A no-cook shelf, and a larder you can cook from

The no-cook shelf

In a power cut you may have no hob. Be Ready says keep food that needs no cooking and no fridge. Roughly what one person gets through in three days, so scale it to the period you've chosen:

• Three tins of fish or beans with a ring pull (tuna, sardines, baked beans, chickpeas)
• Three tins of fruit in juice, or pots of fruit
• A jar of peanut butter, a pack of crackers or oatcakes, a box of cereal bars
• A litre of long-life milk (oat, soya or UHT dairy) and a box of cereal
• Biscuits, chocolate, the children's thing that makes a bad evening fine
• Teabags and instant coffee for when the stove or the kettle is back

Write the date on everything with a marker. Shelve new at the back. When something is a month from its date, use it in a normal meal and buy another.

A camping stove and four gas cartridges turn this into hot meals and a month of normal cooking. Window open, CO alarm fitted. GREEN HAVEN camping stove + 4 butane in my kit adorCampingaz Camp Bistro 3 adorCampingaz Camping Chef 2-burner ad KitchenCraft heavy-duty tin opener ad

The bigger larder

Quantities for one adult for 30 days, eating entirely from the cupboard. That's a unit to scale from, not a target: divide or multiply for the period you've chosen. Multiply by your household: adults count 1, children 0.7. A family of two adults and two children is about 3.4 adult-shares. Prices are supermarket own-brand, which is the same food as the branded tin for about half the cost.

Carbs

Protein, the expensive bit

Fruit, veg, dairy

Flavour and morale

Stock the cupboard once with oils, stock cubes, salt, a few spices, soy sauce, ketchup, tomato purée, curry and pasta sauces in jars. Then tea, coffee, hot chocolate, honey, jam, biscuits, chocolate. When bland stored food is all there is, salt and something sweet make a big difference. Budget the flavour shelf as a one-off and top up what you use.

Building it up over 11 weekly shops, about £20 each

Add one tranche to each weekly supermarket order. By week 11 a family of four has about a month of food, a good start on bottled water, and the non-food basics. The cost is spread across eleven shops, and because it's all food you eat anyway, nothing goes to waste. Pin this to the fridge and tick the weeks.

• Week 1 Rice 4 kg, chopped tomatoes ×8, baked beans ×8, pasta ×5, tuna ×4, red lentils, chickpeas ×2. The backbone. About £20.
• Week 2 Ten 5 L bottles of water, wet wipes ×2, hand sanitiser ×2. Water and hygiene. Ten bottles is 50 litres, more than three days' drinking water for a family of four at 3 litres a person a day.
• Week 3 Sardines, mackerel, salmon ×8 between them, mixed beans ×8, peanut butter ×2. Protein.
• Week 4 Tinned fruit ×12, dried fruit ×3 bags, nuts ×2. Vitamins and morale.
• Week 5 Long-life milk ×12, milk powder ×2, coconut milk ×4, condensed milk ×2. Dairy and milks.
• Week 6 Oats 2 kg, cereal ×3, crackers ×4, cereal bars ×4, biscuits ×4. Breakfast and the no-cook shelf.
• Week 7 Sweetcorn ×6, carrots ×4, spinach ×4, peas ×4, tinned potatoes ×6, jar sauces ×4. Veg and sauces.
• Week 8 Oils ×2, stock cubes, salt, spices ×4, soy, ketchup, tomato purée ×2. The flavour foundation, bought once.
• Week 9 Tea ×2, instant coffee ×2, hot chocolate, honey, jam, chocolate ×4. The morale shelf.
• Week 10 Toilet roll ×24, AA and AAA batteries, bin bags, matches, a manual tin opener. Non-food. Don't skip the tin opener; it's easy to forget.
• Week 11 Pet food for a month, pasta ×5 more, tomatoes ×8 more, and the things your children actually asked for. Top-up and pets.

Keeping it edible

• Cool, dark, dry: ideally 10 to 15 °C. Every 5 °C cooler roughly doubles shelf life. Not next to the oven or boiler.
• Decant flour, rice, pasta, oats and sugar out of paper and thin plastic into airtight tubs. It stops moths and damp, and mice can't get in.
• First in, first out. Date it, shelve new at the back, cook from the front.
• "Best before" on a tin is about quality; intact tins are safe well past it. A bulging, leaking or badly dented tin goes in the bin unopened.

KICHLY airtight containers ×18 ad

Where to put it all, including the mouse problem, is on the storage page.

Do you need the freeze-dried buckets?

Mostly no. A tin of beans keeps for years and costs 40p. Long-life ration pouches are useful for one thing: a grab bag, where weight and no-cook matter and you'll never rotate the contents. One or two per person, and keep the money in the supermarket otherwise.

Wayfayrer eat-cold pouch ad Expedition Foods 800 kcal pouch ad