emergency rations

[SlugLobber]

Is this thread for real or is my sense of humour slipping?

I think mine has slipped off with yours, SBP!

[Rhona]

I employ several staff to manage our provisions. We have a full time chap on meat, and two part-timers on veg and fish. Everything is listed alphabetically, size-graded and larger items have a pet name. Twice a week, I conduct a flipchart session with the staff, where I, for example, yell "sweetcorn"; and the staff member will leap to their feet, and then yell back the exact location, volume, and precise age of the item.

I have the combination lock of the freezers tattooed on a new part of my body each Christmas.


I'm only joshing you. I really do admire proper organisation and get so annoyed with myself for having four bags of open frozen peas but no spinach or something, but I'm not going to let the chance of cheap laugh go by either...

[Winged one]

I am not too bothered about stocking up the food cupboards per se (I tend to bulk buy certain things anyway), although I'd love a decently large freezer so that I could then really justify growing gluts of veg and taking advantage of the neighbours of my MIL who sell a whoe or half sheep a couple of times a year. As a general thing.

At the moment, I am not more worried about food than normal - there will be food available even if the banking systems crash utterly. The only thing I am doing differently is making sure that I have enough cash to last me a couple of weeks for petrol and food - the essentials of life stuff - as I tend to rely on electronic banking mostly (cards and internet banking). I reckon that the annual bills, mortgage etc would all get sorted eventually, but the important thing would be being able to get around and buy the fresh bread and milk for the few weeks while everything gets sorted.

[lynda66]

I think mine has slipped off with yours, SBP!

and mine ........ i never understand panic buying ..... it's like when you nip into asda for a loaf of bread and some milk on xmas eve ...... and the whole flipping shop is empty ..... it's only 2 days ffs

SHOPS WILL ALWAYS HAVE FOOD ...... that's what they do.... all panic buying does, is stops everyone from getting hold of it.

economic meltdowns are usually caused by people panicking

[marigold007]

I've been waiting on the bank crashes since February. There's an interesting documentary on the iplayer showing how this all got started called Super Rich: The Greed Game. It's available until the 14th at 8 pm. I haven't seen such an interesting show since I watched Adam Curtis' Century of The Self parts 1-4. (The Century Of The Self - Part 1 of 4 - By Adam Curtis)

Besides that, I have been buying foods in season and stocking up for the Winter. This was fairly common behaviour before the advent of the Supermarket and I am finding it quite fun.

[di]

This thread has reminded me of a little lady I did care work for.She was brought up during WW2 & could not let go of the need to keep well stocked cupboards.At least on a weekly basis she'd send me out for loo rolls & tinned grapefruit,even though she didn't need any.Wasn't until her sister came to visit one day & showed me the "emergency"cupboard that I realised the true extent!!!
Personally,I'm not too brill at organising rations for just one wek~let alone several!!

[OverWyreGrower]

We always have a large freezer full of stuff, but that's generally cos I make huge amounts of everything for the freezer.

This year, we've taken advantage of a friend's offer of half a pig which arrived last week. We've got enough pork chops to last until after Christmas and a lovely side of ribs. We've also got 5 good joints of meat, some of which will be for Christmas!

I never panic buy anything. Don't see the point of it. My larder is always fairly well stocked anyway (tins, dried stuff etc) so I don't worry about it!

[Alison]

One of my nans used to stockpile sugar and teabags and the other had a bit of a thing for tinned fruit. I blame the war.

[SlugLobber]

Actually, this thread reminds me of when I lodged with a bit of a strange 'un, a couple of years ago. I moved out after 3 months, as his strange ways just got too much!

He had the entire dining room filled with boxes upon boxes of tinned food, most years out of date, as he was convinced that any day now they would close roads with fuel protests or people would panick buy all the stocks in the supermarkets. He also had lots of 4L milk bottles, washed out and filled with water. Due to the drought, he said that the company would cut off the water without warning and so it was also 'just in case'. He also refused to have central heating in the house, as it was 'warm enough'. Maybe for him, as he only worked there during the day, and he had a heater on next to his chair! I had to borrow a plug-in radiator and fan heater for my bedroom! Oh and the water tank ballcock did not work, so in order to have a shower, I had to climb up into the loft (VERY dangerous ladder!), fill the tank manually, then switch it off when I heard the overflow.

Oh those little things they don't tell you when you look round a place to rent! I found out about the water tank when my shower ran out of water!!

I wet myself laughing reading Rhona's post! Thank you!

[marigold007]

I don't think it has to be an either/or of either being eligible for a tin foil hat or throwing caution to the wind. Everyone is somewhere on this spectrum. Some of us are just more conservative than others. Sorry to hear about your ex-lodgings Sluglobber. They sound dreadful.

[Catrina]

This post reminded me of my ex-mother in law who was a very sweet and kind lady who would help anyone. But she and her husband has a tendency to hoard. After the war when things were in short supply they must have started the habit of hoarding and it never stopped. Anything was collected and stored, string, carrier bags, bricks in the back garden, in her case it was shoes and cooking pans and pyrex dishes, stored under my bed when I lived with them for a short while, every single cupboard was filled with something, "just in case".

The worst advice I was ever given by her was to buy something and "not to tell your husband just put it away and bring it out later to say that you have had it for ages, I am sure you must have seen it". I did it when I first got married and when my OH found out we never really got over the fall out it caused. We divorced a few years later.

Now remarried I never do that. Though we do have a good store cupboard, with a spread sheet list showing what is in there and boxes next to the item which gets ticked when used. So if there are 6 tins of beans in the cupboard there are six clear boxes when they are all ticked I buy some more. The same with the freezer. I think it comes from being a PA for a Chairman of a company and I had to be very organised just to get to the end of the week without having a nervous breakdown.

[Hilary B]

My cupboards do contain quite a lot of things, and we could probably live on the contents for a few weeks if we had to (by being flexible) but if things really get critical, it is more likely that we wouldn't be able to cook (power cuts/gas turned off) than that there would be no food to buy. I don't 'stockpile' I just buy things because they are tempting and affordable (or because I misremember what we are running short of. My Mum used to do that, she would notice 'not much flour' and buy some, then next week she would buy flour again. After a few weeks she would remember when shopping that flour was NOT running out..... I'm not that bad!)

[Polly Fouracre]

I tend not to bother unless a national emergency is looming.Then I gather things that won't spoil if the electricity is turned off. Tinned and dried foods, flour,pulses, dried fruit,tea,sugar etc. I have been known to go over the top and hoard enough for a year!!

[Alison]

Yes but when exactly did we last have a real national emergency rather than something which the press built up as one????????

[Winged one]

I think I mistook the general theme of the thread - my head is soooo full of dreary economic guff (both general world crisis and more specific work stuff) that I am not seeing straight at the minute.

If someone is telling a joke, please put a smiley on it - I am definitely not hearing/reading the "underlying giggle" kinda thing...sorry. Am just taking everything utterly literally.

I think I need a bigger emergency ration of alcohol (preferably before midnight tonight when wine increase 50c per bottle and petrol 8c per litre (luckily my petrol tank is almost empty!!