What kind of things do you stockpile?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Maybe “always have on hand” is a better way of putting it than stockpile. What stuff do you always have backups of so that when you run out/use up <whatever> you have the replacement(s) already in the house?

For example, I have a countertop water filter system [this, and I highly endorse it] that takes a big filter, which lasts about a year. As soon as the device signals me that the filter needs to be replaced, I replace it with the one I have on hand and promptly order another one.

I always have batteries-- AA and AAA. Even though most of my stuff is rechargeable (which has led to cords being plugged in all over, and a nightly ritual of plugging in phone, kindle, bluetooth, etc., for the next day), some things still need batteries, and I ALWAYS have them on hand. I buy 60 hearing aid batteries at a time from amazon, and always have spares with me. They last about 10 days. The hearing aid gives me a little arpeggio when the battery has 15 minutes of life left, and it’s seriously inconvenient not to have replacements handy.

I hung party lights in my back yard when I moved in here a couple of years ago. There are three strings of 50 lights, and when I ordered them, I bought two boxes of replacement bulbs. They aren’t the sort of bulbs you can find any old place.

Speaking of bulbs, I always have light bulbs on hand, too. I buy the Chromalux full spectrum bulbs from amazon a dozen at a time. They last forever-- a couple of years-- but when my stock gets low, I order more.

If I find pens I like, I buy a box of them.

I’m definitely not this way about everything. I guess the stuff I stockpile is the stuff that when I run out, I’m going to get really pissed off, and the replacement might be hard to come by.

I’m not specifically asking about stockpiling food, but if that’s one of your things, feel free to include food.

2

IBM Model M keyboards. They are the best but they don’t make them any more. I have 3.

3

Toilet paper.

4

I have some IC light bulbs left.

5

Thank you. Influential Mover and Shaker that I am, I always appreciate these chances to let the rest of the world know how I roll.

Light bulbs: the regular kind, and those 40-watt candle flame-shaped ones, because they fit my bathroom fixtures.

Tape: Scotch Magic transparent, and some clear plastic packing tape. No duct tape, oddly enough.

Batteries: AA, AAA, 9V and those big square 6V ones for my big out-in-the-teeth-of-the-hurricane flashlight.

Pens: Hotel pens, and free handouts from oilfield trade shows; I don’t think I’ve actually handed over money for a pen in twenty years.

I used to make off with hotel soaps as well, until I realized they were just sitting in my carry-on bag until they fell out of their wrappers and got all over everything.

Regular old white #10 mailing envelopes.

Cartridges for my ink-jet printer.

Combs. I seem to lose one every week, so I buy one of those drugstore blister packs of about twenty, and toss out all the ones that won’t more or less fit in one of my trouser pockets.

6

Refills for the pen I’ve had for twenty years.

Toilet paper.

Cigarettes. Lighter and matches. (There is nothing like having cigarettes and no way to get them burning. Nothing. Sorry. Nothing. Not having cigarettes is entirely different.)

Bread and butter.

Coffee. (Paper towels make better coffee filters than they do toilet paper.)

One sixty-watt light bulb for bedside, and one 100-watt for tableside.

Library books.

7

There is kind of a subcategory of my question-- things that I buy lots of but can never find when I need them. Rolls of tape fall into this category. I buy them all the time, but when I need tape-- they all disappear.

This used to happen with scissors-- I could NEVER find a pair, but finally I wised up and just bought about a dozen pair of scissors and they are in every room in the house. Same with metal nail files. In my house you can stand just about anywhere and reach out and touch a pair of scissors or a metal nail file (which are great for lots of things where you need a sharp point but don’t really need a knife).

8

Back when Primatene Mist was being yanked from the market the company swore they would have a replacement out soon.

I stocked piled, years later no replacement is on the horizon.

They were selling for up to $300 dollars an inhaler at one point.

