Who doesn't have a stock cupboard

Butterfly_Brain

Popperwell There is an elderly lady a few doors down from us, her son lives miles away and her daughter hasn't spoken to her in 12 years , which I find really sad. We have often asked her to dinner as have a couple of other neighbours, but she has always politely declined. My children have always bought her a little gift since they were little so that she has something to open on the day, the neighbours take it in turns to send her up a dinner, if she doesn't go away to her son, which is very rare. I lost my Dad 26 years ago and my Mum 8 years ago and even though we were not as close as I would have liked, I always had her here at Christmas and still miss both of them even now.

Butterfly_Brain

Chameleon, most of us on here are on low income, disabled, sick, with young families or just worried sick of what next year will bring, will we lose our benefits, jobs, have enough to live on and pay the bills? We are just like minded people, who have lived through recessions, redundancy/ loss of job, illness, unexpected bills for car etc who need the security of a stock cupboard, a lot of us have been in the situation where we have worried ourselves sick how we were going to feed the family or pay the bills. Those of us who are disabled benefit from not having to go out in the winter where we would be at risk of falling and having broken bones, which compounds on other health problems.
If you have ever been in that situation, you never want to be there again. So we keep enough food in to last a month or two, but that all helps if anything unexpected crops up. It can take a month and maybe more to get any help from the benefit system, until then you are basically on your own. We don't panic buy, we eat what we store and rotate and replace every time we use something. In a lot of cases it has taken a good year to be able to afford that few extra tins, pkts, meat or frozen stuff, we certainly haven't got the funds to pay for it all at once, a couple of bits every week is how we have done it, no panic buying , just rational and reasoned being prepared..
It is about being prepared for as many eventualities as you can including a couple of months, mortgage and bill money put aside. I keep a penny jar and all loose change goes in that and it helps with little extras like paying for glasses (My last pair plus reading glasses cost £500:eek:), prescription prepayments £104 and dentist bills :eek::eek::eek::eek:and sometimes if we are lucky a couple of days away.

prepareathome

Yes many, many are suddenly finding they have no job - as I mentioned on the toughies thread just last week a shop near us closed on the Thursday - everyone went to work and found a notice on the window - no money to pay bills or wages so we are closing and that was it no contact with anyone, and still none.

Over 50 people out of work, most on low pay but working doing the best they can for their families and hardly one had a store cupboard. I know as I became involved in an effort to ensure every family had a weeks supply of food and some of them are eating my food that I stored and put by. Do I regret it no I don't as it was there, I wasn't eating it, my family are not in need of it just now thankfully, and I knew I could go out and replace it over the coming weeks,although it would have been eaten in rotation.

Do I regret they did not have a store cupboard yes I do.......I did it this time, but I cannot, nor can the other gives do it again and again and again and so one day people will find themselves in that situation and what will happen, they will starve. When I last heard yesterday over 20 still had not been seen by benefits people and to get to a food bank you need a chitty from them ( I think social services, but here they have been cut and they won't go near a family unless child has died of starvation or on the brink and maybe but not sure a GP - takes two weeks to get to the local drs, I know I used to belong to that surgery, but moved long ago but I know its still the same).

So all those people if I and others like me who did not have a bit of a stock in did not help what would they have done. Most people did rally round the call to help but gave money average £1 as that is all most could afford and that went to pay off peoples pay day loans, buy gas and electric for prepayment meters and give money for hospital appointments and then used for other bills if any left - they got about £1000 altogether - not much to keep over 50 families for a week or two for food and bills, but its a poor area, every one did their best but only me and another woman who actually lives in the area were local people to give food ( rest were other woman's church members as she is a Member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, as she has been reminding me all week not a Morman

Those people do not know the food came from stores they think it was bought out of the money donated and that is the way we plan to keep it if not we would have many knocking on our doors - I have had many over the years asking me if they could borrow this or that as they knew I kept a small store, did they ever pay back nope or others would say well if things go wrong we know we can all come to you for candles if power goes out ( I used to love having all my wall sconce's up and candlesticks out, nowadays they are hidden away) or some food or water. So now I tell all due to my bad health I cannot store any more as with me not working and hubby part time we barely have enough to eat never mind by anything extra and my kitchen cupboards don't exactly look over full. My freezer is but I always make sure bought in bread, rolls and bottled water live on the top and tell any one who asks ( and its amazing who does) that I keep it stocked up with reduced priced bread as my little bit of meat and fish, chicken etc would not make it worth while to run a freezer.

