"Stocking up" vs "Hoarding"?

Shucks, even a danged fool (likely describing a fair fraction of those under discussion ) would think to boil it! Crushed or whole berry, that has been a dietary staple for thousands of years back in Europe!

Not as good a chicken food as popcorn is! Popcorn is easier to process for human consumption as well, not to mention just as versatile (everything from bread to popcorn to breakfast cereal to candied items).

I'll have to try some. I ate C-rations a few dozen times as a kid.... they were pretty good! (LOVED the "ham & eggs, scrambled".... and the high melting point chocolate!).

Hey, you've got me pegged! I can rationally fight the urge to keep 3 years worth of chocolate and other fudge and cookie ingredients by considering space and spoilage and availability at the stores I am 99% sure will be open within 24 hours of whenever I need it.

However it is very hard to quash my fear that I won't be able to get more money someday when I need it- after all I'll have quit working then and don't want to have to ask the kids for some! Fighting to work less and spend less rather than work till I die spending it all along the way.

ROTFL sorry about that.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

ROTFL I think I am going to bust a gut now!!!

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

I have a box with 12 wool sweaters I picked up at the thrift stores for $3 or so each DW will not wear them says they make her itch. I also have 3 I wear regularly in the fall/winter am I hoarding? I think I am just prepared for the future.

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marching to the beat of a different drummer

I'm with you Jen. I can be reasonably sensible when it comes to my pantry (and this summer I discovered the down side of running a freezer through the summer... the electric bills were sky high).

But I do stockpile cash in every savings instrument available. I think it is beyond foolish for a woman, given the actuarial tables, not to do this. Love my husband to death, but I will most likely spend the last 1/4 of my life without him, his earning power, or the sheer muscle he brings to every day tasks. You can't buy affection, but you can buy a lawn mowing service and someone to plow the driveway.

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Icelandic Sheep and German Angora Rabbits

This is a vital but quite often overlooked prep. Cash money or investments that you can liquidate when needed ARE forms of preps and they will take you far. Indeed sometimes they may be the only sort of preps that will see you through.

This isn't an either/or thing, it is a "do BOTH" kind of thing.

It's all about hedging your bets. Be prepared to be wrong and you won't go wrong.

.....Alan.

Gotta' love that practical New England romantic spirit!!

While food and toiletries are often stored items, just about anything taken to excess can be too much. Yes, this has been established, but what each person thinks is excessive or not enough is a personal matter.

I think having at least 12 bags of goat feed on hand at any one time is a bare minimum to carry me through as expenses ebb and flow from month to month. I'd like to have more stored so we could have enough in case of a blizzard/flood but for now that's all the storage space I have for it.

Firewood for someone may mean having just a cord delivered when they need it. I think having at least four cord on hand is a minimum after going through one very cold winter when we burned almost 12 cord because of the wind and low temperatures. Firewood is one thing that cannot be stored to excess as even if there is too much, it can at least compost down into nutrients for the soil.

As for firearms, as I am a gunsmith on the side while I work full time as a reporter, I acquire sometimes nonfunctional firearms for parts guns in case I need spares for something or for firearms I do have for personal use. I don't think someone can have too many firearms or too much ammunition as they are tools and supplies that can be in short supply, if any, in times strife.

What one can have is too much whatever for the space they have and the level of use patterns of their family. What may be fine for me may not be for someone else. However, some may not have enough of whatever on hand in case of a supply disruption.

Yes, I have clutter to deal with, but I also have logical stores of needed items as well. Some of my packrat tendences come from being poor while growing up and raised by someone whose parents and grandparents lived through wars and the Great Depression. Anything can be taken to excess, but I will point out that once you go through a time lacking something you will make sure you have enough once you are able to obtain it.

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I would challenge anyone here to think of a question upon which we once had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for which now the best answer is a religious one. – Sam Harris

My friend's dad told her mom when they married 'all I ask is we never run out of tp'. As a kid her mom would sometimes send the kdis out to buy more (NYC) if they got down to only a dozen or two rolls.

Or can you, its good to supply a littlle, but through my military training, of recon hide, and seek, when its time to go. its time to go.you can only take so many guns ect. something to think about. the situation, will decide. should i go or should i stay now kinda like an ole song. just my thoughts.

If after your long life it turned out you never needed all that food, then all you bought is piece of mind. Now if you needed that food, you could have very well saved your life. Life insurance pays for your casket, food is real life insurance. It keeps you alive. All those against stocking up just don't like being reminded how frivolous they are.

Naw. Don't think of them as a problem.

Think of them as an opportunity.

*Arkander thumbs his recipe book*

*evil grin*

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--Arkander--
root@universe> find / -name '*base*' -exec chown -R :us {} \;
root@universe>

I've been trying to hoard cat food, but it seems that two cats can eat it faster than I can hoard it.

BTW, you want MREs? When the next disaster strikes, just go pick them up. Survivors won't eat them. They will go hungry instead, waiting for someone to give them tv dinners and Twinkies like they're used to eating.

