Stock cupboards do you stock up?

My husband likes to keep a huge stock of baked beans in which our kids think is hysterical. We live a 5 minute walk from a supermarket but he can’t help himself. I already feel sick of eating them and that’s just looking at the stack.

Think I could survive for about a month by ekeing out my current cupboard stock of tins and packets. Present system is to put an item on shopping list whenever the current one is used or opened. I would seriously miss fresh fruit on a daily basis.

I have a pack of what DH calls "Your Brexit toilet rolls" ?

A few dried goods and tins and lots of home-grown fruit and veg in the freezer, ok as long as the electricity doesn't go off.

I have stocked up within my budget all my adult life, just as my mother did. Our first house when i married was in Wells and it was quite common in winter for the road over the hills to be blocked and the food delivery lorries not to be able to get through for a day or so. Power loss was also common due to the overhead cables and there was no gas when we first moved there. Everybody I knew kept in candles and camping gaz cookers and a stock of tinned and packaged food as well as toilet roll and so on. @Elegran is right. Its not the people who keep a stock in who cause shortages, its the people who could do it and don't, then rush to the shops and panic buy. They are the ones who deprive people who can't afford, or don't have the space for an emergency stock.

I do, just can’t help myself. We used to have a big family before they all left and married and old habits die hard I’m afraid.When we had to isolate I had no worries that we could last a fortnight on what we had in. In a way it was good because I checked all the use by dates and sorted the pantry out.

I should add that I appreciate having the funds to buy in bulk, I could not afford to do that when the children were young and I was not working. I don’t have a monthly budget, my pensions were spread around so I was advised to do drawdown rather than buy annuities for a couple of them. This means in the new year when my credit card needs paying off, I just withdraw a lump sum from one of my bonds. My monthly income barely covers the direct debits and basic shopping but I’m now used to having to think ahead and withdraw money ready for big bills.

For people on a low income, keeping a stock of food might not be an option, I am mindful of that and in my delivery today, there were a number of items for the local food bank which I will drop off this afternoon.

When I moved to this house ten years ago, I decided not to have a large store of tinned food as I preferred to buy fresh food every few days. As I only have a small freezer, I don’t have room to store frozen stuff, only have room for half open packs of veg, ice cream or the odd left over casserole.

Then my mobility became an issue so restarted weekly online deliveries but still only buying what I needed for the week ahead - I plan my meals each week once I know what I am doing ie if eating out or working late. I never have a problem spending the minimum limit even though I live on my own, must be all the gin!

So when the pandemic hit I was stuffed, no supply of tinned food like tomatoes, beans, soup biscuits, minimum amounts of baking ingredients and no toilet rolls! After a few anxious weeks of going round different supermarkets, I was able to get delivery slots again, the shortages lessened and so I began to build up a store cupboard again. Like others living alone, I wanted to have enough in case I caught Covid or had to self isolate.

Now my cupboards are bulging, I’ve had to move my stash of empty jars to the garage and I’ve got a secret stash of 48 toilet rolls in a wardrobe! To be down to my last toilet roll with none in the shops was a nightmare! Never again! I’ve just had a delivery this morning mainly with Christmas things - hopefully my sister from the US will still get here next Wednesday so I’ll be feeding her and also my other siblings when they visit. I struggled to get everything in the kitchen cupboards though and most of the alcohol and soft drinks are going in the garage.

I will run down my stash in the New Year but not too far, I still want to have enough basics just in case.

I was prepared for a 10 day isolation of it was necessary. However, when the time came last November, I found I was too ill to eat for 5 days anyway.

I have a good stock cupboard of basics, and always have a spare of everything else such as olive oil, mayonnaise, pickle etc. Plenty of loo rolls too, not panic buying, not clearing shelves and depriving others, just buying a 9 pack rather than a 4 and thus building up a small stock. Oh, and coffee, always have a few packets of my ground coffee in the larder.

Yes, we always have a stock of basics such as pasta and tinned tomatoes. Just in case we can’t get to a shop for any reason.

We used to have friends who lived down a very steep and narrow lane in Devon. Despite having masses of cupboard and freezer space, I was astounded to learn that when they were snowed (and iced) in one year - very rare there - they had no freezer stock of bread or milk, and were left without both for a couple of days until a kind and stalwart neighbour from the other end of the lane made his way to them.

Apparently they didn’t know you could freeze milk, but then why they didn’t have some long life for emergencies….

The tinned ones are useful to have on hand for when the fresh ones have gone black and shrivelled overnight. Onions, on the other hand seem to keep almost for ever.

