prep for normal day to day stuff like bad weather, dh and I being ill a few days, item ran out in shop etc.

i often buy a few things of something like toothpaste when on offer simply to save money and time, rather than nuclear war.

They seem crazy amounts. Unless I’m baking a birthday cake or something a bag of sugar lasts us months.

An example was last September we had just flown, then Ds was ill. We all quarantined a few days until pcr tests back incase covid. Then ended up in hospital with Ds with hand/foot/ mouth dehydration so was occupied and when home Ds not in the mood to go food shopping. So a weeks of basic food supply at home just helped and was convenient. Mainly some batch cooked easy meals in freezer to eat whilst Ds didn’t want to be put down, and some uht milk worked fine for lots of sleep deprived tea.

I don’t regard myself as a prepper at all, but I always have a stock of food that is used in rotation. Yes, there is an initial outlay, but after that it doesn’t cost any more than it would anyway.

Luckily, space isn’t a problem.

Maybe scale it down so instead of aiming for e.g. one yea of food and water, scale it down to 3 months instead which would be enough to see you through the initial stages of anything. Focus on items that are usable like water purification, fire starter etc. And focus on learning skills or printing off resources. To me that would be one of the most important things as if things went to shit we wouldn't have the internet and not many people have those kind of books any more. There would be no way to look up certain (basic) stuff.