Why, oh why, do you have to slam people who think differently than you do with derogatory language? ALL those (all of them? have you interviewed them? have you done a survey? or are you just guessing and putting your own skewed interpretation on it?).. ALL those people against stocking up "just don't like being reminded of how frivolous they are."

Well, speaking as one of "ALL those people," in fact, I am not "frivolous." What I am is sick of people like you and your holier than thou attitude which turns the rational idea of a well stocked pantry into some sort of competitive game of one upsmanship.

Talk about obsessively keeping up with the Joneses! I have 24 rolls of toilet paper... but you have 36, so you must be morally superior and less frivolous. But Jim over there... he's got 100 rolls! The man must be a modern saint!

It is people like you that slam the brakes on any decent conversation about "stocking up," or my personal preference: maintaining a well stocked larder. The irony of your idiocy is that modern houses, starting about five years ago, started having a special room added to the kitchen which contracters referred to casually as the "Costco Room," in deference to their wealthy clients with relatively small families who shopped at Costco for the bulk bargains. And then needed a place to store the excess.

But let me guess... shopping at Costco and buying something in bulk is "frivolous" and not part of a pantry rotation system because these people still don't think they're stocking up. They can't have extra food stocks to qualify as "my kind of folks." No... they've got to have the negative attitude, the "just wait until the SHTF" mentality, to go with it. Otherwise they're just a frivolous waste of space.

Get over yourself. Having 100 cans of soup and 50 pounds of wheat berries does not make you morally superior to someone with a case of soup and a big bag of raisins. All it means is that you've chosen to invest your resources one way, and they've chosen to invest them another.

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Icelandic Sheep and German Angora Rabbits

I don't think any one thinks they are better than the other one as to the contents of their pantry, what you are seeing/reading is flustration in not being able to get the message across.

I guess you have to take into consiteration that the ones who do not stock up are a threat to those who do.
Any one that doesn't see that is looking through rose colored glasses. It would be easier if we could talk to others and they would listen and start their own pantry. But I have tryed to talk to others and all they can say is they will come to my place if some thing happens. Like I can take care of them.
And they got that attitude just from seeing my garden and all the canning jars we use. They don't know about the rest of my stash.
It's easy to get an attitude about a mouch, if it is in every day life or in a chrisis situation.

Save for the little portion I snipped out, you state my position, more or less, that I have regarding the divide between preppers and nonpreppers. I don't care if someone has 20 cases of beef jerky, 30 cases of snack cakes and 10 cases of instant flavored oatmeal and several cases of bottled water combined with a box of wooden strike anywhere matches, a tarp and a shaker type battery-less flashlight for preps or if they have the miniature equivalent of a general store. In either case the person has thought out things to an extent and has something to fall back on.

What makes me uneasy are the large numbers of people, even in my rural area, who think that shopping needs to be done on a every few days basis and think there's no need to stock up on anything save to handle when company comes over for a special dinner for a summer holiday weekend or the winter holidays. Added to that are those who wouldn't know what real food was if you give it to them, rather give them a Hot Pocket or Sara Lee entree and they are content. Those kind of people are going to be the ones who will be more likely to be a problem when the highly processed foods are in short or no supply.

I don't think that I'll run out of food anytime soon even if I were to run out of commercially packaged stores. I've been reading up on Native American foodstuffs, specifically those for my local area, so I could at least subsist on them in a pinch in addition to small game.

There's also a reason I place more value on reloading components for my firearms than I do food supplies. Food is always available even in the dead of winter here, you just need to know what you are looking for and find it. It's the problems caused by those who want to kill you for what little you have rather than forage for themselves which has me stocking up on the fodder for my self-defense tools.

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I would challenge anyone here to think of a question upon which we once had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for which now the best answer is a religious one. – Sam Harris

due to having 3 family households within a 2 mile radius, i have ended up with all of the freezers for the family. We all hunt, so the freezers are nothing but meat, ice and dry goods most of the time. I bought a small walk in freezer this year that will probably get mounted off of the rear of the garage this spring.....

I think that as long as you aren't letting it take over your life, home or letting things ruin then there is no worry about overstocking. Another reason my house was chosen because i make sure the older stuff is taken and used first.

"But I do stockpile cash in every savings instrument available. I think it is beyond foolish for a woman, given the actuarial tables, not to do this. Love my husband to death, but I will most likely spend the last 1/4 of my life without him, his earning power, or the sheer muscle he brings to every day tasks. You can't buy affection, but you can buy a lawn mowing service and someone to plow the driveway."

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I certainly agree with this. I am grateful that my departed hubby was into prepping as well as myself. I miss him terribly, but our style of life and preparedness allows me to continue here on our homestead.

Like reluctantpatriot, the non-preppers make me nervous. It isn't a superiority thing with me at all. I worry about those who give no thought to tomorrow and seem to believe that the good times will always roll. I don't do it, prep, to feel superior but because I gives me a certain degree of serenity. Several times in my rather long life I have lived off my preps for months, once for over a year. Hard times come.........why not prepare for them???