How much food to you keep in the house?

They certainly nibbled through three of the flour bags! The last invasion from the roof to the walk-in wardrobe meant a huge clear out, now have to do the same in the utility room cum bakery. The problem is that the top floor of the house used to be a grain store and dried grain still falls through the cracks, attracts the mice and looks just like mouse droppings so you can't always tell.
What amazes me is how loud the sound of clog dancing is in the roof, though.

Mice seem to be nibbling their way through a number of our threads at the moment.

DS2 has the 'bargain bug'. He's not safe to let out on his own in Sainsbury's. Not only that, but he's always up bright and early the day the Next sale starts and comes back with loads of boys' clothes as well as bits and pieces for himself and partner. He has NOT inherited this gene from me.

I find I have far less in the fridge since my colitis diet. I think it's mainly due to NOT getting all the offers!

On the other hand the freezer is a bit full as I get bored with meals I have to have twice - because of difficulty in getting amounts for one - and I freeze the second helpiing.....and then forget about it.

That will teach me to feel well-prepared for anything. Mice in the 10 kg flour bags - Aaaaaaahrgh!

oh johanna that is funny!! Why could you not both have gone throug as 2 separate customers??

My husband who is fantastic and i love dearly is sooo iritating he too buys all the offers, with blissful disregard of if we actually want or even like the stuff!!
it causes friction I must admit!
Then he wanders off, and I must admit last year I put notice out for him in Asda, he was fuming!!

He still does it, I am left wandering the aisles wondering where he has gone this time!! Love him to bits but was more peaceful shopping pre retirment, he does spoil me tho as says go andread paper in car while he offloads it all in trolley bless him.

I do a supermarket order once a month, which includes some food items – canned goods such as tomatoes, pasta, rice, butter, olive oil, sauces, flour etc. However, it is mostly for cat food, cat litter, cleaning stuff, fruit juice and the filthy lager than Mr absent drinks. I buy fresh meat, fish, vegetables and fruit two or three time a week but not from a supermarket. I use the freezer mainly for storing home-cooked dishes rather than bought frozen goods. At a rough guess, we could survive for four to five weeks on stocks in the house if we had to but I would have to be very imaginative towards the end of that time and there would be an acute shortage of greens.

johanna, that made me laugh!
I'm sure you could have bought two lots of the offer if you'd gone to separate tills!

When OH retired back in 2004 he thought I would enjoy him joining me doing the weekly shop. Initially he followed me round like a little lamb.....
This changed into queries about my shopping habits. Things like: " Why are you buying this, you only just threw one of those out. "
That turned into full blown Trolley Control. His. I gave up after that!!!!!!!
He now happily trundles of by himself loving every Bogoff available, and I have a house full of paper towels, coffee, pappadoms, etc. etc. and God knows what else. In his eyes money is only there to be saved.
This culminated a few years ago in us nearly getting thrown out of Morrison's.

There was an offer in the run up to Christmas . One Gin, one Vodka , one Whisky at a very good price. A whole page advertisement in one of the broad sheets.
Small print ( read by me, who else? ) said one deal per customer.

So, a trip to Morrison's it was to be. This he planned like a military operation.
I was given strict instructions!!!! Buy the three and physically leave the store.! Then go back in. In his eyes that would make us new customers.
We did. Came back in and went through the procedure again. Ha Ha......
Manager appeared at check out and told us in no uncertain terms we could not buy the second lot. I could see a security guard slowly moving towards us and thought lets leave now!
If I had been on my own I think that I could have argued this out ; technically anyway. But not with OH there who, in my opinion is a total liability.
He has also promoted himself to CEO of the Fridge/Freezer!

Anything decent I want food wise I get online..

Do an awful lot of cooking and have many visitors - so keep freezer and pantry topped up every week. I can't plan meals as the weather usually dictates what our taste buds fancy!
Have small mobile home parked outside that has a bottled gas cooker and fridge which would be great help in an emergency. Also have a coal fire which I could always bake potatoes etc in the hearth.

I have enjoyed reading this thread. I keep a similar store cupboard to most of the above posters as I live in the countryside and hate to venture out when the roads are icy and don't want to waste petrol so also do a shop fortnight.

We also appear to be so well-organised! That goes for us sole GNs who sometimes have to go from cooking for one to many.

Over in France we keep enough food and packaged ready meals to see us through in an emergency.

About two years ago there was a sudden blizzard for 24 hours leaving the farm road unuseable for 24 hours and the other local roads seriously unuseable for the next 24. Fortunately we had arrvied a day before the blizzard so had done a run to the supermarket, but had we arrived a day later and we would have been reduced to eating boiled rice and jam or pasta and marmite. Now I always make sure I have three days supply of real meals before we need to start on the pasta and jam.

