Sunday 26 June 2022 07:00 AM Doomsday prepper shopping could save money at Coles and Woolworths: Trevor ... trends now
As Australia lurches out of the Covid pandemic and into a cost of living crisis survivalists have shared their tips for shopping frugally and getting in touch with nature.
Doomsday prepper Trevor Andrei told Daily Mail Australia he's been inundated with calls asking for advice about how to save money.
He's spent most of his life preparing for 'all case scenarios' - fearing everything from nuclear war, cyber attacks, and natural disasters, to new pandemic and even alien invasions.
Mr Andrei, in his 40s, runs The Survival Shop and lives on a property in rural Victoria where he practices foraging and stores years' worth of canned food and other non-perishable items.
'I teach people to prepare for all case scenarios - but I'm not here to be captain crazy. It's just about self sufficiency,' Mr Andrei, who last year featured in the ABC documentary series Prepping Australia, said.
'Does it actually take a pandemic to work out that when things are on special and in plentiful supply at half price that you should stock up?'
Doomsday prepper Trevor Andrei stores years-worth of canned food and other non-perishable items (pictured)
Doomsday preppers stock up for 'all case scenarios' fearing everything from Word War III, cyber attacks, natural disasters, another pandemic or even an alien invasion. Pictured: Some of the events preppers get ready for
He claims to have warned about the risk of pandemics long before Covid hit Australia in March, 2020, and argues his strange lifestyle is 'nothing new'.
'Prepping has been around for thousands of years. So putting grain in silos, making aqueducts, salting fish, preserving food - this is nothing new,' Mr Andrei said.
'Most people don't even have a week's worth of food in their house and these are professionals who make good money.'
The cost of food in Australian has skyrocketed in 2022 with inflation now sitting at 5.1 per cent and expected to soar even higher.
Massive government subsidy programs during the pandemic have sparked the increase, with the issue exacerbated by surging oil prices following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February.
Fuel prices are now over $2 a litre on average nationwide.
Record floods on the east coast of Australia have also compounded the cost of living crisis, choking the supply of many fresh vegetables including iceberg lettuce which is now selling for $11 a head in some parts.
Mr Andrei says those worried about rising prices should live 'like our grandparents used to'.
'Go to farmer markets