The woman who lives on near those who lost their job also does what I do as a few people do know how part of her religion is to keep a store cupboard so she plays the poverty card as well. We both agree we hate it, but to ensure our families have something to help them get through bad times when they hit ( I say when not if as they will hit everyone sooner or later in some form or other) I will lie through my teeth. It might not be much I have but its for my family.

I didn't give a fortune in food - we all gave around £15 worth ( about 12 of us) but its amazing how that food was enough to feed every one on basics for a week. Oh we did have some moaners ' my son only likes kellogs cornflakes or will not eat beans, pasta, corned beef etc, etc. They were told either you have what you are given ( we did try to give everyone some things they liked) then you cannot really be short.

People don't surprise me any more so this came as no surprise at all - people are so used to just going and getting what they want, usually going into debt to get it that they cannot get their head round the fact they have nothing and cannot chose any more, a bitter pill to swallow I know, been there as have so many here and why we are all building our store cupboards.

So you see how a store cupboard is a useful item to have - a few extra items a week soon mounts up and even if every one did it, it still would not cause a shortage.

Daily firms are failing due to the knock on effect - one closes which affects another that supplied it, then another which again the supplier deal with and before you know it the supplier as well as those business they supplied to are gone, , leaving some other firms without a supplier and so making them look elsewhere most likely at higher prices so their products go up and people go elsewhere as to dear and so another firm closes and so it goes on and on and on.

Where it will stop I don't know and I like GQ have my doubts we are ever going to get back to what we have got used to.

Look at history - every civilisation known has reached a peak then fallen, to me I look and think are we at our peak - I know what I am trying to prepare for - not stores, could never store enough for more than a month or so but skills, am trying to learn so I have something to barter with and maybe keep myself and others alive through having knowledge they don't have.

Sorry this has been building up inside me tonight I had to say my piece if you want it deleted let me know and I will.

Popperwell

It has to be said and it ties in with what many of threads are about and why sadly many of us are here. It would be lovely if we were able to come on and pass tips on recipes and skills a bit like some of the tv and radio programmes in a jovial manner but times are tough and seemingly it is being largely ignored by the media.

So sites like this are doing an invaluable service and the people using them. This is where we are all in it together and this is where your "big society" is.

Trying to make sense of it all and keep our heads above water and knowing something bad is coming but we don't know exactly what. I don't think many will escape, we'll be hurting to a greater or lesser degree. And it doesn't matter what political persuation anyone is...

katieclampet

prepareathome wrote: »

Yes many, many are suddenly finding they have no job - as I mentioned on the toughies thread just last week a shop near us closed on the Thursday - everyone went to work and found a notice on the window - no money to pay bills or wages so we are closing and that was it no contact with anyone, and still none.

Over 50 people out of work, most on low pay but working doing the best they can for their families and hardly one had a store cupboard. I know as I became involved in an effort to ensure every family had a weeks supply of food and some of them are eating my food that I stored and put by. Do I regret it no I don't as it was there, I wasn't eating it, my family are not in need of it just now thankfully, and I knew I could go out and replace it over the coming weeks,although it would have been eaten in rotation.

Do I regret they did not have a store cupboard yes I do.......I did it this time, but I cannot, nor can the other gives do it again and again and again and so one day people will find themselves in that situation and what will happen, they will starve. When I last heard yesterday over 20 still had not been seen by benefits people and to get to a food bank you need a chitty from them ( I think social services, but here they have been cut and they won't go near a family unless child has died of starvation or on the brink and maybe but not sure a GP - takes two weeks to get to the local drs, I know I used to belong to that surgery, but moved long ago but I know its still the same).

So all those people if I and others like me who did not have a bit of a stock in did not help what would they have done. Most people did rally round the call to help but gave money average £1 as that is all most could afford and that went to pay off peoples pay day loans, buy gas and electric for prepayment meters and give money for hospital appointments and then used for other bills if any left - they got about £1000 altogether - not much to keep over 50 families for a week or two for food and bills, but its a poor area, every one did their best but only me and another woman who actually lives in the area were local people to give food ( rest were other woman's church members as she is a Member of the Church of Latter Day Saints, as she has been reminding me all week not a Morman

Those people do not know the food came from stores they think it was bought out of the money donated and that is the way we plan to keep it if not we would have many knocking on our doors - I have had many over the years asking me if they could borrow this or that as they knew I kept a small store, did they ever pay back nope or others would say well if things go wrong we know we can all come to you for candles if power goes out ( I used to love having all my wall sconce's up and candlesticks out, nowadays they are hidden away) or some food or water. So now I tell all due to my bad health I cannot store any more as with me not working and hubby part time we barely have enough to eat never mind by anything extra and my kitchen cupboards don't exactly look over full. My freezer is but I always make sure bought in bread, rolls and bottled water live on the top and tell any one who asks ( and its amazing who does) that I keep it stocked up with reduced priced bread as my little bit of meat and fish, chicken etc would not make it worth while to run a freezer.

