09:40 – We picked up only two 36-roll packs of toilet paper at Costco yesterday, both because our cart was already getting full and there wasn’t a coupon for it this month. Barbara said all 72 rolls fit under the cabinet in the master bathroom. According to industry figures, Americans use an average of one roll of toilet paper per week. Women use more, for obvious reasons, but on average a year’s supply for two people is 100 rolls. I’m planning for four people, so I’d like to get up to at least 200 rolls. I’ve spoken to preppers who have 500+ rolls stored per person. They obviously REALLY don’t want to run out of toilet paper. No matter how much you decide to store–assuming you’re not at the 500 rolls/person level–it’s a good idea to have personal cloths and bleach or HTH powder stored against the day you eventually run out. It sounds gross, but it’s what most of the world uses, at least those who aren’t using a handful of leaves. In any emergency, the first things to disappear from store shelves are bread, milk, and eggs. After that, toilet paper.
I want to be as prepared as possible by election day. No matter which candidate “wins”, I suspect supporters of the other candidate will cry foul and assume their candidate lost because of election fraud. Who knows? They’ll probably all be right. If Clinton is declared the winner, I don’t really expect Trump supporters to be rioting in the streets, looting, and burning down buildings. If Trump wins, I wouldn’t be surprised to see many Clinton supporters doing all of those things, not to mention shooting cops of all colors and white people in general. BLM supporters are gangsters and terrorists. They’ve already made it clear that they consider cops and white people to be fair game. If their candidate loses, I don’t think it would surprise anyone to see widespread violent civil unrest in the cities.
So my advice to anyone is to hope for the best come election day, but expect the worst and be prepared for it. If you don’t have at least a couple weeks’ worth of water and shelf-stable food stored, now would be a good time to address that lack.
This is the scenario that few prep for. Lights are on, it’s not TEOTWAWKI. The banks are open, so are stores. BUT there is a good reason why you don’t want to leave your house for a week or two.
Ebola or some other outbreak is local. Do you really want to be out in crowds?
The local FSA is blocking streets during the day and burning stores at night. Do you really want to be driving around, looking for dinner?
What if a curfew or martial law is declared? Who wants to be caught in a checkpoint? (BTW, if you live in a city, there is probably ALREADY a curfew in place. It may not affect you, but it might affect your kids….)
There are lots of potential scenarios when the best course of action is just stay home.
Got enough preps to stay home for a week? 2 weeks? 30 days?
n
Exactly. There are emergencies every week, most recently in Louisiana. People die in those emergencies. While it may not be TEOTWAWKI for large numbers of people, it is TEOTWAWKI for many of those affected.
Incidentally, I see that Merkel’s government is about to tell Germans, for the first time since the end of the cold war, to have at least five days’ water and ten days’ food on hand at all times. That’s at least a start, given what’s been happening in Europe and the likelihood of it spreading in a major way to Germany. I’m not sure what Merkel expected when she imported a million muslim scumbags into Germany, but I’m afraid she’s going to find out, good and hard.
Related:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/08/22/hope-n-change-cash-dash/
https://hopenchangecartoons.blogspot.com/2016/08/cash-dash.html
Yup, 150 days to get set for a possible week or month hunkering down at home, although up here there may not be much going on to worry about. Possibly our version of FSA opportunists who take advantage of any perceived grievances to go around busting into houses and cars, like they do now anyway.
But if you live in or near a big city, especially down there in the Megalopolis tropics, you ought to seriously get cracking on a “bugging in” scenario. We’ll all hope, of course, that the “authorities,” i.e., Nanny State, will put things right as quickly as possible.
I need to step up the food and water storage and stuff like toilet paper and pet food and the daily stuff we take for granted here, but I believe we have a good base/start on it already.
We got a lotta rain yesterday, monsoon-level at times and it’s cloudy again today so far; I gotta run down this afternoon for my VA disability interrogation and do a dump run on the way back up. Exciting.
“I’m not sure what Merkel expected when she imported a million muslim scumbags into Germany, but I’m afraid she’s going to find out, good and hard.”
