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We’ve spent this year calmly building our pantries. Now it’s time to start building them out. Not from fear, not through panic buying and certainly not by going into debt, but by making sure our households have a sensible buffer against rising prices, shortages and interruptions.
I want you to stop for a moment and ask yourself a few questions. What would you do if the price of food rose sharply again? What would you do if something your family regularly eats suddenly became difficult to find? What would happen if fuel prices rose substantially and the cost of getting food from the farm to your kitchen increased with them? What would you do if there were a long power outage and your freezer was full? And perhaps the most important question of all: how long could you feed your household from what you already have at home? These aren’t questions designed to frighten you. They’re questions designed to make you think. Contingency planning isn’t panicking. It isn’t racing to the supermarket and stripping the shelves. It isn’t buying three trolleys of food you don’t normally eat or putting hundreds of dollars of groceries onto a credit card. Contingency planning simply means looking at what could happen, thinking about how it would affect your household, and taking sensible steps now while you still have choices. And I believe the time to do that is now. We’ve Been Building Calmly — Now It’s Time to Build Out For most of this year I’ve been encouraging everyone to calmly build their pantry. A tin here. A packet there. An extra bag of flour when it reaches your buy price. Another tin of tomatoes. An extra packet of pasta. Some dried beans, rolled oats, rice, sugar, salt and the other ingredients your household regularly uses. No panic buying. No clearing supermarket shelves. No spending the mortgage payment on baked beans. Just steady, methodical pantry building. That approach hasn’t changed. What has changed is the urgency I feel about building that pantry out. Building out means increasing the length of time your pantry could support your household. If you have enough food for a week, could you work towards two weeks? If you have two weeks, could you extend that to a month? If you have a month, could you begin working towards three months? And if you already have a three-month buffer, perhaps you want to begin building six months or longer. You don’t need to copy my pantry. You don’t need to copy anyone else’s pantry. Your household size, budget, storage space, dietary needs and circumstances are yours. What matters is knowing your target and steadily working towards it. Why I’m Taking This More Seriously There are some very good reasons to pay attention. At the time of writing, Australian annual inflation is running above the Reserve Bank’s target range, and food, transport and other household costs remain under pressure. Treasury has also modelled what could happen under a much more serious disruption to global oil markets. One severe scenario has Australian inflation reaching around 7¼ per cent by the end of 2026 if Middle East conflict escalates and oil prices rise dramatically. I want to be very clear here. Seven per cent inflation is not the official forecast. It is a severe downside scenario. It isn’t guaranteed to happen. But Treasury considers the possibility credible enough to model. For me, that’s enough reason to look at our household contingencies and ask: If things become more expensive or more difficult for a while, are we ready? Because waiting until inflation is already at 7 per cent — or waiting until the shelves are empty, fuel is expensive or everyone else has suddenly decided they need a pantry — is leaving the preparation rather late. Preparing beforehand gives us choices. Inflation at Your House Is Different From Inflation at Mine One of the things we need to remember about inflation is that the published inflation rate is an average. Every product doesn’t suddenly rise by exactly 4 per cent or 7 per cent. Some prices may hardly move. Some may fall. Others can rise by far more than the headline inflation rate. And no household buys the mythical “average household basket”. A family with teenagers, two cars, a long commute and a diet heavy in meat and dairy may experience price rises very differently from a retired couple who work in their vegetable garden, drive very little and cook nearly everything from scratch. That’s why I keep telling you to keep a Price Book. Your Price Book tells you what inflation is actually doing to your household. It shows you that the tomatoes you once paid 80 cents for are now $1. It reminds you what a good price for flour really is. It tells you whether that supermarket “special” is genuinely special or whether the red ticket is simply decorating the normal price. Most importantly, it helps you know when it makes sense to buy an extra one or two for the pantry. And remember: when inflation