Spinoff: What is your emergency stockpile?

[tcufrog]

There's already plenty of discussion regarding whether it's necessary to stockpile or not so this thread isn't for that.

My DH and I have decided that we want to start by stockpiling enough food, cleaning supplies, and medicine for 2 weeks. I'm having trouble though figuring out what to stockpile and for how long since I never buy groceries more than a week in advance and I usually only buy fresh fruit and vegetables. I thought that I might not be the only one trying to figure this out so I thought I'd start a discussion thread.

Here's what I think would be helpful for everyone to post:
1. Who you're stockpiling for and their ages:

2. How long do you hope your stockpile will last:

3. What's in your stockpile and how you plan to store it:

4. Any unique issues you have:

Here's mine:

1. DH, DS9, DS13, MIL

2. We plan to start with 2 weeks and see what that looks like

3. Still making a list. I have plenty of garage space for storage. My DH thinks we have plenty of freezer space but I disagree.

4. DS13 eats as much as an adult. DH is a diabetic so can't safely survive on pasta and rice. My MIL is picky and religiously vegetarian. She's never used canned vegetables and very rarely uses frozen veggies. Not sure what to do about her.

 

[barkley]

is your goal to have this stockpile 'on reserve' and only use it either in an emergency or before it stale dates, or is it to up your normal 1 week shopping trip to cover 2 weeks?

 

[lovemygoofy]

So I think people need to stop and think about the WHY of stock piling. There is a difference in being prepared for hurricane, blizzard, and tornado season and needing to stay home for a week or two. This is two completely different plans for preparation. The weather induced likely includes lack of running water or electricity depending on what happened. Staying at home with the flu means having all the good things. Still able to make hot meals, showers, likely working/school from home and stream some Netflix.

Adding some extra supplies for cleanings or throwing in some freezer bags of veggies or shelf stable milk is different. I think it's pretty easy to add in extra couple boxes snacks or packages of meats and extra bag potatoes.

I think it depends on what kind of stockpiling/preparing someone is planning.

 

[tcufrog]

I want to have an emergency stockpile of mainly shelf-stable items and then rotate through the ones that aren't right before they expire. I'm not interested in MREs though.

As for why, I'm mainly concerned about a self-quarantine since I have family members in our home who have health issues. For example, while they say it isn't really hitting children, DS9 catches viruses easily. Both DH and MIL have diabetes. I'm not as concerned with a natural disaster. The most that one has inconvenienced us in the past is a couple of days. We don't have to worry about hurricanes or flooding. Tornadoes and power outages lasting more than a day are very rare. In a bug-out situation, we have ready access to cash and my dh and my primary care doctor is a personal friend who lives in another part of town. I'm already in the process of filling out books that we'll keep at DH's office with all of our financial, legal and medical info in them. I'm planning to purchase a small fireproof box to store our passports, birth certs, etc. and placing it in an easy to reach place in case I need to grab them fast. I'm not saying those things will never happen, it's just that they are very unlikely.

 

[Searc]

I want to have an emergency stockpile of mainly shelf-stable items and then rotate through the ones that aren't right before they expire. I'm not interested in MREs though.

Why shelf-stable? You'll have electricity.

 

[Farro]

I checked what we already had in our backporch - 2 adults:

24 packs of Ramen
3 boxes of different types of pastas
2 jarred pasta sauce (don't tell my dad)
40ish bottles of water leftover from various parties throughout the year
6 can of tuna
4 cans of chef boyardee
5 boxes of mac/cheese
2 loaves of bread in freezer
16 frozen chicken burgers in freezer
4 frozen pasta leftovers (for 2)
4 chicken taco leftovers (for 2)
12 packs of fig newtons (2 to a pack)
12 packs of combos
12 little peach containers
48 ritz cheese and crackers (3 to pack)
18 instant oatmeals
1 can of spam
1 box of Barefoot that holds 4 bottles
12 rolls paper towels
18 rolls toilet paper
lots of cat food

Sounds like a lot, but really only takes up small part. Unless something really happens, we will probably have most of that in our back porch for quite some time as it's stuff we've had already for a while!

