So, do we think something is coming?

[Preppyprepper]

I'm not a commited prepper. I was one of the first in my circle to get that Covid was coming, as I read the news (several papers + BBC + social media) obsessively, and did a bit then. With the news at the moment, I'm getting a bit of deja vu.
Do you think something (not sure what, WW3, a cyber attack, whatever) is coming in the next few months? I've made a plan of what to buy in the coming months each payday (camp stove, battery powered radio) but can't decide if I'm being ridiculous, or just reacting to the increasingly unnerving news.

I'm in a job (healthcare, medic) where I was 'on the ground' in Covid, on stand by to go work in the temporary hospitals etc, so wouldn't be able to just wait it out at home, probably. Am I just a bit paranoid?

I guess it's always handy to have cash just in case, but probably wouldn't get you very far in some of the larger stores. I work in one, we can't open to public for health and safety reasons - too dark and can't operate our fire alarms. Also, tills require power - there's absolutely no way to operate them without.

DS worked in a small shop during sixth form. Even they can't open in a power cut. Doors won't open, alarms won't work so insurance wouldn't cover them, cash registers won't work, scanners don't work.

I'm no alarmist but I've been thinking we should stock up on store cupboard items so we can manage a couple of weeks without fresh bread, milk, salad, fruit and veg if there's a fuel crisis - we have a cylinder gas cooker an oil range that heats the water (plus a full tank) wood burning stoves and stacks of wood. Gonna shop tomorrow. We live rurally so good to be prepared. Dare not bulk by crisps and chocolate tho at I'll eat it all within a day or two

I live on my own, am older but not wiser 😂. I do have some emergency things, nothing much but would see me through a few days without electricity and water, and comms breakdown or cyber attack.

The one thing I have that gives me comfort is a solar/wind up radio and torch. I figure if everything goes at least I'll hear Government bulletins and other stuff. Phones and internet TV and so on might not work in a big crisis, so at least I'd have some contact with the outside world!

I have a mega power bank that's too bloody heavy to bring anywhere, even though it's small, so once a month or so I make sure it's fully charged up.

I have two x two litre bottles and once a month I refill them with tap water.

A few tins of this and that and crackers in the cupboard, nothing that requires cooking, oh and chocolate!!

That's it.

I always feel a bit paranoid when things like this crop up, I've just ordered toilet roll because we need it, but it probably looks like panic buying to anyone who doesn't know that!

I suddenly feel quite smug about my impulse buys - about 100 candles (don’t ask) a solar powered wifi thingy, camping stove and far too many gas canisters! Oh and a wind up radio/torch, a pantry full of tins and bottled water after 🙈 I have a feeling something is brewing - people thought I was nuts when I started saying we were going to be hit hard with Covid and to start stock pile (this was mid Feb). Think power packs, solar panel charging banks and tinned food - best case you’re good to go for an off grid summer camping trip!

You are not wrong, we are seeing an unexpected change to global supply chains so things are going to be unsettled for a while.

I think we will see very expensive food this year, some fuel restrictions and in the run up to winter a tightening of gas supplies with limited rolling power cuts on cloudy windless days. The gas side is assuming that the EU can't fill it's stocks to 80% by November 1st.

Meds are going to be an issue, I am on the vulnerable list and got a call from the chemist yesterday to double check which meds I am using. Never had that before so it sounds like there is already some planning for disruption/prioritisation in the background.

On the plus side we have never been so well prepared, both physically and mentally.

We keep (securely) a reasonable amount of cash. You just never know.
And yes, I do realise we’re lucky to be able to afford to carry essentially dead money.

I do think town dwellers, especially those without any outside space, would be immediately impacted in any real crisis whereas those more rural would have a greater chance of getting through. I already have an orchard, a veg garden and greenhouse, all coming along, and there are deer and game birds aplenty on the farm. If need be there’s a field of sheep!
That said, I will up the pasta and bread flour store by a couple of bags.
I think there is a very good chance that shortages will be on us soon. And that’s the best we can hope for.

Really good post.

I'm not as prepped as many, but I do have enough bottles water for 7 of us for 3 days plus purification tablets, loo roll and some dried food.

I was glad I had it when covid hit. Who knows about major events- you can only do so much andthen it turns into Walking Dead style anarchy

You mentioned cyber attack @Preppyprepper - have you seen this headline?

"Finance ministers and top bankers raise serious concerns about Mythos AI model"

Finance ministers, central bankers and financiers have expressed serious concerns about a powerful new AI model they fear could undermine the security of financial systems.
The development of the Claude Mythos model by Anthropic has led to crisis meetings, after it found vulnerabilities in many major operating systems.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2ev24yx4rmo

I went to Asda last night and there were people definately just doing a stockpiling shop.
i think tho afew extra bits - no issue but people going crazy creates a much wider issue and pushes up prizes further.

Also, a lot of people don’t have the funds to shelve out their understairs cupboard into a larder and go and spend £500 filling it up and all this stuff can cause a huge level of anxiety 😥

Loads of people buying water in the supermarket last night and online deliveries from Tesco and Ocado have placed restrictions on the number of bottles you can buy.

I'd just be careful about long life food storage for a long time. I know that during Covid I did buy packets of this and that and other long life stuff. I'm afraid to say that most of it approached its use by date quicker than I thought! So I now try to rotate as much as possible. Thing is, most of the stuff in packets and tins is not what I would use day to day, it is after all just in case of emergency!

