Are you prepping?

[Graeme M]

I might be wrong but I think Australia is a good place to be these days. I'm not sure we are facing societal breakdown just yet but I do expect both individual and national prosperity to keep falling in many countries and wonder at what any major Chinese slowdown might bring. More generally, some of the blogs I follow have been talking about increasingly less available energy for a while - fossil fuels drove our growth in recent decades by providing almost unlimited cheap energy. Now that's less so and renewables are a poor replacement (and we are doing dumb stuff like building out AI at scale in an energy deficient environment). So what sort of geopolitical tensions might that mean? US interest in Venezuela, Greenland and Iran seem to be early signs. I'm not prepping yet but I might be thinking differently were I in the UK or maybe the US.

 

[Veganite]

I might be wrong but I think Australia is a good place to be these days.

I have heard Australia would be a good place to be if WW3 was to break out. I'm not sure living a real-life Mad Max scenario would be much fun though. Vegan food would definitely become more challenging to find and/or grow.

New Zealand rates as the number one place to be, according to AI.

The prospect of nuclear war is a sobering thought. I wonder how many seconds the Doomsday clock might lose this year, with the current international political rhetoric. I try not to think about this scenario much, to be honest. My main reason for any sort of prepping is fear of the "big one", which I fear a lot more than getting nuked.

*

 

[LoreD]

I've been watching people online complaining about increases in their monthly food bills. One woman said that her family of 4 had been spending $1800 per month for food, and it had increased to $2200. I was confused by how that could cost that much, even before the price increases.

I watched some videos of a woman who recreated those expensive meal prep kits by buying the exact same items from the meal kits. If the veggies were organic, then she bought organic. The cost of the meal prep kits was $11-15 per person. The copycat was $1.79-2.29 per person. Essentially, you pay $10 for a laminated recipe card.

On basic items, except for organic rice (Lundberg), I haven't seen the massive increases in my food bill. I just bought a huge container of Simple Truth organic spring mix for a regular price of $5. Bulk carrots are $.99 per pound. Out of season tomatoes are pretty pricey (but I had a coupon). Dried beans are pretty stable in price. Kroger just introduced their super low priced frozen veggie brand for $.85-.99 per bag.

People seem to have forgotten everything they learned during Covid. All of those cost cutting methods that went out the window when they went back to work.

I have been doing pretty well. Even with organic items my daily food bill is about $5. Today, a bowl of organic oatmeal for breakfast, cup of coffee with soymilk, huge salad and bakery sourdough bread with plant butter for lunch, leftover soup, roasted butternut squash and rice for dinner. I'm having homemade popcorn and some iced tea for evening snack.

I don't know what these people are buying that would cost $2200 for a family of 4. I'm really confused.

 

[PTree15]

I've been watching people online complaining about increases in their monthly food bills. One woman said that her family of 4 had been spending $1800 per month for food, and it had increased to $2200. I was confused by how that could cost that much, even before the price increases.

I watched some videos of a woman who recreated those expensive meal prep kits by buying the exact same items from the meal kits. If the veggies were organic, then she bought organic. The cost of the meal prep kits was $11-15 per person. The copycat was $1.79-2.29 per person. Essentially, you pay $10 for a laminated recipe card.

On basic items, except for organic rice (Lundberg), I haven't seen the massive increases in my food bill. I just bought a huge container of Simple Truth organic spring mix for a regular price of $5. Bulk carrots are $.99 per pound. Out of season tomatoes are pretty pricey (but I had a coupon). Dried beans are pretty stable in price. Kroger just introduced their super low priced frozen veggie brand for $.85-.99 per bag.

People seem to have forgotten everything they learned during Covid. All of those cost cutting methods that went out the window when they went back to work.

I have been doing pretty well. Even with organic items my daily food bill is about $5. Today, a bowl of organic oatmeal for breakfast, cup of coffee with soymilk, huge salad and bakery sourdough bread with plant butter for lunch, leftover soup, roasted butternut squash and rice for dinner. I'm having homemade popcorn and some iced tea for evening snack.

I don't know what these people are buying that would cost $2200 for a family of 4. I'm really confused.

I have noticed price increases on certain staples I buy, so yes, my bill has gone up, but not by the leaps and bounds others have seen. I am not surprised that a family of four could spend $1,800 a month on food. I see people in the checkout line regularly racking up $400 and $500 totals.

 

[LoreD]

I have noticed price increases on certain staples I buy, so yes, my bill has gone up, but not by the leaps and bounds others have seen. I am not surprised that a family of four could spend $1,800 a month on food. I see people in the checkout line regularly racking up $400 and $500 totals.

And probably throw about 25% away. I watched a BBC show where they went through people's garbage and found all the unopened packages of food and the leftovers that they refused to eat. Those people with the $400-500 carts probably throw away about $100 per week of food.

I was shopping for compostable garbage bags and my daughter recommended that I buy those scented bags because garbage stinks. I told my daughter that no food goes in my garbage, so it doesn't stink or leak.

I eat, or freeze everything. Every couple of days, I go through the fridge to make sure nothing gets lost. The food scraps go into the freezer to make veggie broth, and the broth scraps are put into a compostable bag, and taken over to the city composting site. When I use my juicer, I juice the veggies separate from the apples because the veggie pulp makes really good veggie broth.

I remember seeing the adverts for the scented bags. A woman was scraping food off the plates and bowls into the garbage. I was horrified.