9

Toilet paper
Hand soap (the soap I like is usually $1.79 but sometimes $1 so I stock up!)
Facial tissue (I keep a box in every room, and always have backup)
Batteries (I didn’t mean to but I came across an unbelievable sale so now I do)
Toilet scrubbers (the disposable kind. They can be hard to find so I buy a ton at once)
Deodorant (the kind I like is hard to find except for packs of 6 at Amazon)
Cardboard shipping boxes (I stack them neatly within each other and then use them to ship eBay stuff. I am much better about sending the extras to recycling now)

10

This is the same for me with batteries and scotch tape. I also buy a couple extra spare sponges whenever I buy a sponge mop due to their frequent change in model/design. Of course, then I have trouble finding the spares when the time arrives for a switch out.

11

I keep a single back-up for almost anything I use a lot; even odd things like my favorite electric wok. There are some things in the food line though that I will overstock on if the deal is really good. Not silly - not more than I will use in say a few months. But more than most people would buy at a time.

Sharpened pencils. I have a sharpener on each floor of the house and I know better than to put one away by the phone or where-ever dull but every time I reach for one --------

12

On purpose:

Toilet paper
Paper towels
Body wash (Suave buy one get one free baby!)
Deodorant

Inadvertantly:
Toothbrushes
mini toothpaste
(since I take them when the dentist offers)

13

Toilet paper. I buy several of the huge packages anytime I’m at Sam’s Club. My bathroom has a little sauna room that never gets used, so I store it in there. I can’t imagine anal hygiene ever going away.

14

Calories. In easy to reach fat deposits on my person. Sigh.

Plus 8.5"X11" lined writing pads. Because the pad I was writing on earlier is never at hand now.

15

Stocks. I keep them in a pile.

16

If it did, you’d be waaaay up shit creek.

I buy lined writing pads, too. 'Cause I just *like *'em. I like knowing I have a big pile of them…somewhere.

17

Alcohol.

Drunk and out of beer, jonesing for just one more = me actually contemplating driving to the store for more beer.

It’s my moral responsibility to make sure I have more alcohol on hand than I could possibly drink.

18

I don’t know models by their specific model-names. But I have a stash of the older-style “101-key” keyboards, that don’t have those atrocious extra Microsoft keys on the bottom row. What a pain in the ass those keys are! They are always getting poked by accident, and they are very disruptive to whatever work one is doing. Those keys don’t get used all that often. They should be up along the top of the keyboard where all the other add-on keys are.

So, when my company upgraded a bunch of machines (this was 15-some year ago!) and threw all their old keyboards in the dumpster, I quickly rescued a bunch of them, which I still keep around.

19

Other junk I “stockpile”: Caps from empty pill bottles, mouthwash bottles, detergent bottles, and so forth. And the caps from dead stick pens. I only really mean to keep a few spares (like two or three), but these get thrown into various boxes, where they accumulate. From time to time, I’ll gather up armloads of old things like that that I’ve collected and dump them at once.

Before Incandescent Prohibition hit (remember, California did that a year before the rest of the country), I bought the obligatory lifetime supply of incandescent bulbs, as did everyone else in this state. The big-box hardware stores had entire aisles from horizon to horizon devoted to those bulbs, and they flew off the shelves like bats out of the Bat Cave.

I use those thin plastic grocery bags for wastebasket liners. They are just the right size. And better to use those bags twice and throw them away (filled with trash), than to have to buy separate wastebasket liner bags and end up sending those to the landfill. But those will be mostly illegal in California (starting July 1 I think). So I’ve been saving and hoarding those for the last year or so. I have quite a stack by now, which I hope will last be for some reasonable time before I run out.

I don’t exactly “stockpile” hand-soap, paper towels, toilet paper, and whatever generic equivalent for Kleenex I use, but I do buy them in large-size packages at a time at Target, so they last for months before I run out. They’re cheaper that way, and I have to go out shopping for them all the less often. I do that with various over-the-counter pills I take, where possible.

20

Kabong, tell me about your experience buying combs. I just bought a new one (well, it came in a pack of two), made by Conair (a brand of cosmetic products carried by CVS) because my very old one (also by Conair) had various teeth broken off.

Damn, the new one was like dragging a bed of nails over my head! The teeth, while not stiff, were just flexible enough, and sharp enough, that they dug into the skin of my skull every time I used it! I had to comb my hair very very carefully to avoid it, and with only limited success even then.

My old comb doesn’t do that! I think the teeth aren’t as sharp. Or something. What is your experience with the combs you buy?