"Stocking up" vs "Hoarding"?

I have the same problem with chicken feed! LOL

So if a person WANTED MREs maybe they should stock up on twinkies? How many MREs would you expect to get per twinkie? LOL (Don't think I could gag down an MRE or a twinkie.)

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I believe in God's willingness to heal.

Cyngbaeld's Keep Heritage Farm, breeding a variety of historical birds and LaMancha goats. (It is pronounced King Bold.)

I suspect that those who let the good times roll have their own sense of serenity and their own ideas regarding what is "enough." For example, borrowing from Dana's experience on Wife Swap, the woman she swapped with obviously thought 3 pairs of jeans weren't nearly "enough" and stockpiled (admittedly designer, but nonetheless) many more pairs of jeans. My guess is this woman's closet it stuffed full of clothing... whereas mine is not.

I, on the other hand, have just done the fall slaughter and the Annual Costco Haul and my freezers and cupboards are stuffed for the winter. She's probably find this silly and excessive. And why not? I have carrying costs (higher electric bills, the freezers themselves, freezer wrap, etc) invested in my food. And while we could all be worried about "where our food comes from" in most baby boomer's lifetimes there has never been a nationwide shortage of anything important.

While it might make you feel secure (as it does me) to have a well stocked larder... this isn't based in any independantly verifiable reality. Her three day supply of this and that in the fridge is based on almost six decades, a full half century, of fully stocked, easily accessible, grocery stores.

Stockpiling designer jeans? Not really rational. Stockpiling salt? Equally irrational... based on a half century of data.

If a big snowstorm hit and buried my neighborhood for... let's say an inconceivable month of Sundays, nobody in, nobody out, we could feed our less stocked neighbors. We'd run out of coffee and tea (oh, my aching head!) and probably beer and champagne.. oh, and chocolate (!). So, I suspect, could you. Why bother allowing it to cause you nagging anxiety that your neighbors don't have vast stores at their disposal? The disaster which is likely to hit you isn't going to be years in duration, nor months, but probably a matter of a few weeks.

You can do anything for a few weeks. Including sharing your stores.

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Icelandic Sheep and German Angora Rabbits

"Why bother allowing it to cause you nagging anxiety that your neighbors don't have vast stores at their disposal?"

I don't quite equate an occasional feeling of nervousness for people who make no preparations for hard times as nagging anxiety, nor did I mention expecting my neighbors don't have vast stores at their disposal. I live among a people group who live from harvest to harvest for the most part.

Here in Michigan we have had snow storms that stopped everything, even in the towns for more than three days. If some of the events that have happened in our country in the past few years, including our own government encouraging us to be prepared, have not made a case for prepping to a certain extent..........what would? Incidentally.........having well stocked stores does not mean that hard times couldn't make those goods unavailable to me.

My first lesson in stocking up was when I first moved to the country and nothing was open after 12 noon on Saturdays and Sundays everything was closed. Then the kind neighbors advised that we make sure we had plenty of supplies on hand in case the weather turned bad and we got snowed in. After a couple of blizzards, I quickly learned a few important tips like keeping a 2nd gallon (not quite full) of milk in the deep freeze could come in mighty handy, egg substitutes altho not our favorite thing, could be really nice to have in the freezer too if you overlooked getting extra eggs before the storm hit, etc.

Since then I've kept my pantry well stocked. Many times a neighbor has called asking to borrow this or that which they'd run out of. I almost always have what they need. I stock up on items that are on sale at a good price, buying several in the hope they'll last until they go on sale the next time. I've been buying coffee that way for years now as an example, and saved a lot of money that way. The last time my store had pasta on sale, it was 4 for $1. I loaded up! I've been anxiously waiting on another sale like that because we've already used it all up!

The only waste we've had is from mice who invaded a couple years ago. We never had them prior to that. Since then, I've been storing packages & bagged things in big see thru tubs. Whatever I've used that isn't see thru, I make a large label for so I can see at a glance what's inside.

