What will you be stockpiling?

[Mountain Goat]

I need to look at what I can realistically grow too, just a patch of rocket this year was useful in terms of always having some fresh greens. I don't have the space to do anything dramatic (and generally just focus on herbs that I can't easily buy) but some kale or spinach is probably a good plan to just keep things ticking over. I'm good now for most things, I've just recently added a small stock of easy/ready meals for if I'm ill and can't be doing with cooking and want to check on (god forbid this is necessary) things that can be eaten without access to power (cooked pulses, tinned tuna, nothing much more than that - I don't expect to need this but it does no harm to know there is stuff there).

I think the term stockpiling is used so widely that it becomes a bit meaningless. There's lots to be negative about re panic buying but having a modest stock of basics purchased during plenty means you're not contributing to shortages if the supply chains do fail. It's pretty much the opposite. I appreciate that a lot of people can't build up a stock; if those that can do so, then those that can't have less competition for the last tin of beans and there's more to go round.

We've also both grown to find this a useful and easy (and economical) way of doing things regardless. We can buy things when they're cheaper, and I never run out of anything important and have to run to the shop mid-cook, because there's always a back up in the stockpile cupboard. It's depressing that we have to think like this though.

[viggy]

I think the bit by bit is key. 2000 loo rolls all at once? Selfish fucker. Adding a couple of tins to each weekly shop and gradually building up? Doesn't affect supply chains for anyone else.

Since March I've been trying to make sure I have at least two weeks of everything in case we can't get to the shops, and since I bubbled with my parents I make sure we have weekly Tesco deliveries booked three weeks in advance. I signed back up for delivery saver too.

My previous Brexit stash lived under my desk, back when I hardly ever used it It gradually drifted into clearing that space and having slightly over full cupboards, but I'm going to start separating it out again.

[Disco]

I've definitely been building things up again, bought another freezer and luckily have a pantry and a spare room. I've got a veg box on order every fortnight - but am cancelling it each time it comes up at the moment until I might need it - and milkman and cheese and meat deliveries regularly. I need to start building up my paracetamol stash again though I think I have about 6 packets, same with ibuprofen, 1200 approx doses of vit D. I need a few more litres of hand sanitiser but I've got about 3 litres currently. I've bought liquid soap in those reduced plastic bags to top up the pump action bottles I've got. God what else?

[smalex]

Ibuprofen! God yes. I need that.

I'm going to carry on then, not that I've got vast amounts of space.
We did really well growing stuff this year Goat. Probably grew 50% of the veg we ate between June and now. Itll diminish from now but we'll have something for a while longer. Hoping the greenhouse will help too. If its not necessary for Brexit, its nice and better environmentally anyway.

[Ella77]

Compost?

[Dandelion]

Reading this thread makes me panic. I had a nice stockpile (well, enough for a couple of weeks) of non perishables before Covid. Then when all the shops were open and actually we could all still buy most things, I ran it down again. Is Brexit really going to cause massive supply issues? Wouldn’t the supermarkets be all over it?

[smalex]

Compost?

Hmm! Good point. It was like gold dust back in the spring.

[Mountain Goat]

The supermarkets don't have warehouse space to stockpile, and they're pretty much powerless to do much to mitigate most of the issues that are likely to arise. There's not much they can do.

Batteries, lightbulbs, things like foil/greaseproof paper - these are things that I easily forget about. Compost I definitely need.

[Cerise]

Yes! Grease proof was hard to get! I need to tidy and evaluate my garage stash.

[Mountain Goat]

Bird food/ squirrel nuts.

[Morganna]

I bought a lot of rubbish last time. Cup soups and so on, that we will never use. The idea was that it could go to the food bank after Brexit, but Brexit never happened, Covid did, and the food bank no longer has a collection point in the church over the road. So it's all still in a suitcase under S's bed. I won't do that again, but I couldn't think of what to buy back then. Now that we've had a lockdown complete with shortages, I'd know better, and am planning to get flour and hit fibre pasta. Oh, and spray cleaner for the kitchen - I had to resort to diluting Domestos and the smell was horrible.

I still have gallons of bottled water, dried things like lentils, and a primus with bottles of gas. My main fear was power cuts or an interrupted supply of water/gas, so I have those bases covered. I got a couple of battery operated lanterns, too - I'll need to check the status of the batteries.

[Ruby]

Has anybody’s stockpile changed now that we’ve had a (very unwelcome) dry run? I think we were caught out earlier this year by the lack of things like soap and loo roll. What else might we be missing this time round?

I think I made my stockpile too pious. The things we ate quickly in lockdown were comfort foods and sweet things. Even stuff like tinned fruit went quickly once we couldn't pop out for chocolate etc.

I have finally got through the huge sack of pasta I bought though. So I need to buy another one.

[Ella77]

Hah, I’ve never eaten quite so much shitty chocolate in my life (once the initial shortage was resolved), so I know what you mean .

I’m trying to decide whether to buy a mini-freezer, but realistically, it would be the most expensive 8 (?) bags of frozen peas ever, and really if it comes down to that, is there even any point?

[Flora Poste]

No, but you can chill down an emergency bottle of wine quickly, so it's a sound purchase in my book.

We've just evaluated our stash. The tinned fruit never got eaten (so good to go still). Half my panic purchases of flour have gone mouldy, so had to be binned. We ate half the pasta we had remaining when we ran out of bread about an hour into the 3 day self isolation period we had last week, so I need to get more (and don't enjoy eating pasta for lunch and dinner 3 days in a row).