The woman who lives on near those who lost their job also does what I do as a few people do know how part of her religion is to keep a store cupboard so she plays the poverty card as well. We both agree we hate it, but to ensure our families have something to help them get through bad times when they hit ( I say when not if as they will hit everyone sooner or later in some form or other) I will lie through my teeth. It might not be much I have but its for my family.

I didn't give a fortune in food - we all gave around £15 worth ( about 12 of us) but its amazing how that food was enough to feed every one on basics for a week. Oh we did have some moaners ' my son only likes kellogs cornflakes or will not eat beans, pasta, corned beef etc, etc. They were told either you have what you are given ( we did try to give everyone some things they liked) then you cannot really be short.

People don't surprise me any more so this came as no surprise at all - people are so used to just going and getting what they want, usually going into debt to get it that they cannot get their head round the fact they have nothing and cannot chose any more, a bitter pill to swallow I know, been there as have so many here and why we are all building our store cupboards.

So you see how a store cupboard is a useful item to have - a few extra items a week soon mounts up and even if every one did it, it still would not cause a shortage.

Daily firms are failing due to the knock on effect - one closes which affects another that supplied it, then another which again the supplier deal with and before you know it the supplier as well as those business they supplied to are gone, , leaving some other firms without a supplier and so making them look elsewhere most likely at higher prices so their products go up and people go elsewhere as to dear and so another firm closes and so it goes on and on and on.

Where it will stop I don't know and I like GQ have my doubts we are ever going to get back to what we have got used to.

Look at history - every civilisation known has reached a peak then fallen, to me I look and think are we at our peak - I know what I am trying to prepare for - not stores, could never store enough for more than a month or so but skills, am trying to learn so I have something to barter with and maybe keep myself and others alive through having knowledge they don't have.

Sorry this has been building up inside me tonight I had to say my piece if you want it deleted let me know and I will.

One of the most insightful and thoughtful posts I have read.

katie

PipneyJane

GreyQueen wrote: »

I suppose my view is that if there were to be a crisis which sent a substantial amount of the population rushing to the stores in a panic, I would hope that my preparations vis-a-vis having a storecupboard, would mean that I wouldn't have to be among them. Many people who are frail or who have to have young children with them would be in danger in a scrum of panicked people.

My storecupboard would save me trouble and free up the goods on shelf to be bought by others.

Trouble is, a lot of people now live in ways which would have been unimaginable to our great-grandparents' generation, in terms of having nothing by them.

I often think of the couple who I refer to as Grandma and Grandad although they were no blood relation. They took on my Mum as an 8 year old in temporary fosterage, when their own children were grown and flown and they were already in their fifties. She stayed with them for over 20 years, was the daughter they never had, nursed them to the end.

They lived very simply in tied cottages in hamlets too small to even be called villages. No bathroom, outside bucket lavvy whose contents was buried in the garden. Water pumped manually at the dairy at the foot of the garden. Coal fires. Grandma "sticking" in the hedges for kindling with an old pram to carry them home in. Washing done in a copper in the corner of the kitchen, water heated on a fire of old cardboard and scrap wood. Bantams in the backyard for the house eggs, 50 laying hens for the egg selling. A couple of electric lights but still the old oil lamps about, just in case. Big veggie garden.

They were pretty much independant from any kind of grid and bought-in essentials and could have flitted back to the Middle Ages and felt right at home. Grandad was a ploughman, one of the last to plough commerically with horses. Grandma was a ferocious housekeeper, baker, make-do-and-mender.

If the wider society had gone t*ts up, as long as marauding mobs from the cities hadn't come their way, they might not have even noticed for a while. They had the skills and attitude to get by on very little. A lot of modern generations have a fraction of their skills and I number myself among them, although I have more skills than some people I know, and less than others, but I'm working on that.