We have 3 freezers (2 are large). One's for beef, one's for pork, and one's for chicken... all of which we raised. I squeeze in what I can for deer meat, frozen corn cut off the cob, a few other veggies, ice cream, butter, bagged apple slices, berries, and maybe an extra loaf of bread or two. I can most everything else and have several cases of that.

We don't ask anyone what they think, if it's ok, or what their opinion is... it's our way of life and our business. "Frankly Scarlett, I don't give a d...." To us, it's being frugal, wisely planning for the future months. As Ann-NWIowa said, "Stocking up during times of plenty is scriptural -- Joseph stored grain for coming shortages." Who knows what next year will bring... maybe job loss, illness, bad crop, financial bind... at least we know we'll be okay for awhile.

I'm curious as to why you asked, Chamoisee. A few others feel as I do - it depends on whether it's hoarding or stocking up, as to who's telling the story! LOL. "Stocking up is when you're the one doing it----hoarding is when someone else is doing it."

I have never quite understood the mindset that I am supposed to take care of people who won't take care of themselves.
I DO have a list of neighbors that I am willing to help out, because they are really nice people and they have shown kindness to my family in the past in one way or another. But that is my choice, NOT my obligation.

The things i have in my home I chose to sacrifice for. While my neighbors went on vacations or blew it on eating out or an expensive toy rather than stock up, I chose to put some of my money into my food as insurance for MY family. It is possible to play a bit and still stock up, so there is no reason why my neighbors can't do both as well.

This would be like me going to a neighbor's and saying 'hey my TV broke so I am entitled to use yours, after all you have more than one. I can't afford to buy one and besides the store is closed right now. So you have to share'. Seems ridiculous, doesn't it?

They have had access to all of the same news stories, sound bites from Katrina, etc. Every bite of food I give to some other family is some bite of food that will not go to my children.

So why exactly am I supposed to choose my neighbors over my children?

I work at a grocery store, and I occasionally wonder what we would do if something truly terrible happened while we were at work, such as Hanford being bombed. It's already pretty standard to lock the doors of the store if the power goes out and let the customers who are in the store finish shopping and leave. What would we, the employees, do if we could not leave anytime soon, and here we are surrounded by food and supplies that everyone else will be needing?! It's the stuff of nightmares.

Why I asked? Oh. I applied for food stamps (and if you're wondering, I have 4 children living with me full time, 2 part time, I work full time so I am not a slouch, and just as soon as I can, I'll get off of welfare again). I used some of them to stock up on things such as olive oil (I buy it in the gallon cans) gallons of honey, and at the case goods sale at the store. My boyfriend raised his eyebrows at my buying two gallons of honey, and it started me to thinking, how much is unreasonable? When does it cross the line? We get severe winters here, and the economy is poor. When I go off of welfare, I might hit hard times again and need to use some of the stuff I have stored away.

But I DO use tons of wheat berries every day. I make my own bread and other bread-ish things.
I buy and store bulk, because I have five kids, and I eat organic as much as possible. It is WAY cheaper to do it that way. We never have more than 3 or so months worth, and I am OK with that. I have never had anything "go bad" (Except in the tragic freezer incident of '06- when a well meaning neighbor turned the power to the freezer off- but it was caught in time that I really didn't lose as much as I thought I would!) I would eat this way even if I wasn't trying to "stock up".
Personally- what I think is "mentally ill" is the way that most people live... tapped out on credit, eating out 3 or 4 times a week, not having food or emergency supplies in the house at all. It is as if people think nothing bad can EVER happen to them. THAT is crazy! It is not borne out in history at all. We are only the 2nd generation to not keep anything on hand for emergencies AT ALL. We live in unusually stable times, even as unstable as they are... It has made us blind to that danger can happen. I think that the real mental illness is this sense of "immunity" from Murphy and his laws. Now, I don't sit around fearing the bad either... That would also be an illness of a type. But I don't have to. I am prepared. At least a little bit. I don't feel the need to go out and prepare for amegeddon either. Just a little common sense.
Cindyc.