So yeah, we have enough for two weeks. Plus all our regular food/condiments in fridge and cabinets. And we'll be making another dinner this weekend that will give 3 nights of leftovers.

 

[pryncess527]

We have a pantry, I'm storing what will fit in there. I really just created a sample meal plan for 2 weeks, gathered that ingredient list and doubled it. tossed in an extra bag of rice and some canned veggies we'd normally buy fresh. If we don't need those ill just add them to my next food bank donation.
Then I refilled out cleaning supplies, even though the TP didn't really need it yet, i have room for the extra in my hall closet.

 

[tcufrog]

Why shelf-stable? You'll have electricity.

To make my life easier. The more things have an expiration date, the more I need to check.

 

[Heather07438]

We usually keep a decent back-up of canned goods just in case anything. I also normally buy 10lb bags of jasmine rice. Between cans of vegetables, beans, tomatoes and rice we have an inexpensive back-up of time stable and nutrition stable meals in case we can't get to the store for any reason. Not exactly gourmet but easy to prepare for some nourishment.

At this point I'm not too concerned for my household, we're reasonably healthy and all under 53yo. Chances are this too will pass. I'm more worried about the elderly in our family and thinking about how we can best take care of them.

 

[wvjules]

We went to Sams and the grocery store this weekend.

We "stocked up" on frozen chicken, ground turkey, pork chops, frozen broccoli, TP, PT, rotel (I use that stuff for EVERYTHING!), edamame noodles, pasta sauce, canned green beans, low carb tortillas (used to make chips), queso, and salsa. Then we also got our regular weekly fresh items.

I also have Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. I also have my Kindle.

I'm ready for my quarantine!

 

[jo-jo]

The only "food" I bought for me to survive being locked in the house is shelf stable coffee creamer.

Everything else is just normal stuff I bought when it's on sale. But not like a prepper. So if canned soup is on sale and we use maybe one or two cans a week....I'll buy 12. Not 12 cases.

Without even looking , I know we can live in our house for at least 3 weeks without restocking. It's only the two of us though.

Would we run out of something , sure, but we wouldn't starve.

My DD (whom I bought the shelf stable milk) has 6, she might be wiped out in two weeks and then they might have to live on any halloween candy still hiding in the back of the closet.

 

[Disneybuckeye]

Alcohol

 

[wvjules]

Shoot! I forgot coffee creamer. I got my usual coffeemate italian sweet cream but I didn't get any powdered creamer!

I did get a 100 pack of K-cups though.

 

[jo-jo]

We went to Sams and the grocery store this weekend.

We "stocked up" on frozen chicken, ground turkey, pork chops, frozen broccoli, TP, PT, rotel (I use that stuff for EVERYTHING!), edamame noodles, pasta sauce, canned green beans, low carb tortillas (used to make chips), queso, and salsa. Then we also got our regular weekly fresh items.

I also have Hulu, Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. I also have my Kindle.

I'm ready for my quarantine!

So we can watch TV all day??? I was afraid someone would suggest we should use the time to clean out closets.

 

[Hikergirl]

There's already plenty of discussion regarding whether it's necessary to stockpile or not so this thread isn't for that.

My DH and I have decided that we want to start by stockpiling enough food, cleaning supplies, and medicine for 2 weeks. I'm having trouble though figuring out what to stockpile and for how long since I never buy groceries more than a week in advance and I usually only buy fresh fruit and vegetables. I thought that I might not be the only one trying to figure this out so I thought I'd start a discussion thread.

Here's what I think would be helpful for everyone to post:
1. Who you're stockpiling for and their ages:

2. How long do you hope your stockpile will last:

3. What's in your stockpile and how you plan to store it:

4. Any unique issues you have:

Here's mine:

1. DH, DS9, DS13, MIL

2. We plan to start with 2 weeks and see what that looks like

3. Still making a list. I have plenty of garage space for storage. My DH thinks we have plenty of freezer space but I disagree.