Jack Monroe has a good cookbook called Tin Can Cook, about making meals out of tinned things. Part of her motive was cheapness, but she has some tasty things.

I always kept a well stocked cupboard. However,since the panic buying last year when I could get nothing GF and had to rely on what I already had, I since keep some extra GF flour and pasta and a few other things. I will never be in that situation again. I still have difficulty getting some GF items as it is, but it seems to be down to delivery issues. I think everyone should be prepared, moreso with the awful weather we have had lately.

But not nut

Elegran I like your recipe. Not keen on tinned carrots nut chopped up fresh ones sautéed with the onion would probably do just as well.

My occupation was a buyer and I always like to make sure I have at least one spare of everything in rather than waiting till I have run out to buy more.

I don’t have a big freezer or masses of cupboard space, but can usually find the wherewithal for several meals anyway. Rice, pasta, red lentils, tinned tomatoes and purée, baked beans are usually stocked up, and I almost always have cheese, potatoes, onions and stock cubes etc.

During the first lockdown when shelves were bare I quite enjoyed working out what meals, and how many, I could contrive with what we had. At least 7 main meals IIRC.

Loo rolls were never a problem - dh always buys those packs of 24 and keeps us well stocked up.

To those who don't like baked beans - neither do I, but beans are a good and easy source of protein and they fill you up excellently on a cold day. I don't buy baked ones, I buy the tins of plain beans of all sorts in water you find on supermarket shelves.

If you cook sausages and cut them up, fry some chopped onions and add a tin of drained plain beans, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of sliced carrots and a quarter teaspoon or so of chilli powder and simmer it all for a while (or put it in a slow cooker) you get a meal that will feed a family (or be divided up into single servings and frozen for future use - it heats through in a couple of minutes and is better nutrition than most ready meals) Mince can replace the sausages.

Having previously lived in a rural area where getting snowed in during the winter wasn't unusual I have always kept a small stockpile. I usually have two of every essential in the cupboard, as I use one I buy a replacement. When the idiots were out panic buying I was able to stay away until they came to their senses!

The contents of your store cupboard depend on your circumstances, both physical and financial.

This country has unpredictable weather. Even if I lived just across the road from a shop, I wouldn't venture out on my 82-year-old feet for a loaf of bread in snow, ice, rain or strong winds - and all of those have happened in summer, let alone winter. When I do buy anything, I have to carry it home up a steep hill and get home exhausted. For the last year I have not shopped in person, except for sometimes bringing home a single item when I had gone out for some other reason.

Supermarkets deliver, but for most, the minimum order is more than I eat in total in groceries in a week, and there is a surcharge for smaller amounts, so I order once a month and store what isn't needed at once. I keep stocks of flour, both bread flour and plain and SR, so that I can always have fresh bread. I freeze milk and butter, and meat, and some ready meals. I have frozen and tinned vegetables and fruit to supplement the fresh ones in my delivery, tinned tomatoes, beans, evaporated milk, coffee, cocoa, cooking oil, jam and marmalade, and various othe things. I have toilet and kitchen rolls and plain candles. If I were snowed in I wouldn't starve - though I might have to eat a lot of it uncooked if the power went off. I am working on that!

I have read condemnations of people for stockpiling, but where do you draw the line between stockpiling and sensible preparedness? Probably at the point where people grab everything on the shelves in a crisis, because they had nothing in reserve before that.

Yes, I always have a good stock of tinned/dried/bottled stuff and a full freezer.

I’m another one whose Mum always kept a well stocked larder as Dad was always being called out on strike, until one day mum snapped and told him enough was enough, he found another job but the ‘well stocked larder’ still carries on in me and my daughters.
When DD1 lived in London she had all the shops literally on her doorstep, it was a pain always being sent out to buy milk and bread, then an hour later out for something else that she had run out of. Now she is in the Countryside and has her larder too.

When growing up there were many times when our cupboards were empty. My dad worked in a car factory they had lots of strikes and then three working days. My mum told us all to have cupboards stocked with dry and tinned goods. I always have but I check dates etc especially pasta flour etc.

Yes, I am a stocker, my mum and gran always were. My aunt did too but was really methodical and marked everything with a date. I just fill the cupboards DH says they will come off the wall. I stock cleaning products and loo rolls too.
Neither of my daughters is but one lives near shops and the others husband is. He puts it in the Wendy house in the garden,DH nearly had a fit last year when she saw what he had,
My DH is not a hoarder of food but is of clothes he finally got rid of a 40-year-old pair of fishing trousers the other day. I think we would be having fried Rohan if it was up to him.

Since Brexit I have had what I call my Domesday Stash. Mainly tins and some dried things too.