Prepping for Brexit thread

chirpychick

Humptydumptybits
I'm far too much of a worrier to store fuel but am thinking of filling both cars with diesel. Thankfully my husband could at a push walk to the station (or better, find a bike for cheap and cycle to the station) to get a train to work and walk from there which is a blessing though would bring our finances crashing down. (Hence a possible need for stockpiling food).

Monkey and I could walk most places, I brought a second hand disability pushchair for all terrain which should last him a year or 2 because there is no way he could do the walking/cycling. Leaving what diesel we may have for hospitals/elderly inlaws/emergencies. But to fill both cars would be quite costly. Having sat and written this i'd think it would be a wise idea to plan to do this. At the end of the day the diesel will still get used even if we don't have any problems. So rather than one initial outlay I will start adding an extra £10 or so to the tank a week.

We have 2 chickens, one is disabled and both have stopped laying since the clocks changed lol but come spring should start up again, I don't eat the eggs but give them to friends and family.
That's not to say I wouldn't if the need arose!

One of the things i'm struggling with is that we rely so heavily on fresh produce, fruit, veg, milk, cheese, butter - bread doesn't worry me too much, I have brought some strong bread flour and have plain flour too. We have a bread maker so I will dust that off if need be. I perhaps may add to the bread flour and yeast but from what I can gather there shouldn't be an issue with grains and bread supply? Perhaps anyone could correct me if im wrong on that.

I have tried to stock up on various types of beans and lentils, barley, rice, pasta, chopped tomatoes, oil, i brought garlic puree and tomato puree. So we can easily have pasta and sauce. Rice and beans. Baked beans on toast.

We have definitely started to rely quite heavily on some processed items, quorn nuggets and escalopes, vegetable fingers and that kind of thing so for Christmas I got a all singing all dancing food processor to help with making some of that stuff from scratch. So one of my prepping plans doesn't involve spending/buying but getting more practice in cooking from scratch.

As I said we have a new allotment but i'm under no illusions that it wont get robbed if the SHTF.
No space for an additional freezer either. So im kind of hoping that filling the freezer and cupboards with some veg and that we as a country can sustain ourselves with our own vegetables even if that means limited selection.

humptydumptybits

chirpychick sounds like you have a good plan. I think filling up both our cars would cost about £100 so not cheap but would then keep us going for quite a while. One positive thing for me is Lidl are opening a new supermarket within walking distance. At the moment I have to drive to shop so walking to Lidl will save me alot of petrol. I do a shop on line about once a month to have the heavy/storecupboard stuff delivered but I do like to go and pick the fresh stuff.

betterlife

Chirpychick don’t forget milk, butter and cheese can be frozen, grate the cheese and put in freezer bags that can squeeze in gaps, buy small packs of butter or chop and wrap bigger packs, if freezer space is limited but some powdered or long life milk to see you through. Small amounts of veg can be grown in containers at home if you prefer fresh over tinned/frozen, and perhaps familiarise yourself with edibles that grow in the wild and see if some may grow close to where you live so you can forage for free! We found 4 lovely apple trees last year on public abandoned land that we where the only ones picking from, I also foraged for wild garlic, chestnut, hazel nuts, walnuts, pears, blackberries, parasol mushrooms, porchini mushrooms just to name a few! We are lucky enough to beable to fish and shoot game too. I bought lots of veg seeds at the end of last year, so intend to grow a lot in my garden this year. We spend very little time in our garden as we are out in the countryside at any given opportunity,and the kids no longer use it, so it seems a waste to have a lawn when it could be a very productive food source for us!

Living_proof

chirpychick wrote: »

Humptydumptybits

As I said we have a new allotment but i'm under no illusions that it wont get robbed if the SHTF.
No space for an additional freezer either.

I also have a small allotment and didn't have any problems with theft last year, although some of my fellow plotholders did and especially desirable seemed to be new potatoes, sweetcorn and apples so if I grow any of them it will be in my own garden. Have you thought of getting a small dehydrator to dry your produce? I have solar panels so the cost to me is negligible in the summer months but I have noticed my electricity bill has risen in the last quarter when there were so few daylight hours. Next year I will concentrate on using it in high summer to avoid the cost, so you would need to check out the running costs carefully and weigh up whether you think it would be worthwhile.