She sez the musloids didn’t bring in the terrorism; straight out, just like that. I assume she’s a fan of the Big Lie theory of politics, originated by Dolphie and Goebbels back in the day. And they persecute people who resist for “hate crimes.”
Incidentally, we picked up a pack of eggs at Costco yesterday. It was two of their 1.5-dozen packs shrink-wrapped, for a total of three dozen eggs. I was surprised to see the price as $2.79 per pack, or $0.93/dozen.
AF has reduced the price of their powdered eggs, but they’re still ridiculously expensive. Each #10 can contains 71 medium eggs, which is under $6 worth at current prices. They should be selling a #10 can for $12 or $15 at most. I paid $17/can back when eggs were more than $0.93/dozen.
BTW, that 150 days refers to the inauguration in January. Election day is 78 days from now.
“Election day is 78 days from now.”
That’s right, less than three months, and any mayhem could kick off then and CONTINUE through the “Holiday Season” into January and the “inauguration.” And I’d almost assume that there would be more musloid terrorist attacks during that period, too.
Quite frankly, as RBT points out, there likely would not be any rioting and mayhem if Cankles is elected; just the continued simmering anger and bitterness and doubling down on prepping and armaments. Eventually that will come to a full boil. But if somehow cheeto-head is elected, the BLM commies, FSA and SJWs/progs will go fucking haywire. Again, I would not care to be in or near a city, especially along the southern third of the U.S., where most of this sorta crap seems to take place. Up here it’s too friggin’ cold for the mobs to be out looting and burning chit down.
And as we have seen from Europe and Russia, when you start noticing huge crowds of white people mobbing around government buildings, the end is near for whatever regime.
I also expect that if Trump is elected the establishment will intentionally crash the economy to teach the voters a lesson for daring to vote for an outsider.
@al,
I was just thinking the same thing. They’ve been propping it up for so long, getting increasingly desperate, trying to find enough suckers to get all their friends out of the market, that they could probably let it crash at any point.
Whether it’s just before the election so OBolla can declare an emergency or after a trump win, so they can blame trump, or just when someone wakes up and says “today’s the day” it’s coming. EVERYONE agrees with that.
nick
What are the odds that the election will be a Y2K event? What is the most likely scenario for each candidate on a win? I’ll be at bingo on election day.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/08/daisy-luther/civil-unrest-coming-suburbia/
As usual, Daisy has some good advice, starting 1/3 down the article. Prepping 101 for most of the folks here, but a nice succinct guide that is easily forwarded…..
n
“Americans use an average of one roll of toilet paper per week. ”
Seems way low to me! We average one roll PER DAY. 2 little girls, the wife and I use at least one roll per 2 days, and most days I’m changing a roll.
Like water, the recommendations for preppers seem very low. If you knew there wouldn’t be any resupply, you would conserve, but normal usage? Better to aim high.
n
Better to aim high.
Bad advice for guys.
TNLU:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pregnant-woman-four-others-viciously-171621504.html
“Seems way low to me! We average one roll PER DAY. 2 little girls, the wife and I use at least one roll per 2 days, and most days I’m changing a roll.”
Actually, it’s more like men average half a roll per week and women 1.5 rolls. Assuming equal numbers of male and female, that’s an average of one roll per person per week. Young children probably use a woman-like quantity, so your family of four with one man and three women would expect to use about five rolls per week. Your one roll per two days would be 3.5 rolls/week, so it sounds like five rolls/week is right on target.
Ah, missed the /person part of that.
n
I’m hoping I’m outside the FSA area of operation. If they decide to target rich people, we’re not in one of the prime areas associated with wealth. I’d like to think that things here would not be that bad, but I understand that I could be wrong. I’m more concerned about the warehouses and processing facilities in the city that replenish the places we shop. And how society will function if millions of people in cities don’t feel safe going to work. Also I’m concerned that the Smallville Metropolitan Police may get pulled into the big city to help out. Or that the same thing will happen with the Smallville Fire Department.