slows, prices don’t necessarily go backwards. Often they simply keep rising more slowly. That’s one reason a well-managed pantry can be such a useful household buffer. You can buy food you know you will use when the price is good, then eat it months later when the replacement price may be considerably higher. My Pantry Has Been More Than Ten Years in the Making I started building a 12-month pantry more than ten years ago. It wasn’t built in a weekend. There was no enormous trolley dash. It was built gradually. I used my Price Book. I followed sale cycles. I stocked up on ingredients at their lowest prices. I preserved seasonal produce. I rotated everything. We ate from the pantry and replaced what we used; then about four years ago, we made the decision to work towards doubling it. That doesn’t mean we have two years’ worth of every imaginable food. What we’ve done is build depth into the ingredients and household staples we use all the time. And no, I don’t consider that greedy. It isn’t hoarding. It isn’t selfish. And it certainly isn’t panic buying. We didn’t hear about a shortage and rush to the supermarket to empty the shelves. We built our supplies little by little during normal shopping, within our normal household budget and at the best prices we could find. That is sensible household management. Much of the food we are eating now was bought 18 months to two years ago. And it was bought at prices considerably lower than the prices I am paying to replace those foods today. That is one of the great advantages of a deep, well-rotated pantry. It gives you a buffer between your family and sudden price rises. It also gives you something incredibly valuable: time. If the price is terrible this week, I may not need to buy. I can wait for another sale. I’m not standing in the supermarket desperately needing that ingredient for dinner tonight. My pantry turns an urgent purchase into a planned purchase. And planned purchases are almost always easier to control. Ingredients Give You Options Our pantry is primarily an ingredients-based pantry. I buy very few convenience grocery products. There are about six tins of Harvest stew on the shelf. They’re handy for illness, emergencies, power outages and those days when nobody wants to cook. And yes, there are baked beans. Do baked beans count as a convenience grocery? Probably. Although they’re such a pantry staple I’m inclined to give them honorary ingredient status! There is nothing wrong with keeping some heat-and-eat food. In fact, it can be an important part of a sensible contingency pantry. You may be sick. The power may have just come back on. You may be physically unable to cook. Everyone may be exhausted. Having a few meals that simply need opening or heating is sensible. But the backbone of my pantry will always be ingredients. Why? Because ingredients give me options. And usually they cost less. A bag of flour can become bread, rolls, pizza bases, pancakes, scones, biscuits, pastry, dumplings or sauce. Rolled oats can become porridge, muesli, biscuits, slices, crumble topping or a meal stretcher. Rice can become a side dish, fried rice, rice salad, rice pudding, soup, casserole or the base of a complete meal. Beans and lentils can become soups, curries, patties, dips, salads, stews or meat stretchers. Powdered milk can be used for drinking, baking, sauces, custards, yoghurt and desserts. A tin of tomatoes can become pasta sauce, pizza sauce, soup, curry, casserole, shakshuka or stew. Ingredients let you change the plan when something is unavailable or has become too expensive. You don’t need the exact packet that creates one particular meal. You need ingredients capable of creating many meals. That flexibility is one of the most valuable forms of food security. Why an Oil Crisis Matters to Your Grocery Budget It’s easy to hear about oil problems in the Middle East and think: I don’t use much petrol, so it won’t affect me. Unfortunately, it goes much further than the price at the bowser. A substantial proportion of the world’s oil and gas normally moves through the Strait of Hormuz. Australia is also heavily reliant on imported refined petroleum products. When global oil supplies are disrupted, the cost can work its way through almost everything. Think about how often fuel is involved before a loaf of bread, tin of tomatoes or bag of rice reaches your kitchen. Fuel runs farm machinery. Fuel transports seed, stockfeed, fertiliser and farm supplies. It takes food from farms to processors. It carries ingredients and packaging to factories. It moves finished goods to distribution centres. It moves them again to individual supermarkets. Then many of us use fuel to drive to the shops to buy them. Every business involved in that chain has costs. When those costs rise significantly and stay high, some of that increase eventually reaches the customer. And It Isn’t Only Petrol Oil and gas are involved in much more than fuel. They are important