The Prepping Thread - A Newer Beginning ;)

Toonie

I definitely find food prices are going up. Just having totted up this months spends, it's the third month in a row I've gone over what I'd like to spend. Our food shops tend to be quite similar month on month (the joys of a restrictive diet due to chronic health condition) and each month we've overspent by around £30 compared to last year (on a monthly food budget of £180). At the moment our wages have been coping with that, but I'm going to pull it in next month and see what happens.

As for what I prep for, it's definitely more of a short term affair. Growing up we often had very little and most months we would run out of money for food and Mum would bake scones and cake which would feed us for the last few days of the months until Dad got paid again. My preps are against having to do that (though there have been times where baking basics have kept me going-though I also learnt to cook a few more things for variety). I know what I have in my store cupboard could feed me and my partner for a few weeks...it may get a little repetitive, but it would be something to keep us going.

maryb

Well, the looming fresh food supply chain problems have made it to the front page of the Daily Wail.  If that doesn't guarantee empty shelves I don't know what will.  I get milk delivered but I find in the summer it goes off quite quickly even though the milkman delivers very early so it's not as if it has been sitting on the doorstep in the sun.  I think it might be because I have organic milk and they don't sell so much of that so the turnover isn't as quick.  I've paused the deliveries for the moment because we will be away quite a lot with various family matters and DD2 is finally flying the nest so I need to reassess how much we get through now it is just the two of us.  But I haven't cancelled because back when lock down started it was impossible to get deliveries unless you were an existing customer.

And I do prefer milk in glass bottles.  I know it's arguable that if you look at it from the point of view of carbon emissions, plastic might be better.  But that plastic can't truly be recycled, it can only be downcycled and when that stuff reaches the end of its useful life the plastic is still hanging around

Floss

Mary, one night when it was very warm & all the upstairs windows were open, I was disturbed by what appeared to be a milkman - at 1.30am!

[Deleted User]

Being hungry is not nice and not something you forget no matter how old you get, being cold and chilblains too are an enduring memory so my three prepping priorities even in 2021 are having enough non perishable food stores in to make sure we get fed even if it's only one meal a day, having enough wood to run the stove so we get at least one warm room and having in enough candles/tea lights to make sure we always have light in the darkness. We've over the years saved for and bought equipment that would make life more comfortable and safer in a real emergency but nothing that we haven't used camping or in the garden so we've a Kelly kettle, solar lights, decent sleeping bags, good quality waterproofs and footwear and some good down quilts and woollen blankets but it's taken 50 years to get what we've got and we've looked after it all so it's still good. We all do what we can with means available to be prepared for what life is apt to throw under our feet and we all have a different view as to what's the priority and none of us are wrong...everyone who makes preps for the unforseen is a step ahead of the herd and making their futures better should anything actually happen that is totally disruptive.  Good luck to all of us!

Floss

@boazu, @GreyQueen et al, do your allotment plots have good security in the event of fresh food shortage, to disrupt the plans of any looters? I know the Blackpool sites all have 2.5m steel fencing around them & double locking bolts on their entrance gates but we still had "visitors" now & then.

I guess anyone who really wanted to get in would do so if there was free food to be acquired to feed families / sell.

[Deleted User]

Our site has an unlocked 5 bar gate but then we're in a rural village and 10 or so miles from anywhere else and we're 5,000 head of population max. we get the odd thing go missing but the site is surrounded by housing whose back gardens abut the site so if there was a lot of theft happening I'm sure someone would see who it was and this is a community where everyone has been at school together and all their families know each other too.  If someone really needed to feed themselves because they were hungry I don't think any of us would object to the odd thing going awol.  If however anyone was taking a crop to sell for profit it would very soon be on the village website. and most likely with photos.

Nargleblast

That's one thing I think many people forget, Floss. It's easy to sit there congratulating yourself on having the sense to have stores of this and that, but in the event of civil unrest (for whatever the reason) there is always the pond life element that will turn their minds to theft and looting. This has happened already in the past year - more people decided to adopt a dog during lockdown, demand for dogs shot up, prices rocketed then all of a sudden people's dogs were getting stolen.

I think, if you have huge stores of food or other desirable commodities, and things like productive gardens or allotments, you should be very careful and discreet about talking about them in real life or on  social media, You never know who could be listening or reading.

Floss

I agree Nargle, the last lot who were nicked by the police had driven the length of the M55 from Preston, equipped with bolt cutters to do their food "shop", so weren't locals. Looting isn't confined to one's local area.

I was talking to one of my sons about the 1970s series 'Survivors' and he told me about the 2007-ish remake. He hadn't seen the original until this week and thought it was a realistic predictor of behaviour in the event of societal breakdown.

greenbee

I guess if you're prepping for shortages and civil unrest, the best way to grow your own food is to grow things that don't look like food, in amongst ornamentals, so no one notices them. 

There are frequently outraged posts on the village FB group about how sad it is that there is so much crime in such a lovely village - but then, if it wasn't so lovely, there wouldn't be so many nice cars/bikes in shed/garden furniture to nick would there? BTW - garden furniture is the latest thing being stolen to order. 

VJsmum

Is there an issue with broccoli?  I haven't been able to get any for a couple of weeks (though haven't tried that hard, just haven't seen it when i've looked).