Tuesday 5 February 2013

Stock Pile Challenge Pt 3

Yesterday's post prompted a comment from Linda wondering if I had stocked up before undertaking this challenge.  This made me realise that I had not addressed that point in my previous posts.

So just to clarify before starting this challenge I did not stock up on anything. The last time I shopped was the  22nd of January.   This challenge formed in my mind over the Australia day long weekend when we were flooded in.  And what I really wanted to know was, if without warning, we could not get to the shops how long could we last.

Linda also mentioned flour, and yep I have loads.  At a guess there is 2 kg Plain Flour, 2 kg Self Raising Flour, 500gm Wholemeal flour, 1 kg of 000 Flour, 4 kg Spelt Bread Flour, 4 kg Rye Bread Flour, 3 kg Wholemeal Bread Flour and 2 kg White Bread Flour.  Heavens that is a lot of flour for 2 people who would be lucky to get through a loaf  of bread a week.

So in the spirit of transparency here are our stockpiles... prepare your self...
324 Lt Chest Freezer - Filled with meat from the cow we had killed.
There are also blocks of chicken stock (the blocks on top and in the ice cream container)
There are also lots of frozen diced tomatoes.

This our second  225lt chest freezer. This one has the last of the meat chickens
we killed last year, frozen fruit and veggies, a spare loaf of supermarket bread and
general odds and ends.
The freezer above the fridge - More chicken stock, frozen leftovers,
ice, butter, crusts to make into bread crumbs, pastry
and a bag of frozen bananas
The freezer door - More frozen bananas, tomato paste, yeast
and cheese cultures
I don't actually like bananas but I hate waste so when they get soft and hubby won't eat them a freeze them.  I will have to use some to make a banana cake or banana bread.
Inside the fridge
The pantry - sauce and spice city
The pantry - Flour, legumes, carbohydrates, baking goods, crackers
seeds and nuts
Preserves, cereals and tinned foods
 Any way so you can see with your own eyes, this is why I think we could survive for a while.


17 comments:

  1. Oh gosh! You do have heaps of stock in your pile!
    I guess with the rising costs of groceries, I run a really tight ship here...my pantry of surplus, is quite small, I only have one small square clothes basket at the bottom of my pantry that I keep a few 'doubles'....my freezer is usually run quite frugally with what I have on the menu for the week and occasionally some meat I find on special...I would think for the five of us here, that your stock pile would be more in the line of what we should have, but like I said, $$$ are tight here at the moment, and I am really buying purely off the weekly menu plan with a couple of extras here and there....but well done for all that work and home grown meat...Im thinking your freezer and my backyard vegies could make the supermarket a memory for at least a month or so between us!

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    1. Suzanne your veggie garden always makes me very jealous. Mine is empty at the moment but combine we would definitely be able to ditch the supermarkets.

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  2. That's awesome! I want to come and cook from your stockpile!

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  3. Ha ha! You're not going hungry any time soon!

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    1. Linda you are so right. We could feed your family easily as well as us.

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  4. you have a great stock pile going there..do you have a generator for back up if power goes down to keep your freezers going?

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    1. Joyfulhomemaker no we do not have a generator. We have talked about it a bit but we are fully insured for any losses and we know the freezers would be ok for 3 days if they stayed closed. So at this stage we are still just talking about it.

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  5. Great post Fiona, and your stockpile is inspiring. We are thinking about buying a freeze at the moment, but I had the same question as Joyfulhomemaker - do you have a generator. This is the 2nd thing we are thinking of buying. After the recent storms/floods it made us realize how reliant we are on mains power. We didn't lose power at all fortunately, but know of many who did. cheers Wendy

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  6. Good god!!! I am speechless.

    I had to phone my ex this morning to ask him to make the kid's school lunch tomorrow because I had nothing, nothing but the crusts of a loaf of bread!

    Patricia (receiver of free seeds)

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    1. Hi Patricia glad to know you are still reading. I have been like that in the past having nothing to even put together to make a meal. I found that over time I have built this stockpile. Every week I put some money towards the stockpile and bit by bit it grew. I also hunt down bargains where I can.

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  7. That's a great stockpile Fiona. Very similar to what mine looked like before we moved, but I purposely used up a lot of stuff so I wouldn't have to cart it all, and our big chest freezer got turned off at the switchboard so I lost everything in the freezer....twice! We are hopefully picking up our chest freezer this weekend when we go back to the other house, and we are on solar power here, so power should not be an issue for u, and we have a large and smaller generator as well. I would implore people to get a generator, even just one that will run the fridge and lights. I reckon you could eat from that stockpile for at least 2 months....

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    1. At least 2 months although we would be out of veggies in a few weeks because there is not much in the garden at the moment.

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  8. It sure is impressive. My childhood home had a cellar, a separate room for pantry stuff (bins full of flour, lugumes, and shelves of preserves and ginger beer and then to top it off a meat room for hanging the kill. Add the dairy products from our own cows and I think we could have lasted forever. Come to think of it, going to the shops was so so special that i remember getting 5 cents to spend on lollies (a whole bag). Am i showing my age? Oh, did i mention there were 6 kids!

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    1. Lynda I am in my 30's and I can remember 20 cent bags of lollies and 1 cent lollies too. That cellar sounds great and it is something I am considering for the house we will build when we move to NZ.

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