how do you cope with unexpected emergencies without an emergency fund?

flamingo747 wrote: »

Ok, so talk food stockpiles to me... What is best, how much should I get, and where can it all live?

Anything that keeps well. A starter for 10 would be....

Sugar
Rice (by the 5 kilo bag...got to your local chinese supermarket)
Pasta (3Kg from Tesco or 5Kg for half the price from the chinese supermarket)
Flour (strong bread flour), Plain and Self-raising.
Packets of suet (for suet puddings, dumplings in stews etc....warming, filling and cheap as chips. About £1 per box from supermarket)
Pasta & Sauce in packets (easy to nuke)
Cous Cous (buy a bunch of flavoured packets and a couple of bags of plain. When you make it, take one pkt flavoured and cut it half again with the plan...the flavouring is enough to cover all the cous cous)
Tinned Soup - keeps forever...
Tinned Meat (spam, hash, corned beef...not terribly appetising unless it's fried, but will keep you alive).
Eggs - can be stockpiled for months if you rub each one with olive oil or dip in wax
Powdered Milk (you'll be suprised what you can use this for...goes great in bread and coffee if you like yours white...cheaper than whole milk too)
Condensed Milk - keeps forever and I can think of a dozen sweet recipes it can be used in
Tins of sausages (barely qualifies as meat, but will keep you alive)
Tins of veg...sweetcorn for instance.
Tins of fruit.
Packets of lentils
Baked beans (only to be eaten as a last resort...blech)
Aforementioned bog roll and soap (bars of)

How much? As much as you have room for. I have a shelving unit that used to be in the bathroom and got moved down to the conservatory. It's always cold out there so the food can be kept on the shelves safely. Watch some programs about hoarders, there was one woman who hit packets of food inside her doors! There are no end to the places you can keep stuff if you think about it. How much room do you have in your loft for instance?

My washing machine and fridge both gave up the ghost within a week of each other while I was debt busting. I had no emergency fund. I got a trio of fridge/freezer, dishwasher and washer/dryer on gumtree for £60. It was still a tight month because of it, but my pre-DFW self would have put £500 worth of appliances on a credit card without blinking. 4 years and a house-buy later those appliances are all still going strong (and the dishwasher has probably saved my marriage haha!).

When DH and I moved in together 3 years ago we had "doubles" of a lot of stuff. Rather than chuck them out or freecycle them we stuck them in the loft as eventual replacements. We have a spare iron, kettle, toaster, ironing board, microwave etc etc. So far none of the appliances we're using have broken but when they do I'm not buying new ones!

I've also vowed I'm never buying new white goods again because these ones have served me so well.

Nowadays my emergency fund is savings. Although I'm so possessive about my savings that it'd have to be something really bad to make me break into them! :rotfl:

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

I can tell you exactly how it happened, because the one we had a work went the same way.

If you cook something that produces a lot of water vapour (eg, Supernoodles), the bottom of the microwave, especially the dish shaped depression where the turntable rotator pokes through, will be swimming in condensed water.

To prevent the paint from peeling, and the metal from rusting, you need to leave the door open, so the water evaporates, and the microwave dries out.

Exactly. Baked potatoes are a nightmare for this too.