THE Prepping thread - a new beginning :)

Cappella

Blimey. Did my long promised 8 weeks worth tinned goods restock today and was stunned at some prices :eek: I!!!8217;ll just need to replace what we use now each week and we!!!8217;re back to our normal stock which is arelief. I was getting a little twitchy about empty larder shelves after the kitchen was removed and replaced.
Brexit issues or no Brexit issues it won!!!8217;t bother me now and I know we use everything I!!!8217;ve bought so I just feel nicely prepared for whatever life throws at us. Which I!!!8217;m sure it will, in one way or another :rotfl:
I!!!8217;m my previous incarnation I think I must have been a Girl Guide leader !!!128522;

[Deleted User]

What about the REALLY important stock?

Do you have plenty of toilet rolls?

[Deleted User]

The amount of stores you decide to hold is such a personal thing I don't think there can be a formula for how much of each item you decide is necessary nor what type of product you deem is necessary. The size of the household drives it and the habits of the household too. It may be seen as absolute hysteria to even consider that there might be shortages around Brexit and it might seem quite likely, it really depends on you as an individual. I like to run with a fair amount of stores of the things we use most of as a general rule, I love my 'shop in the store room' especially in those dark and cold days of winter when I find I'm short of one ingredient for a dish and then remember I have one upstairs, it makes for a much more comfortable life for me. I've all my married life made what I call 'an investment in futures' when I have any housekeeping left at the end of the week, I don't ever recall having to get extra cash to make a stock room full of useful things, it's always been built in to our everyday lifestyle and there have been times when it's meant the difference between eating well and scraping by and managing a crisis or suffering as a consequence of it. Those people who consider prepping to be only the realm of that part of the population who are wild, whacky and misguided fools don't fully understand the nature of preppers do they?

GreyQueen

The trouble with prepping is most of it is very very ordinary and not at all telegenic or newsworthy. No editor is going to want to go with a journalist's pitch along the lines of;


Well, we've found out that a fair few people have a couple of months' worth of tinned food and loo roll in, and we've heard that they're doing it on purpose, so we want to interview a few of them to find out why. We've got a nice retired lady called Lyn and some other ladies and gents of middling ages and a lot of commonsense, and thought it might be a good story.


Versus, of course, a bunch of nutty exhibitionists with enough firearms to prosecute a small war, bunkers and the entire family in camo, even down to their undercrackers.........


Yup, you can see which story gets written, can't you? And, I always think if someone is prepared to give an interview and have their photo taken, they're no true prepper. Me, my OPSEC is so deep that I'd feign ignorance of the very meaning of the word prepper, should it ever crop up in general conversation.


I'm intending to start building the olive mountain (not to be confused with the Mount of Olives). I eat the contents of one of Liddly's small jars of olives every 7 days. They are presently a very reasonable 59p each. My most recent ones are BB 2021. I have identified a nook where some cartons of a very specific size can fit and will be sourcing some boxes to fit and building my own mini-jar mountain over the coming weeks.


The worst thing which could happen ? Errm, housefire and total loss of olives? Burglary? Unexpected house move involving lifting boxes? Or simply benefitting from eating 2019, 2020 and 2021 olives at 2018 prices..........?


I think I can live with those risks.:rotfl:

Cappella

Bedsit Bob said

What about the REALLY important stock?
Do you have plenty of toilet rolls?

Certainly do.

I'm happy with what I store. We are all different people with different needs, and none of us will prep in the same way. Quantity of and the actual goods I keep in the pantry have been refined over many years. Gone are the days of my youth when I bought dried kidney beans in bulk just because all the prepping books recommended them. They served us well once in a financial crisis but beans and rice can pall after the first 10 meals - well, after the first three meals really :rotfl: I keep what my mum would gave considered a practical and well stocked larder and it's helped us out many, many times.

Added to which if the smelly stuff REALLY hitthe fan I could trade long distance with GreyQueen. I have many jars of liddly olives I would happily exchange for baked beans or sardines :T And we have sooo much honey. I could become a post apocalyptic millionaire swapping it for gold bullion.

Failing that unlikely scenario though at the very least I'm prepped enough to serve a three course meal at a moments notice should my s andd b-in-law drop in unexpectedly on their way back down south. Which they are doing tomorrow, so a quick whisk round with the vac is in order here.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

What about the REALLY important stock?