My take on the future is that it is going to look a lot more like the past than we might believe, or feel comfortable with. Some people will assume that it's business-as-usual and feel affronted when things don't pan out as they expected.

Very true. A lot of the old skills have been lost/haven't been taught for 20+ years because "computers do that now". We are losing our knowledge of mechanical skills.

Now that virtually everything seems to have a computer chip in it to operate and/or rely on electricity, I do wonder how we'd cope without the grid. Does anyone remember that excellent series the BBC put out a few years back: "What would happen if....."? I think it went out in 2004.

The episode I particularly remember was "What would happen if the lights went out?" which was set in (?)2014 and based on the simple premise that since, as a nation we're buying more and more gas in from Russia/Khazakstan, what would happen if a country along the pipeline cut off supplies in the middle of a really bad winter? Since coal is now a "dirty fuel", so isn't burnt, and most nuclear power stations are being decomissioned, we rely on gas more and more to generate our electricity which means shipping it in from abroad because the North Sea gas supply is in decline. Therefore, the scenario was very realistic.

In a modern home, there is very little that doesn't rely on electricity: no lighting; no central heating; no hot water; no telecommuncations; even the gas and (possibly) the water is probably pumped to your home by an electric pump/one controlled by electric means.

That was the night I decided we needed to get a solid fuel stove for the house. Something I could heat water on and cook on if the need arose.

mumonashoestring

It's been a running joke in our family for years that 'come the zombie apocalypse' DH and I will have to go and rescue everyone else

The candles around the house aren't just for decoration, they're there in case of power cuts and I know where there are lighters tucked away ready! We have a several-month supply of feed under our bed for the chickens we keep in the back garden, a pantry with a stash of tinned and dried food which, because it only needs topping up occasionally and not building up from scratch, doesn't cost much to maintain. We have a camping stove upstairs and we both know how to light a fire without matches or a lighter if needed, we can both shoot and fish and both of us are good/versatile enough cooks to get meals out of cheaper cuts of meat, and a range of wild game.

Makes us sound a bit 'survivalist' I know, but we're really not. I grew up in a rural community that got cut off by snow every winter, and my squirrelling instincts are still well-honed. Hubby used to be in the army and although he mostly uses his training these days to iron his shirts really well, he can still build shelter/survive on basic rations etc.

We're lucky in that respect. I had a conversation with a young chap I work with not long ago - he grew up in central London surrounded by 24 hour shops and genuinely could not see the point of keeping more than a couple of days worth of food and snacks in the house...

Malfiore

It's been so interesting reading this thread, I'm really enjoying it and all the new knowledge I'm gaining.

I was thinking that it's fine I always have loads of tins etc in the house as I make everything pretty much from scratch, but in reality, I do a big shop once a month for all my cupboard/fridge/freezer stuff then visit a market 2-3 times in the month for fresh. It's payday today so I have my big shop delivered tonight - I have very little in the house as I know I'm getting the shop tonight. So, if the worst happened, whilst I do have a little money put away, I wouldn't have any food in the house to feed us!

I am going to start a proper store cupboard, not just one where I keep the food for the month, but a proper one

It's amazing that I was thinking I was doing so well, but really, I have a lot further to go!

Prepareathome's recent post was really inspiring, thank you.

I also want to start (if I can) giving food to 'organisations' that hand out food to people in my local area in need. There is one I have found close to me so I think I will start putting a pack together to donate and try and keep this up as much as possible.

Really inspiring thread, thank you.

prepareathome

[QUOTE=Malfiore;54623093
I also want to start (if I can) giving food to 'organisations' that hand out food to people in my local area in need. There is one I have found close to me so I think I will start putting a pack together to donate and try and keep this up as much as possible.

Really inspiring thread, thank you.[/QUOTE]

If you are going to donate, include some cheap puds like rice pudding, tinned fruit or anything on offer as I know from talking to local food bank - when we were making up food bags for people - to get advice they told us do that as so many people will give beans and soups and sometimes they end up with lots of that and little else.

At the moment our local one is asking for juice, UHT Milk, sugar and sponge puddings, so might we worth asking them what they are short of and then you choose what you can afford out of that.

Well done you, just don't tell anyone near by for if they think you have a bit to spare and they are a bit short they will be knocking on your door.

:T

Butterfly_Brain

Our nearest food bank is 8 miles away, but our local salvation army does accept donations, because they know of needy families. I don't know if our council or churches are setting anything up for this area though, because 8 miles each way is a long walk if you can't afford the bus fare.