Stockpiling

This used to be my laundry - small and poky. I used it for washing only. There wasn't enough room for folding or mixing cleaners or to turn around. I really disliked this space.

I have a washing machine, a dryer and an old sink in here. I normally don't use the dryer but we live on the boarder to the Tropics and often when it rains, it rains for days and there's no way of drying anything as the air is so humid, so that's when I use the dryer.

I thought long and hard what to do with the space - should I extend it? Should I convert the Guestroom into an utility room? I didn't want to spend a large amount of money as I've already done a lot of renovations over the past 18 months and I wanted it as soon as possible. Finally, we decided to build the laundry in our shed. It's got 3 bays and we only have one car, so there's plenty of space. The shed is also much closer to the clothesline, so I don't have to carry wet clothes too far which is good.

A good friend of mine is a cabinet maker and I asked him for help and of course, he packed his car with all his tools and came up to build my laundry.

How impressive is that?! Thank you Simon for doing such a great job! Of course we all helped out assembling furniture, painting etc and Steve and I really enjoyed this... Well, I certainly did, Steve might have not enjoyed it as much as me but he still did a fantastic job!

And this is the finished product - a nice big laundry complete with walls and tiles and plenty of storage. So by now you must be wondering why I called this post 'stockpiling' when I talk about a new laundry, right? Well, this is a pretty impressive and big laundry and I'm happy to have plenty of space for making my cleaners and folding the clothes but I cannot fill the entire laundry up with laundry-related items...

... so the last cupboard is going to be my stockpiling pantry! Yay!!! Of course, I immediately wanted to fill it (no, patience is not my strong side). If I would have just walked to the next Supermarket to fill the pantry up, I would have paid a fortune. So Steve and I went on a little mid-week trip to Bargara near Bundaberg. This is where we can go shopping at Aldi's. It's about 400 km from us, so we stayed for a couple of nights and enjoyed the beach. On the way home, we stopped at Aldi's. It's a German discount grocery store and as I'm German, there's often things I really like and don't get anywhere else. I ended up buying 3 trolley load of groceries and household products. The car was packed to the rim and I have a big 4WD. We bought enough to get us through 6-9 months and we paid less than $400! If I would have bought these items in our Supermarket, I would have easily paid more than $800. In fact, I checked the prices at the 2 big Supermarkets for the items I bought and was happy to see that despite the cost for petrol and accommodation, we actually saved money. This means that the cost for the groceries at Aldi's plus petrol plus accommodation was less than if I would have bought the same items in my local Supermarket! Imagine that! Look at my beautiful filled stockpiling pantry. I'm so happy!

On the other side, I keep my cleaning products, rags and empty containers which I use when I make my cleaning products.

The build-in in the old laundry remained in place and now stores pantry items I use regularly as well as some of the larger crockery I cannot fit into the kitchen.

So now where I've got all my dry items organised, I look at my meat supply. We like eating meat but I only buy free-range and local as I cannot bear the thought of an animal suffering all its life, just to end up on my plate. As you can imagine this can be pricey. So I had a look around and ended up calling a Farmbutcher. I ordered 1/2 side of beef and an entire lamb. He let me know when he will be doing the job and he said it takes about 3 days to process until I can pick it up. It was a Friday afternoon when I picked up a meat galore.

Beautiful cuts of beef and lamb - steaks, cutlets, roasts - a little bit of everything - just as I wanted.

Sausages, Mince and all the little by-products which I will use to make dogfood.

I knew my fridges wouldn't be able to hold 1/2 a cow and a lamb, so I needed to get all the meat frozen straight away.

I bought a vacuum sealer and this was the first time I ever used it, so I was hoping it is easy enough to do (and it was).

I set up my work area in the shed - glass of wine (it was 6 pm), labels, bags, vacuum sealer and music. It was February when I did this, so it was very warm, there were flies everywhere and Hera and Quentin (who was still alive back then) sat in the garage watching every single move and ended up with a nice dinner.

Before I ordered the meat, I bought a new freezer - 500 L - that should be enough.

Since I'm short and cannot reach the bottom of the freezer, I bought some plastic crates to put the meat in, so I have easier access. Look at that it's pretty full! It took me 6 hours to pack all the meat in portions, bag and seal them. I was exhausted but happy! We paid $7/kg for the beef and $9/kg for the lamb. In total, we had about 150 kg of meat plus bones - that should last a while.

Now where he have stocked up on dry food and meat, we need to stock up on cleaning basics. I bought these 3 buckets which I use for most of my cleaning products for less than $100 (delivered) and they will last me a very long time!

So why is it such a good idea to stockpile?

1. It's cheaper - buying in bulk is mostly more economic than buying smaller items. You also save money on petrol as you don't have to go to the shops that often. I now go Supermarket shopping once a month and my grocery bill has reduced from $200 to $50 a week. I only need to buy fresh fruit and veggies from the markets as well as dairy from the Supermarket. Everything else I have at home.
2. You're prepared in an emergency. In our region, cyclones can hit during certain times of the year. In early 2013 we were flooded in and had no power for 3 days. Luckily, we were independent enough to keep living as usual. In early 2012 a major flood cut the highway at several occasions. Stock at the Supermarket ran out quickly and couldn't get replenished as goods couldn't come through. You need to be prepared!

And last but not least, if you want a nicely home cooked meal without having to go to the shops, having to find parking, fighting your way past rushing people and screaming children, you can just get something out of the pantry and freezer and produce this.

Simple life - it's so simple and makes you so happy, you wonder why you haven't lived like that all your life.