Two months ago I set election day as my deadline for a certain state of readiness. Probably not too much of a coincidence, I bet the calendars of many preppers in the USA have that date circled in red. When preparing it is good to have a target to aim for. You don’t have to stop at that point. Keep expanding as your needs, desire, space and income allow.
I picked a likely situation (1 month with limited or no services, dead of winter, 6 people at my house) and have been carefully buying and organizing to meet that. I already have enough food for twice that and the means to prepare it. I’ve got solar power for charging batteries and running small appliances. I have plenty of water stored and purification gear. Defense and communication gear ready to go. Sanitation plans worked out. I’ve done my best to test out and know how to use my gear.
Heating is the biggest bugaboo in my mind. I have gas heat and if that fails I have no fireplace or wood stove (it’s on my list of future updates to the house) so I bought an indoor rated propane heater. But how much propane? My house is 2 floors, 1100 sq ft. I plan close off the rest of the house and “camp out” in the living/dining/kitchen area, ~600sq ft total. I really don’t have a good handle on how much propane that would take to keep it livable (about 45°F). There are too many variables (inside walls, outside walls, insulation, outside conditions, etc). Currently I have 3 20lb propane tanks. Anyone out there have a suggestion or rule of thumb?
Wealthy areas are at less risk of civil unrest than middle-class areas. A big issue is that many people have to drive through underclass areas to get from their homes to their jobs and vice versa. Both those who use interstates and those who use major city streets are at risk when commuting. It doesn’t take much to block either type of road.
Of course, Bracken is probably right that a lot of normal people with military experience will set ambushes for large groups of MUYs who are attempting to prey on normal people during their commutes. Won’t do the normal people trapped by MUYs much good though, even if the normal people are armed.
If things get really bad, I expect that there will be large numbers of well-armed and competent normal people taking out masses of BLMers.
One 20-pound propane tank driving a 100% efficient catalytic radiant heater should deliver 3,000 BTU/hr for about a week. The six people you have contribute another ~600W of radiant heat. Call it 2,000 BTU/hr.
Depending on outside temperature, wind speed (yes, houses suffer wind chill just like anything else that radiates heat), insulation, and other factors, 5,000 BTU/hr should be enough to keep indoor temperatures comfortable in your enclosed area when it’s down to perhaps 20F outdoors.
I’d want a heater or heaters with the option to provide 6,000 or 9,000 BTU/hr, ideally adjustable, and add maybe three or four more 20-pound propane cannisters.
But that’s just off the top of my head, without running any calculations or having much real data to go from.
MUY – Militant Urban Youth?
Bracken’s acronym = minority urban youth
I just call ’em underclass. TALU.
Thanks, RBT. Those are good numbers to work with. If things suddenly started to get iffy in the neighborhood or region or the world my first trip wouldn’t be to the grocery store, it would be anyplace to get more propane.
Mantra: “Its all about the calories”. Food and thermal.
Experience tells us that they don’t go into rich areas to loot, but mainly stay in their own, and surrounding areas. One caveat to that is when a large mass is acting like a swarm of locusts. In that case, the trouble follows the mass.
Looking at the LA riots (rodney king riots) you can see both cases. Famously they burned down businesses in their own neighborhoods. Also, you could follow the group as it moved. We were listening to the radio at work and heard the reports as the group moved up La Brea and toward us in Hollywood. That was what eventually caused us to leave work, the large mobile mob was moving toward us.
There is a lot of “grudge settling” that happens during widespread unrest. In LA it was with Korean shopkeepers, and the businesses that ‘took advantage’ of the neighborhoods.
Another consideration is that these problem areas tend to be in between more secure areas. This is an issue for your commute. You probably pass thru some horrifically bad neighborhoods on the expressway to work (they don’t bulldoze NICE neighborhoods to put in expressways, and any neighborhood with an expressway thru it will probably decline.) In times of unrest DO NOT GET ON A CONTROLLED ACCESS ROAD, like a freeway or toll road. They are killing fields. Almost all have high fences on both sides, so once you are in the chute, you have no way out.