4. DS13 eats as much as an adult. DH is a diabetic so can't safely survive on pasta and rice. My MIL is picky and religiously vegetarian. She's never used canned vegetables and very rarely uses frozen veggies. Not sure what to do about her.

I'm just going to say that if the reason you are stockpiling is in the event of an emergency or catastrophe then your MIL is going to have to suck it up and eat what is there.
I don't really stockpile, but I normally keep my cabinets full.
canned beans- black, red, cannellini, chickpeas.
canned tomatoes
boxed pasta
Palmini pouches
lentils
dried beans
chicken stock
various kinds of rice
Soups
Ramen
Mac & Cheese
Ravioli
jarred sauces
plus baking needs
nuts
peanut butter
K-cups
shelf stable almond milk
protein powder
I always have 2- 5 gallon water jugs in the garage because water is all I drink
Arizona teas
Gatorade

Since I've been back on a low carb diet alot of that stuff I'm not eating but in the event of an emergency I would.
We also "stockpile" gas. We have a generator so as long as my fridge is working I'd have all the stuff in there too.

LOL, I keep adding things that I forgot and saw in someone elses post.
The more I think about it, wouldn't you just buy more of what you normally do instead of coming up with new things to get?

 

[DisLiss]

What we would "stockpile" (and I use that term very loosely) would depend on what we were stocking up for.

We act differently when we hear of hurricane/tropical storm warnings than we do for just general Winter stocking up. And we have different items on hand in the summer for frequent power outages than we do for the other two times.

Although power outages are the issue for both the hurricanes/tropical storms and the run of the mill summer thunderstorm, the day to day summer storms tend to result in much shorter outages. So while we make sure we have batteries charged and candles and matches, we don't worry about food at all.

But when we talk about big late summer storms, then food is something we do buy differently than usual (not more, just different because our stove is electric, so we need things that don't require being cooked--just in case it's too miserable to be out using a grill) but we do make sure to bottle up a lot of tap water because we lose running water during outages.

Because we live in a rural area and it's a trip on often unplowed roads, (or if they did get plowed they covered back over due to the snow drifting off the fields) we like to be able to avoid going out completely if there is a big winter storm or if we get ice. We do buy more food during the winter. Plus things like rock salt and extra over the counter medications. Because you don't want to run out of that kind of thing when there's 2 feet of snow on the road, and you don't want to go out if you don't feel well either. (And we just happen to get sick more often in the winter.)

I think the important thing is that you really think about what your specific household uses and will need. No sense buying things people won't eat or won't use.

 

[Frozen Canuck]

1. There are usually three of us...two adults, one 10 year-old; however, we do have the potential for two or three other adults coming here as well.

2. So, based on what we have in the house right now, we could easily last a month, maybe way longer. I have never tested it. We have a chest freezer and two refrigerators with freezers, plus a large cold-storage/pantry area. I was raised on a farm at the end of a long dirt road, where if you got snowed in, it could be for a month. My mom always kept extra of everything from plastic wrap to shampoo along with the meat and veggies we had stored. In the winter, we drank powdered milk, because we wouldn't likely get to a store.

3. While I now live in the suburbs near a big city, I have always stuck with that. We store what we eat and we eat what we store. I buy things on sale and add them to our stock when supplies get low. While we might run out of fresh produce, milk, or eggs, we wouldn't likely starve for a long time. As long as the power stays on, we have lots of meat (chicken, beef roasts, turkey breast, bacon, sausage), cheese, butter (10 lbs. or so), and several jugs of milk. The freezer also has bread, a few frozen vegetables and fruits, and some pre-assembled meals (I batch cook to save time). The pantry area has cereal (hot and cold), canned chicken broth, pasta, rice, tomatoes, and then a number of items for making other stuff...baking powder, flour, sugar, oils, yeast, chocolate chips, etc.

We always have toilet paper on hand. My family laughs at me every time we open out last huge package of Kirkland toilet paper (meaning we have at least 30 rolls left), because I say that we are running out of toilet paper and we need to get more. I always like having one full package on the shelf that is unopened. Likewise for toothpaste (likely 3 tubes in stock right now), toothbrushes (likely 12 in stock), facial tissue (likely 8 or so boxes), deodorant (2 or 3 of each kind we use), vitamins, pain relievers, etc.