energy sources and feedstocks for industrial products, fertilisers and petrochemicals. Think about supermarket packaging alone. The plastic film around a packet. The bottle holding detergent or cooking oil. The meat tray. The lid on a jar. The wrapping around pallets. Storage tubs, seals and manufacturing materials. One tiny piece of packaging may not make a huge difference to the price of one grocery item. But costs accumulate right through the supply chain. Then there is fertiliser. Then transport. Then farm machinery. Then refrigeration. Then manufacturing. And these costs don’t necessarily appear on supermarket shelves immediately. A manufacturer may already have packaging bought under an old contract. A farmer may already have fertiliser for this season. A supermarket may have stock sitting in a distribution centre. There can be a lag. Eventually inventories are replaced, contracts are renegotiated and the new costs start flowing through. That is why a temporary improvement in oil prices doesn’t necessarily mean the pressure has disappeared. Things Don’t Instantly Return to Normal The other thing worth remembering is that once a major supply chain has been disrupted, turning it back on isn’t like flicking a light switch. Shipping routes must be safe. Tankers need to be available. Insurance needs to be available and affordable. Ports and infrastructure need to work. Refineries need reliable supplies. Inventories throughout the system need rebuilding. Contracts need reorganising. Shipping schedules need reorganising. Governments and companies will also make decisions about restoring their own reserves. How long that takes depends entirely on what happens from here. Nobody can give us a guaranteed date. That means it would be unwise to build our household plans around the assumption that everything will simply be “back to normal next week”. Australia Has Food — But That Doesn’t Automatically Mean Your Household Has Food Security Australia is fortunate. We produce far more food than we consume and we are a major agricultural exporter. I am not suggesting that Australia is suddenly going to run out of food. That is not the point. Household food security isn’t only about whether there is food somewhere in Australia. It is also about:
But if your weekly grocery budget no longer buys enough food to feed your family, you have a household food-security problem. That is what we are trying to avoid. So What Does Building Out the Pantry Actually Look Like? It does not mean going out tomorrow and buying two years’ worth of food. For most households that would be financially impossible, difficult to store and incredibly wasteful. Instead, choose a time goal. Start with seven days. Can you feed everyone for seven days without shopping? Then work towards two weeks. Then a month. Once you have a month, decide whether three months would be appropriate for your family. Then perhaps six months. Some households may eventually want to go further. Others may decide a one- or three-month pantry, supported by a productive garden, preserving skills and an emergency savings buffer, suits them perfectly. The exact number isn’t as important as having a deliberate plan. And build around meals, not random groceries. Ask: What do we eat for breakfast? What pantry lunches do we enjoy? What are our simplest dinners? What do I need for baking? What will everyone eat when they’re tired or sick? What could I make if fresh food was limited for a week? Then stock the ingredients for those meals. Thirty tins of something nobody likes are not food security. They are expensive shelf decoration. Start With the Foods You Use Most Pull out your Perpetual Shopping List or your grocery receipts and identify the twenty or thirty foods your family uses most regularly. For you that might include: flour, oats, rice, pasta, dried beans, lentils, canned tomatoes, canned vegetables, canned fruit, tuna, milk powder, sugar, salt, yeast, baking powder, herbs, spices, stock, oil, vinegar, sauces, peanut butter and long-life milk. Your list will be different from mine. Then start measuring how much you use. If you go through four tins of tomatoes every week, a one-month supply is around seventeen tins. If you use a kilo of flour each week, allow four to five kilos for a month. Don't rely on a generic pantry checklist if you can work from your own consumption. The best pantry is one based on what your household actually eats. Once you know your monthly use, building out becomes much easier. One month. Then another month. Then another. Layer by layer. Keep Using Your Cheapskates Habits More urgency does not mean throwing good Cheapskates habits out the window. In fact, this is when we need them most. Keep using your Price Book. Know your best buy prices. Watch the supermarket cycles. Compare unit prices. Buy one for now and one or two for later when the price is right. Use rain checks where they're offered. Look beyond the supermarket when it