The smaller bad neighborhoods can affect the surrounding areas. This was true in LA for me, as I lived in a little community surrounded by others, and saw the violence spill out of “their” community, toward targets of opportunity near by.
What we didn’t see was bands of thugs on Rodeo Drive.
Of course, I’m talking about normal unrest and rioting, not TEOTWAWKI. I DO think we’ll see marauding bands if it gets that bad.
nick
Is there a website of US natural disasters? Something with historical data nicely presented you can look at to see what has happened in your area and make predictions. Not much happens around Vegas other than there’s NO water (why do I live here?–for the bingo!).
I’ve decided my own prepping will focus around a 30 day food/water supply that needs to be mobile. I’ve ordered 30 days of the Augason Farms dehydrated packages for 5 people. I’ll add some other canned goods for protein and calories and taste. That comes in this week. Set it and forget it. Water will be bottled. I’ve got a box of drum liners that I will use over stacks of bottled water. The family is too lazy to even take those off so I expect the water will be “safe”. Water in the garage. Dried food upstairs in closets, under beds, etc. After that, I’ll work on bandages, bullets, comms.
I’ve got a coupon for the Front Sight 4-day handgun course with 1-day CCW. I’ll take that in a couple of months. Somehow a G19G4 fell in the basket at Bass Pro and promptly fell in Lake Mead on the way home. I *was* going to use that at FS. Damn!
I expect a win-win no matter who wins the Presidency. Cankles will pour $$$ into education for Dumbocratus Libturdian indoctrination and tRump “for the chillin’.” We will rake in plenty of that with our parent and student programs.
Got enough preps to stay home for a week? 2 weeks? 30 days?
Yes. After that, I need to visit my offsite storage which is four miles away by road. Or a half mile if you can cross the always three ft deep bayou. Except when it is 30 ft deep.
I’m not sure what Merkel expected when she imported a million muslim scumbags into Germany, but I’m afraid she’s going to find out, good and hard.
Don’t worry. She has a dacha, a fully funded government pension, and a security team for the rest of her life. Plus her funding from George Soros.
Four miles? That’s about a three or four hour round trip pulling a cart. I wouldn’t be comfortable keeping the bulk of my supplies that far away.
From the Cankles-Watch Department:
“If you dare to question whether Hillary Clinton is physically ill, her dutiful media maidservants will smear you as mentally ill.”
“It matters not how many times she falls, how many speeches she interrupts with uncontrolled coughing, how many memory lapses she has in mid-sentence, how many times she cackles loudly and inappropriately, or how many apparent seizures she has while cameras roll and fawning reporters flinch. She’s not sick; you’re sick for even noticing.”
Up is down and black is white and the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. Got it?
http://takimag.com/article/is_hillary_clinton_a_brain_damaged_invalid_jim_goad/print#axzz4I6Wqs82g
Even if Cankles croaks before the election, Dumbocratus Libturdians will run the corpse on the platform “she already laid out her entire 8-year plan to destroy the USA” so vote for her corpse anyway.
ZombieCankles 2016! “Vote for the dead!”
Got enough preps to stay home for a week? 2 weeks? 30 days?
Yes. After that, I need to visit my offsite storage which is four miles away by road. Or a half mile if you can cross the always three ft deep bayou. Except when it is 30 ft deep.
Four miles? That’s about a three or four hour round trip pulling a cart. I wouldn’t be comfortable keeping the bulk of my supplies that far away.
I’m actually not sure how much food I’ve got in the house. Somewhere between four person-months and ten person months. Another four person months of food at the offsite.
Maybe a cart for you. It is a wheelbarrow for me. My cart sucks with its plastic tires.
We do have an old 1950 wooden bridge over the bayou that I can use to cut my trip to two miles each way. I drove my Ford Expedition on it once and I will never make that mistake again. It swayed. Some of my neighbors drive their vehicles over it daily.