There is a random factor in my shopping. There are about 7 large bags of bread flour dotted around. I think this was prompted by DH saying that flour would increase in price this winter, due to the drought in the States etc
I think we will be having pizza at least once a week. One of the few veggie meals DH really enjoys.

I keep the freezer well stocked and have the usual store cupboard stuff. Living in the countryside does mean that during bad weather I can be snow/iced in !

I also like to spend one day every ten days or so cooking various things which I then freeze in individual portions so I don't have to cook every day

I probably have too much food in the house, but most is store cupboard stuff, or frozen. I do a big online shop about once a month for all the boring things, like loo rolls etc, but buy fresh goods as and when I need them. Always seem to run out of something, though!

I am another one who does a big shop every five weeks and justs tops up fresh food each week. I also plan menus a week and cook double amounts and freeze half so that I always have a range of instant meals in the freezer. The meal plan is fairly flexible because DH's work has always involved a lot of last minute travel but it does mean I shop to a list and do not impulse buy which helps control expenditure.

By doing the big shop every five weeks there was one month every year when I did not need to do a big shop so put the money aside to finance the extra food expenditure at Christmas.

It took me a long time too, *glamma, and I'd just get the hang of it when someone would reappear!

I hate not having 'one on the go' and 'one in stock' and get very upset if someone has raided my stock and not told me. I think that is a throw back to having to feel a large family.

I try to do a menu plan each week but always include a previously frozen casserole, curry, lasagne type of meal so that, if we decide to go out or get a takeaway, there is room for manouevre.

Christmas, however, means all reason goes out of the window. This year we have 9 adults and 4 children coming for lunch, some of whom will stay for a few days and some who will reappear around mealtimes. I can't get my head round all that so I overbuy like mad, just in case!!

It took me ages to get used to not shopping for a family but now seem to have mastered it,I find that going to the farmers market for my veg is the best option for us as I only buy loose what I need instead of prepacked,and if any veg left it goes into a hearty soup and frozen for lunchtimes.
I freeze my baking most weeks and always have stews and pies in the freezer for emergencies along with a decent amount of dried foods in the store cupboard.I split loaves into half and freeze if we run short it takes minutes to defrost,so not a lot of waste really in this house now I have got the hang of things.

We normally get snowed in for a few days at least once every winter, so we keep loads of food. OH has sacks of flour, because we normally end up baking bread for the hamlet and we get milk from the farm. We have a bottled-gas hob, wood burner and bread oven to cover all eventualities. It is a great shame that twenty years ago someone who owned the property did their best to destroy the well, but we hope to restore it one day.
We have some winter salads in the greenhouse.

A good point about having a camping gas stove especially if you live in an area subject to power cuts or snow. If you can heat up some water you can make a hot drink.

I keep a camping-gaz stove and spare cartridge, torch, candles and matches where I could find them in the dark, but I have been here for over two years and we have had only little momentary flickers in the electricity supply. When I lived in the Pyrenees, the lines were above ground and often got weighed down by snow. We had a two day power cut when my family were visiting, but I had a cooker that ran on bottled gas and a wood-burning stove. We played games by firelight and candle light and my grandchildren said it was the best two days of their stay!

Always have plenty of pasta and risotto rice. Tinned tomatoes, several sorts of flour and dried fruit. Also try to have at least a week's supply of cat food in the house. Some chicken and minced beef and vegetables in the freezer covers us for most things. Nowadays there are normally only odd days that we can't get out, but when we lived in the country we might be cut off for a week at a time. Once we had no electricity for a week so our neighbours who had a smallholding cooked up everything in there freezer and threw a massive party

If for any reason (snowed up, illness) I could not get to the shops, there is nobody who could help me, so I keep at least two weeks supply of food in stock. I don't plan ahead, just make sure I have plenty of tins, packets, cartons, frozen foods, long life milk, dry goods, etc. The only things I need to replenish regularly are fruit and yoghurts. I now buy two large baguettes and cut them into pieces and freeze them. If I take one out every morning it is ready to use by lunch time.
Now you have made me hungry, so it is time for some cheese on toast, with mustard.

I do a main shop once a month then just top up with bread and milk as necessary so at times I have a lot in the cupboards/freezers and other times not as much.

I've always got too much. Now it's just me, the shelves are clearing a bit and I've just had a sort out in my freezer. However when the family are here I get stocked up again - you just can't win - just chucked out frozen baby food as they won't be back until spring. In winter, especially if we are going to be snowed-in again, I tend to keep long-life milk and canned stuff just in case..... and I have located my Gaz ring for when the electricity/gas goes off - oh I am a bundle of fun and optimism.