makes sense — wholesalers, markets, bulk-food stores, farm gates, co-ops and direct suppliers can all be worth investigating. But compare prices carefully. A giant packet isn't automatically a bargain. And something that spoils before you use it is definitely not a bargain. Most importantly: do not go into debt to build your pantry. A pantry being charged 20 per cent credit-card interest isn't creating financial security. Work with the money you have. Even one additional pantry item each week adds fifty-two items over a year. Two extras add more than one hundred. Small actions become powerful when they are repeated consistently. A Deep Pantry Must Be a Working Pantry Don't forget storage and rotation. Your pantry should be constantly moving. Food comes in. Food is eaten. Food is replaced. Protect food from moisture, heat, sunlight and pests. Use sturdy shelving. Use food-safe containers where appropriate. Label and date everything. Put new stock behind old stock. Eat the older food first. Your pantry shouldn't be a museum display that sits untouched until everything is too old to use. It should contain the foods you are eating every day. That is what keeps rotation working and waste low. Don't Put All Your Food Security in the Freezer This is also one of the reasons behind my Ditch the Freezer Challenge. Freezers are wonderfully convenient, but they rely on continuous electricity. They cost money to run. And when they're full, there can be hundreds or even thousands of dollars' worth of food sitting inside them. A long blackout can put all of it at risk. I've been gradually moving suitable food from the freezer to the pantry shelf. I'm pressure canning appropriate foods. I'm dehydrating. I'm making breadcrumbs from bread ends. Frozen vegetables can often be dehydrated. Fruit can be bottled, canned or dried. Meat can be pressure canned safely when you have the correct equipment, knowledge and current tested instructions. I'm not suggesting everyone rush out and start pressure canning meat tomorrow. Safe preserving matters. But I do want you to think about this question: does your entire food reserve rely on one system? If everything is frozen, what is your freezer contingency? Could you safely power it during an outage? Do you have an alternative way to preserve some of that food? Do you have the necessary jars, lids or equipment? Most importantly, have you practised using them? Because a contingency plan you have never tested is still mostly a theory. Could You Cook Without Electricity? This is another question worth answering before you need to. A pantry full of dried beans isn't very useful during an extended power outage if you have absolutely no way to cook them. Could you cook outside on a barbecue? Do you have an appropriate camping stove and fuel? Do you have another safe cooking method? And does your pantry contain foods that don't require cooking at all? That's where a few tins of stew, baked beans, tuna, crackers, peanut butter and canned fruit can earn their shelf space. Ideally your emergency food includes a mixture of: • foods that need normal cooking; • foods that only need heating; and • foods that can be eaten straight from the packet or tin. And please remember: outdoor cooking equipment should never be used indoors or in enclosed spaces where carbon monoxide can build up. Preparedness is supposed to solve problems, not create them. Water Is Part of Your Pantry Too Food tends to get all the attention, but water is even more important. How much safe drinking water do you currently have stored? What would happen if your normal water supply were interrupted? Do you have enough for drinking, simple food preparation, essential hygiene and your pets? Do you have clean, appropriate containers? Do you rotate your stored water? Do you know where you would get reliable information about treating water if authorities advised that your normal supply was unsafe? Don't wait for an interruption to discover you don't have suitable containers. Make water part of your contingency planning now. Remember the Things Unique to Your Household No generic pantry list can cover every family. Your contingency plan needs to take into account things such as: babies and young children, elderly family members, food allergies, coeliac disease, diabetes, sensory requirements, pet food, toiletries, cleaning products and anything else your household genuinely relies on. You don't need enormous amounts of everything. What you're looking for are the items that would create a serious problem if they unexpectedly ran out. Those are your priorities. One of the Best Contingencies Costs Almost Nothing Learn to substitute. What could you make if bread became too expensive? What could you use in baking if eggs were unavailable? Could lentils stretch your mince? Can milk powder replace fresh milk in cooking? Can you make your own white sauce instead of buying a jar? Can leftover vegetables become soup, fritters or fried rice? Can you cook dried beans instead of buying tins? Can you bake without a packet mix? Can you make dinner from whatever ingredients are available rather than needing an exact recipe? These aren't deprivation skills. They're flexibility skills. And households that can adapt have far more options. Write Your Ten Backup Meals I strongly suggest writing down ten meals your family will happily eat that can be prepared mainly from pantry ingredients. They might include:
