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?

I just have a very deep pantry and grow a lot of my own food. it all gets rotated through, and i never have to worry about running out.

You sound like you’ve prepped for doomsday- which I understand but respectfully suggest is highly
unlikely. I would suggest switching to prep for more usual events (flood, fire, redundancy, power outages, being snowed in, supply chain failures, etc).

My pantry served me well in Covid, but wouldn’t much help in a nuclear war. But then if the nukes are flying I prefer to take a direct hit.

Oh, and I don’t store so much water. We have a bit for water stoppages, but I live near rivers and would just filter that and add water purification chemicals.

I just put my family into the calculator above and for 3 months apparently we need 760 pounds of grains. 113 pounds of sugar

that seems like a lot…

I think the most useful way to prep is to ensure that you have extras of the things you need but also to be more self sufficient in general. If your home and garden can provide you with food and heat then that’s a big step forwards. We have a vegetable garden, fruit trees and a wood burning stove that we run using wood from the woodland around us. We wouldn’t ever be self sufficient of course because to produce all your own food is a full time job but we certainly can supplement our supplies.

As part of a general clearing out of junk and sorting out the house process on our return from holidays next week, I plan to get rid of various things that we used to eat but don't any longer and restock with some extra spares of things we do eat. As my pasta stocks are negligible at the moment (DD keeps raiding them) but I have tonnes of very spicy sauces that I can't tolerate and DD won't eat (because I bought them).

A good few real preppers I have read, watched and generally followed over the years talk about prepping in stages. So look at your existing situation, and make some preparations to improve that a small bit.

If you are starting from scratch, you build up a 3 day supply and gradually increase that to a week, a fortnight, a month, 3 months, 6 months, a year. But you start with what is manageable - being able to look after you and your family for a few days in an emergency until there is a return to some normality.

And at the current time, look at what is currently relatively cheap but likely to increase in price or become scarce because of what is happening. So with the war in Ukraine affecting their ability to grow a lot of wheat and oil that supplies the global markets, putting away some extra flour, pasta and oil (IF you use those things) might be sensible. Or a few extra packets of the alternatives that YOU use in case they become more scarce as people move away from pasta to rice or bulgar wheat or polenta...etc, or from sunflower oil to coconut oil.

It's not about getting set up for armageddon in 1 weekend of shopping and storing, but slow and steady adding a few things at a time (also that way avoids massive runs on items and there is enough to go around for everyone) and organising yourself to support yourself and your family independently if there is a problem rather than waiting for the Government to step in.

Maybe there is a reason Americans are on average fatter...

But grains would be all sorts of carbs like flour, pasta, rice crackers, cereal, biscuits.

Also they are assuming no food whatsoever available from the supermarket/garden etc.

I'm not a true prepper.. more of a sale/bargain Hunter
So if peanut butter is on offer, I buy it because I always eat it. Whether I need it or not
So sometimes I have 1 jar in, sometimes 5, depending on when it's been on offer and prices
The conditioner I like was reduced from £12 to 20p so yes, I bought a lot some

I always have too much soap, but god it was useful when covid came and we couldn't get any at work! I figure as long as it doesn't go off, and I use it then stash it

I am finding it harder to get bars of soap. Our Aldi have stopped doing them and the supply is intermittent in Asda. Morrisons don't do their own soap on line now. So when Asda do have some, get a couple of packets without wiping out their whole stock.

Great luck with the shampoo!

I got shampoo and conditioner. The assistant looked a bit bemused, swiped it all and it came to £350. Hit total, it was also on 3 for 2 and I think I paid £19
Did get some for my colleague as well

nice one!

I use the ethos of 'prep what you eat, eat what you prep'.

Essentially I keep a few back ups of the normal things that we like (toiletries, food, cleaning products etc) i always aim to have a 3 month shelf stable stash of each item.

The thing that does sometimes make me consider giving up prepping, is knowing that, if the UK really were to find itself in a situation where there was no food available, anarchy would rule and looters would soon arrive and take my supplies. So in that scenario, my efforts would be in vain.

But for smaller emergencies (eg very localised food distribution problems, shortages of specific items), then I think prepping is really useful so I will probably continue to do so.

Food is getting stolen in Sri Lanka, so not an unreasonable worry. (Report on BBC world service)

Hiding it better would be an option.

Distributing it in various locations around the house/flat.

Learning to act like they have taken all your food when they have just found part of it.

I tend to think if the world has been decimated so much I would ever need 3 months plus of supplies for my family. I genuinely wouldn't want to survive.

@User354354 - not a 3 month full supply, but having some basics helps. When covid hit, I was 8 month’s pregnant, and avoided shops. Dh was shopping for our household, and two elderly neighbours for the first month. It really helped that everyone had basic supplies of dried goods generally like tins or pasta/rice/ cereal/ snacks. Meant dh could just grab a basket worth for each house with milk/ bread/ fruit whilst there was restrictions ( not uk so different restrictions)

I’m definitely more in the living like my grandmothers camp. In my case my prepping is mostly against the ravages of inattentive adhd.

I dip in here now and then for some sensible and measured advice. It’s one of the best places on the internet.

I can’t cope with the anxiety of actual prepping

I suppose I'm also harking back to my grandmother's level of prepping (as in, a full pantry and getting in another tin of beans when the level drops below four tins)

It's a fine line. My ASC can't deal with not having a backup, but the anxiety of having too much kicks in if I feel like it's tipping into hoarding.

I totally get where you're coming from. It's a very hard thing to manage.

Another 'grandmother' prepper here.

Interesting comments re ADHD, ASD and managing anxiety over hoarding tendencies. We have many of those traits in our family (the only individual who was formally assessed has been diagnosed with ASD).

It’s an American website.
Far more processed, sugar-heavy diet.

We had some bad weather last winter and the power went out for a day. I also got covid this year and couldn't get an online shop for a few days.

I don't think you really need to prep for months but I keep things like a spare packet of toilet paper and some bottled water, some rice and pasta and stuff like that, so if we are stuck for a few days, we'll be ok.

We have a camping stove and a kerosene heater, which we can use in emergencies. We also have torches and I keep a good supply of batteries.

I think some of the US prepping sites are a bit bonkers and over the top.

I've got my preps. They will cushion me against shortages in shops

As much as I want to have a month I've no space. I've got what I can. Tbf where I am I rely on boats so in winter it can hard to get items anyway

If you are going at it alone (as in just you or you and your family), unless you have a bunker or spare rooms for purely storage purposes, then the idea would be to simply give yourself enough food to survive a few weeks - up to 2-3 months max maybe. For water, as it's the biggest thing to store, before you run out of bottled/stored water, you will need some way to capture and filter rain water, or know of a fresh water source nearby that you can bottle and filter.

This is simply to allow you to hunker down during the worst of the initial riots / mobs / looting / mayhem. Giving you time to assess the situation and plan going forward, or (hopefully) give enough time for any remaining government/military forces to get things back under some sort of control.