I now have 4 8- roll packages of paper towel and 5 package of TP. 7 bottles of vinegar and 8 of hydrogen peroxide. I’ve never kept stuff around in this quantity before; I guess it’s a reaction to panic.
You seem well prepared. Don’t feel bad about hoarding that amount.
An individual hoard is nothing like a big business (I’m thinking hotels) buying train cars full of TP and bottled water. Or cleaning supplies.
Oh, yeah, get baking soda and bleach too.
I went grocery shopping the other day and there, like manna from heaven, was a whole isle of TP. Just like pre-pandemic! Or close to it anyway. I bought a big pack (36 rolls, I think) and a 12 pack. We still have 2 1/2 12-packs, as well as at least one crappy 6-pack of John Wayne TP in the linen closet that I got before the panic set in. So now we have somewhere around 90 rolls of TP. We’re using a roll every 2-3 days though.
I’m actually a little ashamed that I have so much TP. On the one hand I bought it when I didn’t truly need it (I justified it by noting that the isle of TP offerings was crammed with stock, so I wasn’t denying anyone else the chance to get some), but on the other hand I’m firmly convinced this virus will have its Second Coming and, seeing how stupid people were the first time around, I dont want to take any chances. We have a man, a woman, and two teen boys in the house now 24/7. We go through TP at an alarming rate.
When this thing kicked off and all sorts of weird stuff like yeast was hard to find, I told myself that I would absolutely become – or at least flirt with becoming – one of those “have 6 months minimum of all necessities squirreled away in the garage” people. There were reports that a lot of prescription medications were becoming hard to get, which scared the hell out of me: T2 diabetic, on BP meds as well. Having at least a couple month’s worth of supply that gets rotated through I think might be smart.
Once things calm down I’m definitely going to make sure I have several month’s worth of bleach, Lysol / Pine-Sol, and several boxes of masks stashed away. We’re lucky we bought 2 big gallons of Pine-Sol before the lockdown, so we’re still good there. But we went probably 2 months before I could find bleach again. This fucking thing has made me paranoid. And I hate it.
Interestingly, I think I only saw the paper towel shelves empty once, while the TP was empty for weeks. We use paper towels like everyone else does, but to me they’re kinda like clorox wipes: convinient, but not vital. We actually have half a container of Clorox wipes, but we use them so rarely that I won’t worry when we out. I have a gallon of bleach, duty rags, and am capable of reading the mixing directions on the bottle. The lack of Clorox wipes, or paper towels for that matter, will not be an emergency in my house.
I will, however, keep an extra package around to keep my wife happy.
I’ve always hoarded to a degree. Living remotely and having lots of family made me endeavour to be prepared.
A bout of belly aches that the kids had one dreadful weekend taught me to keep extra TP in my cupboard.
I think the days of hoarding are pretty much over in my location. I was at the supermarket tonight, and while there are still blank spaces on some shelves (the canned soup that I particularly like wasn’t there, though there were plenty of other canned soups to choose from), others were well-stocked. There was plenty of TP, some of it even on sale.
Even better, the deli was open, which it hasn’t been for the past two months. The bakery had been working to produce all kinds of things, and I was able to get some fresh rolls. Of course, everybody was taking precautions: masks, sanitizer, distancing, and so on. But I’m no longer worried that I cannot get what I need to, due to others’ hoarding.
It’s technically not hoarding. Call it prepping instead.
Quite frankly, with uncertainty inceasing in more and more ways than we ever dreamed possible, prepping is the only sane way to go.
With Mr VOW 's new eating requirements (NO SALT), it’s even more imperative that I stock up on things he CAN eat. I’ve got the fixings to make no-salt spaghetti sauce and no-salt chili. I also have jars and a pressure canner.
~VOW
I have no idea where the OP lives, but there have to be natural disasters in the area. You aren’t hoarding, you are preparing for what will likely happen in the future. You are* protecting your family,* not acting like a crazed old fool.
If it had been the last 12-pack of Quilted Northern on the shelves, I would have passed it by since I have 2 in the garage. But it wasn’t, so I grabbed one. This is only going to get worse, so being even more prepared than I was is only prudent. I live in a zone prone to earthquakes, wildfires and pig-fucking racist scumbags, so we were in pretty good shape before the wheels came off. I’m just upping my supplies from “2 weeks” to “several months.”
Do it incrementally and it doesn’t feel so crazy.
You don’t mention how you have been burned?
