How many weeks food?

LilacPixie

Considering the stores of carbs I have we wouldn't starve for a few months but we would run out of some things quickly like sugar. Literally meals would be risottos with veg or pastas with some veg based sauce after about 4 weeks.

his_missus

Jusy had a massive cooking session after yesterday's shopping trip so there's at least 2 weeks worth of meals in possibly 3 weeks though we might have to survive on beans and porridge for a few days. The cats only ever have a week's worth in however.

greenbee

I've just done and inventory of the fresh and frozen food... Which would last a couple of months a least. A rough inventory of the cupboards suggests several years maybe I should try to eat this stuff instead of stocking up and not eating...

valk_scot

jim-22 wrote: »

valk_scot

Is that you & three children or you & another adult & two children?
Do you have ready access to a car or shop on foot/public transport?
Do you own a freezer? Is it large or small?
Are you employed? Have you been steadily employed for a good while (how long is a good while?)?
Do you have debt?

So many variables.

Is this relevant? I was just asking in general. It's not supposed to be a competition.

But since you want to know, there's two adults, one huge hungry teenager and an equally hungry 10 year old. Access to a range of local shops and supermarket on foot though got car availible as well. Small chest freezer + tabletop freezer. I'm a stay at home mum, hubby in steady job that looks reasonably secure atm. No debt worth speaking about.

Other relevant variables would be special dietary needs (nope) and general fussyness of family (discouraged round here!) And cooking ability of main cook. (Pretty good.)


Last winter though we got pretty well snowed in for two weeks and it was only a lack of loo rolls and cat litter that drove me out of the house to walk to the shops with a sledge. The supermarket itself looked picked clean of essentials and apparently there had been fights over bread deliveries. And it was almost impossible to get milk. I made a mental note to keep enough UHT milk and bread flour for a month in stock this year. And loo rolls and cat litter!

Pitlanepiglet

greenbee wrote: »

maybe I should try to eat this stuff instead of stocking up and not eating...

I'm a bit prone to doing this and we're currently a week into eating our way through the freezer and forcing ourselves to use up the odds and sods that lurk at the bottom.

When we lived in a city, we always used to do this in January, we didn't buy any food (other than fruit usually) it meant that we used up all the left over Christmas food and the stuff from the back of the cupboards AND it meant no food spend in January when we were already skint which helped. Now we're more rural January is the wrong time to do it so we're reinstating "eating the cupboards" but moving it to the autumn. For me it's a good discipline as I do tend to leave things lurking.

balmaiden

4 weeks comfortably and maybe 5-6 weeks if we were prepared to eat porridge every breakfast and vegetable soup most lunchtimes. Actually reading this makes me feel like challenging myself! Oh and we are a two person household.

SnowBelle_2

At least 4/5 weeks...but as others have said mostly vegetarian based by the end.
Have just bought a new fridge & freezer to replace the two old ones which were literally drinking electricity according to our monitor.
Do a Costco shop every 2/3 months, freeze enough milk and bread to last 6 weeks at a time.
There are two of us and two fur felines who have enough food & litter for at least a month.
I have cut down on bread drastically and am one of those strange ones who only drinks UHT skim milk!
Shop at LidL or Aldi for veg.
This has got me thinking and I now feel like a before christmas challenge!;)

meritaten

I would say about 3 weeks - would normally be four or even five, but my freezer is full of runner beans, french beans and beetroot from the garden (waiting patiently for me get enough jars to make even more pickled beetroot)!
Storecupboards are pretty full - and I keep in plenty of tea, coffee, sugar, flour etc. that would last maybe 3 months?
fridge - hmmmmm two weeks? mostly salads and stuff - of course the butter etc would last longer and the cheese maybe - if OH doesnt do what he did last month - and chuck at least 500gms of cheese cos there was a bit of mould on it!!!!

Linda32

As far as meals go, never any more than 7 to 10 days before it would start to get interesting, dry pasta and veggies would be served. reasonably healthy I guess but not exactly nice.

It the moment we have dinners until Thursday.

Cerials, about 4 days before we would have to have porridge, same with sandwiches - about four days worth.

I could make flapjacks and shortbread.

The things in the fridge would last about another two days.

I could make soup to last about a week with the veggies we have (we have an allotment ) but thats all there would be.

freyasmum

jim-22 wrote: »

valk_scot

Is that you & three children or you & another adult & two children?
Do you have ready access to a car or shop on foot/public transport?
Do you own a freezer? Is it large or small?
Are you employed? Have you been steadily employed for a good while (how long is a good while?)?
Do you have debt?

So many variables.

Largely irrelevant.

My exes parents were both working, earning decent money, living in social housing (read: cheap), getting 'keep' from the boys they still had at home, etc.

But by the end of the week, they had literally a half a jar of pickle and a few other odds and sods in the fridge and that was it. They bought a two-pack of toilet roll and always ran out half-way through the week... and didn't buy more?! I took my daughter there one day and her dad had made her 'lunch'... one cheese slice (the plastic stuff) and two cherry tomatoes. That was ALL they had left in the house.

Likewise, my Aunt's husband was astounded when he opened the cupboards and there was still food in them

Me, there's always something to eat in my house - I could last a while. I shop the offers on stuff I buy and can store - tins (I still have a few tins of chopped toms when asda were selling them at 12p each, and I bought a few lots of Branston beans when Tesco had them £2.55 for 12 cans - cheaper than value), dried goods - I have probably around 6kg of thai jasmine rice left from when Tesco sold the 5kg sacks - 3 for £15. Mum and I shared that one. I have red lentils, cous cous, pasta etc in big lock and lock tubs in my cupboards - and a few packs in a cupboard in my bedroom. I also buy things that I can freeze. I bought quite a few blocks of countrylife butter when Asda had them a 50p each. The my freezer is chock full of meat. I have pork fillets (which would probably do us three meals @ 2 people), whole chickens, large pork joints, beef joints, chicken goujons, various steaks, about a million packets of sausages (:o From the farmers market, they're amazing!), gammon steaks, also some frozen veg. I do wanna buy more mince though - I love it's versatility and have actually ran out of it! But that's just for the choice, I don't actually need it.

So, we could probably last a few months at least with a varied and interesting diet.

Cleaning-wise... My favourite washing powder is Fairy, the big 80 wash boxes are normally £20 in Sainsburys but come down around once a year to £10. I buy enough to last till the next round of offers - as with most things. I used to buy toilet rolls on offer, but you can get them decently/cheaply enough in places like farmfoods now. Other cleaning agents are good for around 6 months, minimum.

Sorry, I didn't mean that to be so long