Who doesn't have a stock cupboard

Butterfly_Brain

Forgot to add buy seeds if you have a garden, then at least you can grow veg and fruit as well, foraging in the Autumn is another fun way to add to supplies.

GreyQueen

Popperwell wrote: »

I did hear someone on the radio in such a situation, she seemed to be a single Mum with young children and her electric had gone off and there did not seem to be anyone she could ask for help.
I don't know what happened to her.

Let's hope that she was able to get into a branch and have them advance her some of her money.

And as Butterfly Brain so rightly points out (excellent post) illness or unemployment can affect any of us without warning. I have personally known people who went to the bank on payday and there were no wages. It wasn't a screw-up by the banks, it was their employer going belly-up and not making payroll. Out of a job with no warning and one month down on a salary and at least another month until any benefits kick in.

I have relatives who've had to raid their kids' savings accounts to make to mortgage or pay the fuel bills and scrabble around for stuff to flog to pay essential bills. Not fun.

One of my pals works for the ambulance trust. He tells me that for the first 2-3 days of a big freeze, the elderly stay home. Then they run out of bread and milk and risk going to the shops. Then come the slips, the falls, the broken bones. If there is very hard weather, the fewer of us sliding around on the pavements the better. A couple of loaves and a couple of cartons of longlife milk could be the difference between ease and agony for some very elderly person.

Modern supply chains are incredibly fragile. A couple of years ago some of the people in my city found out that the spare parts to their central heating boilers were in Scotland (several hundred miles away) and their engineers couldn't fix the boilers until the the roads were passable enough to have a truck slither down the motorway.

When I look at the population of my city vs the amount and size of foodstores, I know that they'd be empty or nearly so in less than 24 hours without constant restocking from the road network. It's not necessarily that we couldn't wade or stagger the short distance to the supermarket (my nearest is 5 mins' walk away) but that there would be beggar-all to buy after a relatively short blizzard/ fuel blockade.

I'll continue as I am, with stockpiles under constant rotation, and some fresh veggies on the lottie and hope that they won't need to be deployed in earnest.

If nothing else, rising prices mean that stockpiling goods which you can use within their lifespan is an effective hedge against inflation.........wanders off to count the t.p rolls....

chirpychick

Butterfly Brain, thank you so much that would be really great of you yes please.

I just read your reply to my husband who now agrees with keeping some things stockpiled!

LameWolf

I reckon, between the freezer and the store cupboard, I could feed us for a month if I had to, without having to shop. It's be a tad boring by the end, I grant you, but we'd still be eating nutritious food.

I have a good stock of frozen vegetarian alternatives to meat, and plenty of tins and packets of basic items, and I'm careful to use things in rotation, so that we don't end up with 10-year-old tins of tomatoes.:D

My mother was an absolute nightmare in this respect - not only were there no spare tins or packets, only the one that was open, even if there was just a smidge left in it, she actually used to put empty packets back in the cupboard (never could fathom why). Also she only ever shopped on a Thursday, and she wrote her shopping list Wednesday night; so if she left something vital off the list, we were without it til the following week.

I vowed I'd never be like her.....:D

Popperwell

Saver0811 wrote: »

Everyone ..... don't forget to have a manual (non-electric) Tin Opener, preferably two in your store cupboard!!

I seem to have two and two potato peelers and I have too many plates, bowls, tea cups, mugs, glasses, cutlery. Enough to last me a lifetime unless I smash them by accident, there was enough for Mum and myself but now I am alone...so I won't be buying any more...

Popperwell

I agree with all that you say Butterfly Brain and Grey Queen. At present all the worries I have are all about how I'll survive financially for much of the reasons you give, I try not to be political and I know that everyone is not in the same situation or shares my views...but I still think that is due to the lack of reporting in the media and the spin being put out which with the drip, drip, drip effect colours opinion...some will find out how difficult it is and its not gravy train many believe nor always easy to get!
But I digress, sorry...

Popperwell

I wish I had access to a card for Macro and Costco, I bet a lot of us do but even if I did they are a long journey away and I'd need transport...

GreyQueen

Hun, it's good to not want to be political because of not wanting to cause a kerfuffle, but, no matter what our personal situations, we will be affected by what those (insert words of your choice here) people in Westminster Village decide to inflict on us.

I'm one of the "working poor" ; effectively I work for £29 a week above JSA + HB/CTB levels. Pensioners with the same income as I have get full HB/CTB but because I'm forty-something, I get to pay all my bills myself. And that's OK, I'm used to managing and am very good at it.

I suppose I'm one of the people the Tories think would be into supporting their benefit-bashing policies but I'm not. We're all just folks, doing the best we can. I don't think benefits are too high, I think wages are too blinking low.

Years ago, a benefits officer told me that the reason why no politician wants to be seen to cut anything from the pensioners is that they are the majority of the voters. If younger people want a fair crack of the whip, they need to get off their aspisdistras and down to the polling station en masse. Apathy will see you robbed blind.

OK, climbing off my soapbox now.:o

One thing I will say is that some household cleaning products aren't effective after prolonged storage. Chief amongst them is washing powder, which loses its oomph over time (a couple of years) and even washing up liquid can separate (my Mum has discovered this with a bottle of gawdknowshowold Fairy Liquid. I've also found that roll-on type deodorants can go all "alcoholly" and sting if stored too long. Other than that, lots of stuff is good to store as long as you can keep it dry and away from the vermin. Can you imagine how much mess a family of mice could make in a t.p. stash?:rotfl:

I'm enjoying running my household with a storecupboard as it has made me more aware of how much of certain foodstuffs I use (1 litre of oil and 1 kilo of porridge oats per month as just one example) and therefore more able to provide a reasonable level of stockpiling without tipping over into wastefulness. I find it helpful to have an inventory, so that I don't have to keep delving into my caches to count things.

Remember your mantra; FIFO (first in first out). Laters, GQ x

Butterfly_Brain

PM sent chirpychick x

Popperwell

Good points you make on everything Greyqueen and thanks for the advice on cleaning products. I'll use what I have before buying any more. I suspect that they will be used before that happens...

I'll regret saying this but I think I am ok regarding mice etc...and I have lots of doors that remain shut and when I get rid of the clutter in the outhouse, well on the way with that job, everything is tidy so less likely to attract such a problem.

Whilst I am here(forever I hope)I may turn the spare bedroom into my store even if that means everything is upstairs. But as I have a kettle upstairs and I spend a lot of time there too I may bring one of my microwaves upstairs.

In the final weeks of Mum staying in a Nursing Home sometimes they did quick simple meals like scrambled eggs by having a microwave on the second floor...