It's not just Brexit which is a contributory factor, there's also the fact that food bank use is increasing dramatically and the well chronicled problems with Universal Credit. I think there will be problems with civil unrest/disobedience and lots of low-level criminal activity. However, there is nothing much as individuals that we can do to stop it - we can only avoid it by taking precautions. Grow your best crops at home, space permitting, and use the allotment for the healthy green stuff and root crops which are generally avoided by the opportunist allotment thief.

The most positive spin I can put on it all really is to plan for the worst, but hope for the best!

humptydumptybits

chirpychick just thought about local things. I could, at a push, walk to the local fishing port and buy fish off the boat. That could be useful, is there anything local that could help you?

Goldiegirl

timehastoldme wrote: »

At no point that I can see has anyone suggested prepping is pointless or that prepping for Brexit is pointless. I think Brexit will be a sh*tsh*w, prepping is very sensible and lament that it's necessary. Have made careful preparations, am lucky enough that my meds are life enhancing rather than life prolonging and that my surgery is scatty enough not to notice early reorders. Some aren't lucky in either respect and it's reasonable to have concerns. Why are people so dismissive of that?

Prepping isn't owned by a group who post on these forums, neither is having lived in extreme poverty. It's not limited to a certain generation or political standing. Why is any criticism of the Brexit process taken as a personal attack!?

Ok, reading back I asked if Brexit was so fab then why is prepping necessary, was it that? Because that isn't a comment on the validity of prepping, it's a comment on the not fabness of Brexit.

I totally agree with this post.

I've got the impression that a small group think they own this thread, and anybody who is not of exactly the same mindset as them and is brave enough to mention it, is not welcome.

I noted that, although we are preparing for, at best, a major civil contingency, many people on here appeared to support the actions that might cause the contingency in the first place! In order to understand better, I asked about this. I really wish I hadn't ! The closing ranks made me feel very unwelcome, and for some people, it could actually be rather intimidating.

For my part, I've been prepping for Brexit since the autumn, and I'm interested in seeing what everyone else is doing, so I can judge whether I'm doing too little, or too much.

We need to know what we are planning for, so there will be political talk as the situation changes. Everybody's view is entrenched, I don't think anybody is expecting or even wanting to change someone else's opinion.

I really hope that all of us on this thread can be more accepting of differing views, without regarding them as threats.

maryb

Nobody thinks they own this thread but it is on the Old Style board which is not intended for and does not lend itself to political discussions - that is what Discussion Time is for. Political talk has a tendency to crowd out the practical discussions and people on the Old Style boards are generally more focused on the practical.

As a number of people have said, we are where we are. Whether you support the referendum decision or not. Why and how does it help with prepping to understand the decisions people made? That is something completely different to trying to fathom out the implications of the result

Goldiegirl

maryb wrote: »

Nobody thinks they own this thread but it is on the Old Style board which is not intended for and does not lend itself to political discussions - that is what Discussion Time is for. Political talk has a tendency to crowd out the practical discussions and people on the Old Style boards are generally more focused on the practical.

As a number of people have said, we are where we are. Whether you support the referendum decision or not. Why and how does it help with prepping to understand the decisions people made? That is something completely different to trying to fathom out the implications of the result

I'm a human being - I like to understand other human beings. I can't help it, I've always been that way

maryb

Maybe try understanding that people on an Old Style thread like to focus on the practical aspects of prepping.

lessonlearned

Please can I just ask what kind of tinned meats you are buying.....,,

My only recollection of tinned meats are not happy ones. Fray Bentos steak and kidney pies were particularly disgusting as I recall. :rotfl:

I am happy enough buying tinned tuna, salmon etc but apart from corned beef (which I think is extortionate for what it is) I have no idea what meat in tins would be half decent.