Do you have plenty of toilet rolls?

Not so daft as you'd think.

The country of origin/manufacture for the majority of major washing powder brands, according to one of the online supermarkets (up til last week when they suddenly changed to say UK) was listed as France and the eco friendly versions - the ones you could safely chuck over the cabbages - are still listed as EU. Just as we will have British fish that is frozen and exported thousands of miles away to be prepared, only to have it labelled as UK again once it's shoved into a box, and various meats/grains in a similar fashion, a lot of stuff inconveniently shuffles around the EU before it's packaged and sold here under the guise of being a UK product.

Looking at my regular meds, the manufacturer has an office here. The license holder is the German head office. They actually make the stuff in the Czech Republic. Along with a huge proportion of the chemotherapy and immunosupressive drugs on the UK market. I have the industry gold standard for treatment. Everybody has to go on it before other medications are considered, and then they are often only funded if you continue with the gold standard meds as well.

Even a glitch in the changeover for meds, never mind a complete failure, would result in many people relapsing - and by coming off it, the funding for the other drugs (assuming they aren't also manufactured outside the UK, which they generally are) would automatically cease due to 'non compliance with the approved protocol'.

Even a glitch in the changeover for importing bog roll and stuff for making homes cleaner and safer for those of us who are necessarily immunocompromised due to essential medication could make the difference between contracting a horrible infection or not.


So yes, there is a backup of bog roll, medicated/treatment shampoo/bath products (they've both disappeared from the shelves without notice due to supplier issues more than once in recent years, leading to a relapse in skin symptoms within days), there will be in soap powder and cleaning materials to reduce the risk of infection, all living safely upstairs in the cupboard well away from potential flooding.

Karmacat

Olive mountains :j:j:j me too.



I also have a bit of a beetroot mountain going on, even though its from this country - once I find a food that I like, that I haven't had for a while, I have to build up stocks, see


Coconut. Dessicated, flaked, whatever. Its not from the EU but I can imagine it getting caught up in the WTO rules and being a lot more expensive when it comes back on the shelves.... think I might have a hill of coconut too.

GreyQueen

I have just measured the designated footprint * for the Olive Mountain and I need a box (or boxes) of 20x 14 inches and a height of the jars (5 inches) or a whisker taller. The idea is that the jars will form a solid layer. And stack.


And Henri D'Vac will roost on top of them. Nursie is going to have to budge up or move somewhere else, the olives are more important.


* hall cupboard.


I will also be adding some more TP to the Holdings. It lives on an above-the-head-height shelf in my storage shed, hidden in bin bags which cause it to fade into the gloaming when shed door is opened.


My storage shed is actually very well organised but is designed to look chaotic and junky if a nosey-parker peers in when passing along the corridor.;)

jk0

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

So yes, there is a backup of bog roll, medicated/treatment shampoo/bath products (they've both disappeared from the shelves without notice due to supplier issues more than once in recent years, leading to a relapse in skin symptoms within days), there will be in soap powder and cleaning materials to reduce the risk of infection, all living safely upstairs in the cupboard well away from potential flooding.

Jojo, do you perchance use Polytar Plus shampoo? I've been using it for 30 years, but it seems to have disappeared. I can get the ordinary Polytar from Amazon in tiny bottles for an exorbitant price, but I would like to still buy the Polytar Plus.


Anyone know where I can get it?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

jk0 wrote: »

Jojo, do you perchance use Polytar Plus shampoo? I've been using it for 30 years, but it seems to have disappeared. I can get the ordinary Polytar from Amazon in tiny bottles for an exorbitant price, but I would like to still buy the Polytar Plus.


Anyone know where I can get it?

Not been able to find it in ages - definitely from before the four year gap in Polytar supplies ended. I switched to T-Gel original and then found that Mane 'n' Tail Shampoo & Conditioner was excellent in keeping scalp lesions at bay (and was good for the start of inverse psoriasis lesions whilst waiting for the Dovobet gel to do its thing). At a pinch, I'd go looking in the pet aisles, as their coal tar shampoo is a hell of a lot cheaper than the human versions.