Put your list inside the pantry door. When life goes pear-shaped you don't want to stand there staring at shelves wondering what on earth to cook. Look at your list. Choose. Cook. Eat. That's what a contingency plan is for. Don't Forget the Financial Contingency Food is only part of household security. A pantry gives you time. A financial buffer gives you choices. If fuel suddenly becomes much more expensive, can you combine trips? Reduce unnecessary driving? Carpool? Use your pantry instead of making a supermarket run for one forgotten ingredient? Could you temporarily redirect money from a lower-priority spending category? Do you have even a small grocery contingency fund? A modest buffer may be enough to stop an unexpected cost going onto the credit card. Review subscriptions, takeaway spending, convenience shopping and food waste. This isn't about making life miserable. It's about choosing to redirect money from things that matter less towards the security of things that matter more.
Please Don't Try to Do Everything This Week
If you're reading this and suddenly thinking you need to completely rebuild your household by Saturday, you don't. Please don't rush out and attempt to buy a 12-month pantry tomorrow. That isn't what I'm suggesting. What I am suggesting is that you stop drifting. Set a goal. Take an inventory. Identify the gaps. Prioritise the foods your family uses. Then start building out deliberately. Perhaps this week you simply inventory the pantry. Next week, add another week's worth of breakfasts. Then lunches. Then seven dinners. Then check your baking supplies. Then water. Then your blackout cooking plan. Then toiletries and cleaning supplies. Build in layers. A calm plan followed consistently will achieve far more than one frantic shopping trip. Seven Questions I Want You to Answer This is your homework. Before you move on to something else, answer these seven questions: 1. How many days could I feed my household without shopping? 2. What ten meals could I make from the food I already have? 3. What would I do with my freezer food during a long blackout? 4. How would I safely cook if the electricity were off? 5. How much safe drinking water do I have? 6. Which five foods or household essentials would create the biggest problem if I ran out? 7. What is one thing I can do this week to improve our position? Perhaps it's buying two extra tins of tomatoes when they're on sale. Perhaps it's filling your water containers. Perhaps it's starting your Price Book. Perhaps it's simply reorganising the pantry so you can see what you already own. Perhaps it's learning to make bread. Perhaps it's moving some food out of the freezer and preserving it another way. Choose one thing. Do it. Then choose the next. This Is Not About Fear I want to finish by making this very clear. We are not preparing because disaster is inevitable. We are preparing because uncertainty is normal. Prices change. Weather happens. Power goes out. Jobs change. People become ill. Supply chains are disrupted. Events on the other side of the world can affect Australian households. A pantry cannot solve every problem. But it can give you breathing room. It can allow you to continue feeding the family while you work out what to do next. It can help you avoid paying the highest price during a temporary shortage. It can give you options when income is interrupted. It can allow you to help a family member, friend or neighbour. And it can bring tremendous peace of mind. That isn't greed. It isn't hoarding. It isn't selfish. It is sensible household management. We have spent this year calmly building our pantries. Now I think it's time to take another look at our contingencies and start building those pantries out. Not recklessly. Not fearfully. Not with borrowed money. But steadily, thoughtfully and seriously. Do it while you can still take your time. Do it while you can watch for specials. Do it while you can compare prices. Do it while you can learn the skills. Do it while you have choices. Your Member Hub Challenge This week, don't try to fix everything. Simply answer this: How long could you feed your household from what you have right now — and what is the first gap you need to fill? Start there. Then keep going. Because food security isn't created in one enormous shopping trip. It is built quietly, steadily and deliberately, one sensible decision at a time. Live well. Spend less. Stress less.
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