I don't buy bottled water except first time around and bought the big 5 litre containers. I refill them with tap water every couple of months. Our tap water is good though, so I suppose that helps.

Meds is a concern for all of us. Like many others some of my daily stuff is vital. I could perhaps manage a day or two without, but I'd suffer a bit in the meantime and the condition would worsen temporarily until supply is restored. Last year I managed to get a "spare" month's supply of everything that's on repeat. (I'm not in UK), so I used that up and continue to get the monthly supply as usual. I now have one month's supply for an emergency situation. That gives me some comfort!

I don't worry TOO much about things. But I think I'll go and buy a bit of land instead of having money in the bank. They aren't making any more of that, and money in the bank seems quite vulnerable now, doesn't it?

I feel so too. I really hope that we're wrong.

It's great to prep for water supplies so you at least have drinking water, but how many have a water butt - ours does get used for watering the garden, but ideally it'd be full to use away contents in the toilet - does work as we had to do when water was cut off for two weeks a good few years ago.

I’m also lucky to have a private water supply from a chalk aquifer. And plenty of ammunition if zombie chaos did result. Loo paper definitely needed though.

My friend's husband is now in his late 70s and never stops telling us that way back when he were a lad on the farm, they had no toilet, it was the ditch, and a handful of soft moss was their toilet paper. All organic ha ha.

I dont think something big is coming. A bit of food inflation, maybe some transport disruption, etc. But nothing compared to Covid (and even then I more watched that happen around me than had actual problems). Medication supply maybe disrupted- but that happens more and more anyway.

If you have basic preps in place, the current mess seems like it’ll cause only minor inconvenience.

if you don’t, of course…

I live alone, currently somewhere rural with no public transport so problematic if fuel for my car, access to money or internet, or illness/another lockdown becomes an issue. I now have what I think is a very well-stocked pantry and other supplies which means that my children don't need to worry about me getting by and they can concentrate on their own homes.

In terms of managing turnover of anything that might have an expiry date, I've now made a notebook to which I can add pages and in which I've recorded my food stores, household goods and meds/first aid items, their quantities and expiry dates (in pencil). It's all stuff I use (or in the case of meds might use). As I use up stuff or buy to replace, I amend the amounts and dates in my book accordingly. When an item is finished I make a note on my shopping list in the kitchen. As I replace items I make sure as much as possible that their dates are later than the ones I've got stored.

I also now have a sense of the turnover I need to be doing to make sure that the cupboards remain full and in date eg. I've worked out that I just need to eat up one tin of soup every six weeks, or one tin of fruit every two months, for those particular stocks to be fine. When you look at a whole pantry like this, it's not nearly so onerous.

My notebook sounds complicated, was a pain to set up and I did it section by section, but now that it's going, it's proving really simple and easy to maintain and takes remarkable little time.

One other thing is that I now have a spare shelf in the kitchen which is only used for shelf-stable stuff that I want to use up asap maybe because it's already opened and has short dates, is a dented tin, is approaching its best before dates or has passed them but still looks ok (tinned puy lentils, I'm looking at you!), or herbs and spices that still smell fine. Having these grouped in a very visible way means I won't ignore them at the back of a cupboard and am gradually incorporating them into meals as soon as I can. It's proving very convenient and efficient.

Excellent system you have!

I'm not sure I feel there is something big coming any more than I have for the past couple of years, but I am definitely being more careful about keeping (a little) cash in, and I have a (relatively small) stash of bottled water that I didn't used to bother with. I am keeping more flour and we buy loo roll from
I learnt from my mum and granny and always keep stocks like there is a war coming - also lived in Japan for a few years where we always had a grab bag under the stairs in case of earthquakes. I have a friend who literally buys what she needs each week - so you open her cupboard, there is one tin of tomatoes and she'll say yes we are having spaghetti bolognaise tomorrow. We are poles apart. For most things I have one in use and a spare, and I replace the spare when it gets opened. I appreciate I am lucky to have a good-sized pantry and a garage to store it.
I am going to buy a battery radio this weekend, and I think we have some water purification tablets somewhere from one of DD's trips but I should make sure I know where they are and if they expire.

I only have certain foods in my prep now. I have a good months worth of everything anyway. But my prep is mostly things we eat in volume. Pasta. Tinned tomatoes and rice. Baked beans. I know we eat those several times a week so could use it all up before it goes out of date. Always have cash in the house for Chinese and others who only deal with cash.

I'm trying to add in one spare at least of everything.

Over the counter drugs like paracetamol and ibuprofen I have at least four packs of each. All with the best before date sharpie on. Water for days as it's often cut off. I do to buy a water butt again too. Power banks. Candels. Batteries. All the normal snow type prep.

I'm not worried about anything big happening tbh. Just fuel right now. I used to run my car down to fumes. It never goes below half full now. My new worry is fuel shortages. We are rural.

There's so much to worry about. That makes me want to ignore prepping most of the time. One good thing is also to period ically use up everything. We did that just before Christmas with the freezer. So nothing is near out of date in there now

Can anyone recommend a good solar / wind up radio please? Or small solar panel? Most seem to be a bit rubbish.

I'm thinking again about solar panels for the roof too

@Legoandloldolls we just had solar panels fitted. What I hadn’t realised before, until I said well we will be fine if there is a power cut won’t we, is that actually that is not how it works. If there’s a power cut we are out too. I’m reasonably intelligent but I still don’t really understand how or why. Perhaps everybody knows this but I always think if I don’t maybe others don’t too, so sharing just in case!