Preparedness for when

Karmacat

I'm trying to focus on one thing at the weekend - this weekend, it's batteries - I've been meaning to for ages, bought some eneloops batteries at the end of last year, and then I saw what kittie said about storing carefully - that really resonated! Even for ordinary rechargeables, but especially with eneloops, the price they are ... so I've got a spare Yorkshire Tea tin, that I was using for long term first aid supplies, distributed them elsewhere, and started to get everything together and get them all packed securely. Existing ones will just go in there as is, sandwiched betweeen clean J cloths, but the eneloops ones will stay in their packaging for now, and eventually have little joined up sleeping bags each (like a bandolier of ammunition, but for batteries :rotfl: and flat in a tin not slung around my shoulder :rotfl:).

thriftwizard

Trouble is, people who see no necessity to think more than a day or two ahead are sometimes tempted to call one's preps "hoarding"... and there's a real difficulty sometimes telling where the dividing line is! OH and one or two of the Offspring call themselves minimalists (how someone with 30,000-odd football programmes could be a minimalist is beyond me) and think our food stocks amount to a hoard. But they'd feed us for less than a month if TS ever did HTF; I rotate stocks religiously and hardly anything ever goes out of date. A tray (12 tins) of tinned tomatoes or baked beans will last us a month if we're lucky; a sack of spuds currently lasts about 3-4 weeks. However it probably looks like a hoard to people who are only feeding 2 or 3, and to people who think empty (tidy!) cupboards & daily trips to the supermarket are "normal" but I have other things I'd rather be doing with my time!

That said, I don't deny that I do have a tendency to hang onto too much stuff; excess stock and fabric for projects I really want to get around to, but don't have the time for being the major problems. Thus making myself an easy target... though I am trying very hard to tackle it when I have any spare time. I suspect some of the offspring will have a horror of hoarding when they finally manage to leave home, and may well react like Calicocat's BF to anything they think is excessive or out of place...

fuddle

I'm very much an organised person and with that has to come clean, tidy and everything in it's place. Everything I have has to earn it's keep and be useful or be seen to be useful in the future. I don't have a lot of kit because I try to make do with what I have and my investments are carefully thought out with the aim of it being multipurpose or being useful for a variety of jobs,

Our multiple moves and multiple SHTF scenarios have meant that my food stocks are not at all level where I am comfortable but when they do get there, which will be in the near future as are going to throw money at it in the next week or so, my large amount of cupboard space (such a new fangled luxury!) will be occupied to the full and I will make no apologies to anyone for having overspill around the house. Food out of place wouldn't bother me, in fact it would make me feel content. Leave a blanket out and:mad:

Jazee

Food gets rotated here and I don't keep quite the same amount of stocks as I did when the offspring were at home, but everything gets used and I have food in the kitchen, in a cupboard in the hall, in a cupboard on the landing and in a cupboard in the gym. There is actually a third freezer in the gym now, but I don't suppose that will be much use if the power goes down, but it does mean I can cook in bulk etc now and not waste anything I grow.

moneyistooshorttomention

It makes sense - even just within an ordinary/everyday context to be stocked up with food I feel.

I was pretty well stocked-up in my last house and it only took me literally a few minutes to get to where I could buy food.

Here it is still a short walk for me to nearest supermarket - but I find it worth it to make sure I am extremely well stocked-up because of a combination of the weather here is often offputting for going out and I don't want to have to if its howling a gale or bucketing down with rain. Add in that very little of my foodshopping is now centred on places I go past anyway in the course of my Life, whereas previously I could just pick things up on my way back from x, y or z thing I had chosen to go to/do of myself. I have to "go out of my way" a bit to do most of that foodshopping - hence being very aware of what foodstuff I think I will be eating imminently and doing a Big Shop to keep levels of stocks up when I go out of my way to go to main supermarket I use here.

mardatha

I'm like fuddle, I can't bear clutter. If a thing hasn't been used in the last 6 months then it's put out in the shed. The RV seems to think that if he puts down a screwdriver or a socket on the table or unit then it will still be lying there 8 years later..
I've been thinking (always dangerous!) lots of space on the prepper forums given over to generators/solar/fancy batteries etc.... for me, wth my levels of knowledge, DIY and general canny-be-assedness, I think it makes more sense to just learn to do without.
My mother never had a fridge or freezer in her life, neither had my grannies. They probably turned out far better food and meals than I do. I know it's handy for milk, since we are so far from a shop - but honestly think everything else would be fine. Wish now I hadn't demolished the pantry when we moved in here...

Frugalsod

One thing that I do re food storage is reuse containers that the food comes in. There are a range of ready to reheat curries that are for sale in Mr T that come in clear plastic containers. Rather than reheat the food in these containers I transfer it to a red microwave bowl so it does not stain and that leaves me with an empty but unstained clear food container which I can wash and then freeze something later on. They make great portion sized freezer safe containers, which can be stacked.

silverwhistle

GreyQueen wrote: »

so will be going up to my allotment to plant gooseberry bushes, purchased from the land of the poond. They have blueberries and raspberries, if anyone is interested. All named varieties.

Ooh yes, think I might try a few blueberries in pots, I think they are OK that way. Here in the sunny south my terrace house garden still has some large puddles on the grass due to the clay, and at least pots will drain well.

PS: is that the full hundred or the ninety-nine p version of the shop?

silverwhistle

..and in the spirit of adding an idea for storage, you can buy muslin which covers but allows cheese (for example) to breathe. I bought some the other day as a pull through for my flute, but might also use some for cheese making. The material would also be good for the idea above of ironing in some wax to make it more impervious to liquid. Somewhere I've got a specialist ski waxing iron: once had an unfortunate accident with a cheap normal iron I used for waxing and a work blouse... Don't use your normal iron whatever you do!

GreyQueen

silverwhistle wrote: »

Ooh yes, think I might try a few blueberries in pots, I think they are OK that way. Here in the sunny south my terrace house garden still has some large puddles on the grass due to the clay, and at least pots will drain well.

PS: is that the full hundred or the ninety-nine p version of the shop?

£land bought out 99p, didn't they? It was a £land branded store.

There's a downside to this, in that I used to joke about being too miserly for £land when I could shop at 99p Store, and that won't work any more.

One thing I have noticed recently is Wilko's will sell many ordinary things much cheaper than £land, so be sure to check them out. They're inconveniently-situated for me, so tend to get forgotten, but I am pleasantly surprised when I do go in.

fuddle, you've moved in the last couple of months, not surprising if you're prep-lite on the foodstuffs atm. I am in process of running the mini freezer down, so I can catch up with certain items and know that they're not getting freezer burn in there.

I'm having an afternoon at home, pottering and cleaning and tidying. I have preps in some surprising places, hope I don't get run over by a bus any time soon or the family will think I have really lost the plot. But I find it reassuring. I rotate stuff regularly and nothing has gone off or to waste yet, and I don't intend that anything will.