_One Year After: A John Matherson Novel_ by William R. Forstchen
https://www.amazon.com/One-Year-After-Matherson-Novel/dp/0765376717/
Book number two of a three book series. The third book is due to be published on January 3, 2017, “The Final Day: A Novel (A John Matherson Novel)”.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0765376733/
It has been two years since the three nuclear bombs were exploded over the east coast, Kansas, and west coast of the USA. And the bombs over Moscow and Tokyo. Tehran, Iran and Pyongyang, North Korea are radioactive ruins. There is now more food but food is not plentiful for the survivors. But, the survivors of Washington DC are trying to assert authority and bring the destroyed nation back together. At any cost.
I believe that Forstchen is overly aggressive on the effects of an EMP, especially for today’s cars and trucks. Just about all trucks and cars built since 1990 will not run without their computers. But, their computers sit in a semi-closed Faraday cage with their inputs and outputs being highly regulated. However, my former USMC son with the chemistry and physics degrees tells me that the USA government has decreed that car computers will lockup using an EMP gun:
https://www.policeone.com/police-products/Pursuit-Management-Technology/articles/6755618-Vehicle-mounted-device-disables-car-electronics-at-50-meters/
My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.4 out of 5 stars (1,212 reviews)
FCC part 15 rule? “This device must accept all electronic interference, even that which might cause undesirable results….”
n
(to paraphrase)
Did my second substitution job at the local school, math class. I have forgotten most of the stuff which is to be expected when I have not used it in 48 years.
However, I have discovered one of the most annoying creatures on earth is a female high school freshman. Almost annoying as a freshman high school female cheerleader. Good grief, what worthless self absorbed piles of worthless human flesh.
Good grief, what worthless self absorbed piles of worthless human flesh.
Dammit, stop sugar coating it Mr. Ray!
I cannot imagine someone of our (approx.) generation having math skills that do not far exceed those of the current (& recent) kids.
Can’t imagine trying to teach them anything, of course.
I used to tell teenagers that I had gotten my teenager hunting license…
I said I could only take one with a rifle, but that I had the extra permits for
archery and muzzleloader and so on…
Guess such a set of comments might not go over well with the school board.
I cannot imagine someone of our (approx.) generation having math skills that do not far exceed those of the current (& recent) kids.
I did at one time. Lost most of it over time, especially the rules for factoring equations. Like many things, if you don’t use it, you lose it, as you forget the finer details. I am probably better than any other substitute within the system.
Guess such a set of comments might not go over well with the school board
Yeh, you would be banned from school property for the rest of your life, maybe jailed for threats, maybe even charged with stalking. Kids have all the power. I am extremely careful to NEVER be alone in a room with a female student, ever. Can’t even touch the students for any reason, must be a School Resource Officer (SRO). Doors have to be locked anytime there are students in the room, must report to the school office to get my badge through a series of locked doors.
One of the things that surprised me is there is an entire close devoted to prepping for the ACT. Training to pass a test. Class assignment cover tricks and gotcha’s in terminology, odd ways that questions are worded, sample questions, etc.
“”Kids have all the power. I am extremely careful to NEVER be alone in a room with a female student, ever. “”
I suggest that you amend that rule to avoid any solo contact with _any_ student.
This stuff is so far away from my lifestyle, but I do fear that any of it could whack
me at any time, just being out in the world.
I was just reminded of the kid (Tobias) in “Fear the Walking Dead” who asks the guidance counselor (Madison), after the zombie issues have become very obvious…
“CAN I HAVE MY KNIFE BACK?”
You mean that is actually the subject of a public high school class? There have been private test prep services for years. Surprised it has gone so far as to be included in class.
I suggest that you amend that rule to avoid any solo contact with _any_ student.
A good suggestion. With the current crop of political correctness and transgender bathrooms such individual could be of any gender selection of their choice.
You mean that is actually the subject of a public high school class?
Yep. They devote an entire class period (50 minutes) for a semester to teaching people how to take the ACT test. What is even more surprising is the lack of knowledge of the juniors that are taking the class. Determining prime factors of a number was beyond some of them. Makes you wonder what they have learned in school over the last 10 years.