If you know how much of an item you consume over a time period, you are intending to be ready for a supply interruption of a certain length and purchase accordingly, and you have a plan to use and rotate your stock of whatever then you are being prepared.
If you just buy all of a certain item because it’s there and you might need it but you don’t have any sort of plan, management routine, or real knowledge of whether you need it or not - that’s hoarding.
We have a ton of vinegar in our garage, mostly because we use it for weed killin’. Just be aware it’s not useful for COVID killin’.
The peroxide probably wasn’t a good idea. That stuff has a limited shelf life, and you’re probably not going to use more than a small fraction of it before it’s all just water. Alcohol is a better choice for stockpiling, though it’s still scarce enough that that might be difficult.
Vinegar, I don’t know how big the bottles are, or what you’re using it for. For some people, that’d be a lifetime supply; for others, a summer’s worth.
Toilet paper and paper towels? Sure, those’ll keep.
Hoarding? We have 160+ rolls of TP in our closets now. When things got tight, we started ordering TP on Amazon. Took many weeks, but most of it finally showed up. In fact, we ordered from several sellers because we figured that some of the product was not going to show up at all. Next, my wife found a couple stores with 12-roll packages (limit of one per customer). Not too much later…a 48-roll package arrives from Amazon, then two 12-roll packages, and so forth. It’s still coming in.
As for paper towels, we have two cases of commercial multifold paper towels that work just fine.
We didn’t INTEND to hoard, but it does seem kind of ridiculous now.
I buy in bulk to save money, so if you catch me at the right moment, it can look like I’m hoarding. But other times, it can look sparse. It happened that right before the lockdown, big orders of several things had converged, so it really looked like I was hoarding, but I wasn’t. It was fortunate, though. Worked out just right. Except for fresh fruit and dairy products, I haven’t had to shop during the whole lockdown. I got another, smaller delivery from Chewy.com about 1/2-way through, and have ordered the odd thing I didn’t need ASAP. And I had to get things like some underwear for my son. But pretty much I’ve been able to stay out of stores. I even have had the fresh fruit, veggies, and dairy delivered about 75% or the time. Otherwise, I stop by some place on days I have to work, and am out anyway.
Oh, yeah, and DH “needed” a few beer runs. He’s not a heavy drinker-- less than a 6-pack a week-- but there’s not much to do, and if beer helps him get through the lockdown, whatever.
I use a lot of vinegar & hydrogen peroxide. They’re my preferred cleaning products. Every load of laundry is rinsed in vinegar & drains cleaned. I use peroxide for cleaning as well. I go thru both fast.
As as already been said, there is a big difference between being prepared and hoarding. Before everything went crazy, I was slightly embarrassed to admit that I was one of “those” people who had 6 months of supplies available. Friends used to tease me about it. The teasing has stopped and serious conversations about what and how to start prepping have ensued.
If anyone in the household is on maintenance meds talk to your doctor. Ours was very willing to write 6 month scripts for ours. If you have the money, pay out of pocket for a refill at 3 months, then get the normal one with insurance as soon as they will pay. This way, you will be able to know that even if you need to refill your insurance paid script the next day, you still have 3 months left.
If you don’t like tuna already, you will positively despise tuna if you have to eat those 4 cases you bought on sale.
Be creative with storage, but always keep track of what you have and where because rotating your stock is very important.
This is key. Never stock up on anything you don’t use regularly. 4 cases of Brazilian corned beef won’t do you any good if you’re vegetarian.
You won’t be saying that on October 15th.
We’re in a small NYC apartment ( 325 square feet total to be exact. ). Our freezer is crammedwith meat. And we’ve a fair bit of t.p. but not enough for the significant drought that will accompany the Second Wave of COVID-19. Not nearly enough. I’m looking at buying more bulk of t.p. and storing it in our off-site storage locker.
Not much I can do about foodstuffs. I could buy 30-40 pound of dried beans and store THEM in the locker, once they’re sealed up in a metal case to keep the mice and rats out. Otherwise, not much I can do. If I had a deep-freezer, I’d already have it full of meat.
Come middle of Second Wave, we’re looking at some serious fucked.
I don’t think “prepping” is just a cute abbreviation of “being prepared”. Being a prepper has even stronger connotations of extreme survivalism than being a hoarder, it implies building bunkers and preparation for the total breakdown of social order, rather than just prudent anticipation of temporary problems with the supply chain.
We’re still on our pre-COVID supply of Costco toilet paper. There are a lot of rolls when you buy a package. None of us use an entire roll every time we defecate, so we have plenty.