We wouldn't HAVE to go out any time soon if we didn't want to, but we do go out, to get fresh items and to replenish what we use up. None if this is new for us. This is the way we live, though I wouldn't call us preppers AT ALL. We choose to only do a big shop once every couple of weeks, so we always keep a variety of items on hand.

4. I don't know that we have any particular issues that we are facing with our storage, other than the fact that we far prefer fresh produce (we eat a lot of salads), so buying canned items is a waste, and we don't even particularly like frozen, which poses an issue there. Fresh items would be our greatest setback, as our son will ONLY eat bananas (one of the hardest fruits to store for any length of time) and fresh tomatoes and lettuce are on every shopping trip list.

As a separate note of preparation, given that we have a child, I have made a point of collecting some books, puzzles, games and other activities to keep us busy if we shelter in place. Yes, we will (hopefully) still have access to TV and video games and our backyard, but there could be a lot of time where he could be doing something more productive with his time and where tossing him something new and engaging could help pass the time.

 

[barkley]

1. DH, DS9, DS13, MIL

2. We plan to start with 2 weeks and see what that looks like

3. Still making a list. I have plenty of garage space for storage. My DH thinks we have plenty of freezer space but I disagree.

4. DS13 eats as much as an adult. DH is a diabetic so can't safely survive on pasta and rice. My MIL is picky and religiously vegetarian. She's never used canned vegetables and very rarely uses frozen veggies. Not sure what to do about her.

I want to have an emergency stockpile of mainly shelf-stable items and then rotate through the ones that aren't right before they expire.

o.k.

the reality is-if it's for an 'emergency' you (and those you feed) have to realize that it's not normal eating circumstances b/c there's no way to have everything you normally eat if it includes fresh veggies and dairy entirely shelf stable.

that said-

unless you are going to take up canning (the closest i've found to fresh veggies and fruit) you will have to rely on canned goods. in addition to whatever fruit/veggies in cans you opt for

canned beans-low/no sodium (or dry if you know how to cook them)
rice-brown since you dh has diabetes
lentils (dry or canned)
nuts
canned chicken, salmon, tuna, hash
soups (when we are sick we crave soup) or canned/cubed low or no sodium bullion cubes
pasta/pasta sauce for those who can consume it

for dairy-
powdered milk
(if you can find it) shelf stable milk or cream (i know trader joes carries it seasonally)
use ultra pasteurized milk products for your regular day to day so if an emergency comes up-you have stuff that's dated out (i just bought 2% milk yesterday that's got a use by date of april 11th, i'll use it by then but replace it with further dated out so i always have it on hand)

for vegetarian mil-
check out the abc health foods on-line. you say she is 'religiously vegetarian', well the abc stores are vegetarian stores operated by the adventist church who have are practicing vegetarians. you can find a wealth of shelf stable foods for her (it's very good quality stuff and very tasty).

I'm already in the process of filling out books that we'll keep at DH's office with all of our financial, legal and medical info in them. I'm planning to purchase a small fireproof box to store our passports, birth certs, etc. and placing it in an easy to reach place in case I need to grab them fast. I'm not saying those things will never happen, it's just that they are very unlikely.

i did something similar over the summer-one thing i would suggest in addition, either get duplicate copies or make photo copies of the birth certs/ss cards etc to keep in the offsite location (i use a safety deposit box at a bank) just in case you can't get to your home. i opted for a safe vs. a box though b/c if someone breaks in i don't want something that's easily walked off with.

 

[Coffee66]

Laugh out loud. 60 rolls of toilet paper.

 

[barkley]

So we can watch TV all day??? I was afraid someone would suggest we should use the time to clean out closets.

of course you watch tv!!!! that's why a good stockpile always includes my favorite binge worthy shows ready to go on the dvr (otherwise i may have to be subjected to dh's old sci-fi tv shows which is enough to drive me to clean out every closet, drawer and space in the entire house).