Wait I know. They have learned to be politically correct, to take time outs and color your emotions on paper, to be feminized wimps, to talk to grief counselors when someone you did not know dies, to consider cheerleaders to be the pinnacle of success, to consider the white heterosexual male the evilness of society and responsible for all the world’s problems.
And once you start gaming the test, it’s utility as a measure of actual achievement is lowered.
n
(way back in the day I had SAT and ACT prep classes. Since those tests used to be an important part of what college you could be admitted to, and then at what level you would enter your chosen field, it was worth getting the absolute best score possible.)
Yesterday was the first day of school here.
My daughter spent several class days last year just reviewing school rules and procedures (first grade.)
This year she complained that they “did actual learning” on the first day, with language arts class and a math class.
I don’t know which I find more abhorrent, spending class days on rules, or not even taking a day to get settled in, getting to know your new classmates and teacher.
nick
Since those tests used to be an important part of what college you could be admitted to
Now your skin color, gender preference, political affiliation, and most importantly, athletic ability, determine which school you will get admitted.
I don’t know which I find more abhorrent, spending class days on rules, or not even taking a day to get settled in
State mandated learning days. Add in that teachers now have to “teach to the test” where the most important factor is getting students to pass the multitude of tests. Such tests determine school funding, teach raises and other factors that have nothing to do with actual performance.
Kids in school today do not know how to solve problems. They simply memorize without knowing what they are memorizing. The ability to actually think through a problem is not taught. Instead the schools teach how to pass a test as that is the most important metric used by the state and feds. And the tests are based on memory, not actual thinking through and solving a problem.
This is what happens when you let a bunch of leftist run your state.
http://nation.foxnews.com/2016/08/02/california-state-assembly-proclaim-august-muslim-appreciation-and-awareness-month
Depends on what they’re appreciating them for. As targets? Fine.
One thing I don’t think we all focus enough on is differentiating ourselves as Normals from muslim scum, BLM’s, etc. as terrorists and gangsters. We can’t let the progs and the media, but I repeat myself, define the narrative.
They realize that there are a lot more Normals than there are of them, so they focus their efforts on dividing us into arbitrary groups and getting us arguing amongst ourselves. We normals have to fight that. We aren’t blacks and whites; we’re Normals. We aren’t Christians and atheists; we’re Normals. Blacks aren’t the enemies of whites, or vice versa. Christians aren’t the enemies of atheists, and vice versa. Normals are the enemies of prog scum and underclass scum and BLM scum and muslim scum, and vice versa. We need to focus on that.
Good point. It’s always been a problem for me seeing how we Normals routinely fracture and divide and excommunicate each other over some arcane point or detail; I saw this most vividly demonstrated with conservative Roman Catholics and libertarians, already beleaguered and tiny minorities anyway. This, of course, plays right into our enemies’ hands.
In my regular conversations with Lori, our mail carrier, I’ve started referring to the two of us as Normals, and she’s started using the word herself.
The thing is, just because you’re RC and I’m atheist doesn’t mean we have to dislike each other, let alone hate each other. I don’t want even to convince you to become an atheist, let alone force you to, and I’m sure the converse is also true. I’d trust you to have my back, and I hope the converse is true. Back-having is going to become crucial if things really go to shit.
Same deal with our neighbors. James mows our yard, and we always stand around and chat while he’s here. He and his wife are Normals. They happen to be black. So what? Same deal with Gil next door. He’s a small business owner and works his butt off. He’s a Normal. He’s of India-Indian heritage. So what? A Normal is a Normal. It’s these damned Abnormal scum we need to oppose with a united front.
Agreed 100%.
I sincerely hope that us American Normals can continue in this vein; however, we have the historical examples of Ireland/Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia in modern times that show things can go otherwise.
Counting the number of rolls of toilet paper in your inventory can be deceiving. Scott has 1000 single ply squares per roll. HEB’s Ultra Soft knock-off of Charmin/whatever, is 176 two ply sheets per roll (and the package says it’s a double roll).
