Just 4 days ago, when I mentioned my neighbours trying to get the best price for domestic heating oil, it was 89.90p per litre. The next day, it rose to 93.49p. Today, it is 105.5p per litre with VAT to be added on top of that!
Petrol last week when we went shopping on Friday, was 147.7p per litre. Today it is between 151p and 157p (supermarket prices) depending on where you go, locally. I know my son is paying way more than that, per litre, where he lives.
Lidl today had quite a few empty shelves but both Morrison's and Sainsburys were quite well stocked. It isn't just about being well stocked though, is it? It is how much food will cost when those high fuel prices impinge both on the cost of transport and storage, especially frozen and refrigerated food. As harvesting progresses throughout the year, lots of produce is kept in low temperature storage facilities.
Wheat and other cereal crops were poor or indeed failed last year in certain parts of the world. Now add the loss of Ukraine exports, Russian sanctions and at least Hungary closing down their cereal exports. You would have to be blind to what will happen to those prices.
I felt for a woman interviewed outside a supermarket in America. She was being told about this and the worldwide shortage of fertiliser about to affect this and potentially next years crops and how bad the farmers were doing due to rising costs. She wasn't worried about the farmers as "I get all my food from the supermarkets". It does beggar belief that she didn't realise that the supermarkets get their food from farmers. Many people though today, seem to be totally disconnected from where their food actually comes from, so maybe her answer wasn't so surprising.
American prepping channels have been warning about these failures and the fertiliser shortages for several months now. Yet today is the first mention I have found on our business pages. If you garden to grow your own vegetables, I would recommend growing heirloom varieties rather than F1 as you can save the seed for future years.
Recommendations from those preppers are to grow just 5 or so foods that will keep you going through the winter months, rather than many different types of food. My garden is no longer that big but I will certainly aim to grow more this year. We do well with soft fruit (apart from a gooseberry failure last year). Indeed we still have loads of rhubarb and brambles left. Apples were bad last year but pears were okay. I can't store things long term in something like a root cellar so most is frozen or eaten fresh. Eating them fresh means the money I would have spent on those items, can be used buying food to store.
I no longer care whether people think I am mad. Don't you think if citizens had had the chance to store food long before WWII, they would have done so? Once the situation got too real and very close, prepping/hoarding was banned.
Questions to myself are - do I have enough for me and mine if things took a turn for the worse? How would we cook things, efficiently, if no gas/electric/oil was available? How would we stay warm?