Ready for a week of empty shelves

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So the aim is modest. Hold enough at home that you can shrug, skip the shops for a week, and not be part of the queue.

The principle

Buy two extra things a week for a couple of months. Things you already eat. Put the new ones at the back. That’s the whole method. It costs a few pounds a week and nobody at the till looks at you.

What you must not do is the big dramatic shop. Panic buying is how a wobble becomes a shortage. In 2020 the country emptied the loo roll aisle in a week and then learned the factories had never stopped.

A week’s buffer

• Seven days of tins, dry goods and long-life milk per person. The list
• Breakfast that keeps: oats, cereal, long-life juice
• The things that vanish first: pasta, rice, flour, eggs, tinned tomatoes, bread for the freezer
• Tea, coffee, and whatever your household treats as a human right
• One spare pack of toilet roll. One.
• Soap, toothpaste, washing powder, period products, nappies
• A month ahead on pet food
• Regular medicines ordered in good time. Essentials
• Baby formula and baby food, if that’s your life at the moment

Making it keep

• Decant rice, pasta, oats and flour into airtight tubs. Storage
• Somewhere cool, dry and dark, off the floor
• Write the month and year on the top of tins in marker pen
• Oldest at the front, newest at the back
• Twice a year, when the clocks change, eat anything getting on a bit

The freezer counts

A freezer is the cheapest long-life food store you own. Sliced bread, milk in plastic bottles, butter, grated cheese and most leftovers freeze well. Its weakness is a power cut, so read how long a freezer lasts.

Kit for the cupboard