HEB also has their version of Scott. Don’t go there unless you want to boldly explore the unknown.
Using three sheets per wipe: Scott = 333 wipes per roll compared to HEB at 58 wipes. Not to be graphic here, but for me the HEB stuff in the hall bath needs 2 sheets per wipe. 88 wipes per roll.
Neither are worth a damn for nose blowing.
Neither are worth a d*** for nose blowing.
That would be Charmin Ultrasoft. If it had aloe then it would be perfect.
I’m glad @paul brought up the TP sheets per roll. That is how you really have to look at it.
In my experience, if one has twice as many sheets per roll, people use twice as many sheets of it.
Of course not. Some form of tolerance or middle ground is usually possible. Compromise.
In this case, you could both worship me. There ya go. Compromise.
Ahh, steveF, the peacemaker!
I quit routinely doing the math to compare toilet paper rolls and cost. They make it intentionally difficult to do a direct comparison, with every store stocking a different number of rolls in a bulk package, and some rolls are ‘double’ and some not., some multi-ply, some single.
Instead I determined (once) that Costco normally had the best price per sq ft, and that we were comfortable using either major brand Costco sold. There after, I just buy whichever brand is on sale at Costco, and try to never buy it when it’s not on sale. I determined our usage of those brands (same- as they are very similar) and stock as much as I have room for. Every once in a while, I will try some other brand if it’s on sale, but we haven’t liked them, esp the Kirkland brand.
I don’t worry that they’ll raise the price or that Kroger might have the normal rolls discounted this week vs Costco. It’s just not worth the time or energy or unhappiness with the quality.
A lot of things in prepping fit this model. Do some comparisons (or use a trusted recommendation). Find the thing that meets your need at an acceptable price. Buy the thing. USE the thing. If there is a major change, revisit price or other qualities. Otherwise MOVE ON.
Good enough is good enough. Don’t fall into the ‘paralysis of analysis’. Don’t anguish over the choices. Do what you can with the time and resources available, and accept that there is always more you could do, IF you had unlimited time and resources. Understand that online sources often do ‘prepping’ related things for a living, AND YOU DON’T. It makes sense for Nut-N-Fancy to compare 8 different fighting gloves. It does NOT make sense for you to do so (or to worry about having the ‘right’ ones). Trust N-N-F’s recommendation, or buy what is cheap and available to you. Use it. Buy it again or start looking again.
nick
BTW, I have only a feeling for how much of stuff we use and how quickly. Since I’m buying and restocking, my feeling is pretty good. I haven’t had the energy to do more formal tracking. I always think, ‘oh good, I’m opening this ketchup bottle on the first of the month, this time I’ll remember, and see when it’s empty.’ This never works! If you really want to track usage, but don’t want to go to spreadsheets, write the date you started using the item on it in sharpie. When you finally throw it out, note the date. Then look at your shelf and say “Ok at this rate, I have X weeks of Y in storage. Should I maintain this level or change it?” Then note for yourself to buy more every time to build stock, or just buy enough to replace your normal usage. I’m this way on syrup. When I’m at costco I think “did I throw out a syrup bottle this week?” If yes, I get one, if no, I’ve got enough on the shelf (since I have a comfortable stock of syrup.)
nb: Everyone who tries to track inventory complains about it, has household members that undermine or ignore the tracking, or fails to keep up with it. While a detailed inventory would be NICE, and USEFUL, do you want to prep or keep inventory? Live? or keep inventory? The simpler and easier your system, the more likely you will use it, and keep it up to date. I choose a visual method, grouping items on a shelf, or organizing them by duration. I can see at a glance that I’m low on something or overstocked. YES, this means I’ll have times when I buy stuff I didn’t actually need or run out of something and not know it because I don’t see what’s not there. Nothing’s perfect, and certainly not me! But it helps. (and I don’t have it hidden or out of sight. If you do, then a written list is a big help, just update the list periodically.)
We’ve been using Costco Kirkland toilet paper for probably a decade, and never had a problem with it.