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Mom to 5 cool kids and wife to 1 great guy. Life is good!

chamoisee, my mom worked 3 PT jobs when I was a kid and still had to get food stamps. You do what you have to do. She didn't like it either.

It dawned on me after I posted that there my response might be very different because I am not rural (yes I want to be but that is a different thread).
If I was able to live in a rural situation, I would probably have far fewer neighbors who might be asking for food. Where I live, just on my block, I have 2 infants, 2 toddlers, 1 grade schooler, 6 teenagers, and about 30-35 adults. That is just on my block.
So I hope you can understand that my response is definitely colored by my circumstances.

Where I live I am roughly a mile from the closest village (yes, that is its official state classification) of about 200 some people, mostly older folks. I'm off in the boonies away from the village down a dead end gravel road. The folks in the village might have enough space in their mobile homes or smaller wood frame homes for maybe a week's worth of food if that much.

Now, here's the scenario to ponder. Our area rarely gets snows over 12 inches and our buildings are generally built with said fact in mind. Our emergency services such as plowing and and EMS and LEOs are also set up on this premise. Now what happens if we instead get 36 to 48 inches of snow? Aside from having lots of buildings falling in there's not going to be much travel for several weeks at best unless our temperatures rise fast. In this scenario this doesn't happen and the snow has to be moved out of the way to get to emergencies.

I have enough food to feed a total of two people for two years in this scenario. I can keep my livestock alive and thriving despite the snow as well, but I'll need everything I have to do that. Now, if anyone from the village could even get to me to feed them, I would likely have enough to feed that 200 some for one day. After that, we get to play Donner Pass I guess.

Now, which is more logical? I keep myself alive through the disaster or I give all that I have away to keep an entire town fed for a day and we all die anyway? I'm not going to feel bad going the self preservation route.

If I flip it around and we have torrential rain and flooding a la the Great Floods of 1993 and we don't get deep freezed, just start floating like corks, I'm fine as I am on a ridgeline. Almost the entire county would have to be about 150 some feet under water before I'd have to worry. In that situation I still have the same amount of food and I still can't keep everyone feed from the village, if they haven't already drown or been previously evacuated.

It doesn't matter how well I prepare, I cannot supply even the small village I live near with enough food to survive three days, let alone three weeks, before help arrives.

I think it is better to save yourself and your family first and if you can spare a little, then spare a little. However, don't expect to feed the county from your stores.

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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

I have a few hundred pounds of wheat berries, too. But I know what to do with them. Many of the Y2K hoarders didn't have a clue.

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Better jars of honey than some of the stuff I have seen bought with food stamps.

It is logic like this which really weirds me out. You've got 2 people x 365 days x 2 years, or 1460 people days of food at your house. The average house in town (pop. 200) has 7 days of food before they run out. You're going to be snowed in for a couple of weeks.. let's use your example of three. You need to feed 202 people for 14 days or 2828 people days. You're short by half.

So what you're saying is that rather than put everyone on half rations you'd be willing to hoard (yep, at this point we're no longer talking about "stores" but "hoarding") the 1418 days worth of food you have stored above and beyond your 2 people x 21 emergency days, requirements.

What you're basically saying is you're willing to watch your elderly neighbors starve to death while you sit on 1418 days worth of food above and beyond your needs. And at the end of the crisis when they come to clean up the bodies what will you say to their families?

"Too bad.. guess they should have prepped like we did?"

While you are entitled to your opinion, I think that level of selfishness is sickening. In our little scenerio here I'm rather hoping some of the mothers hold their dying infants up to your windows so you can watch them cry for want of a miserable cup of your rice. But by all means, sit on over 1000 days of rations while your neighbors have nothing for two weeks. Won't you feel good about how well you've planned!

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Icelandic Sheep and German Angora Rabbits

I thank I may have enough for 2 years worth of food for several people, Why? Because even though I talk tough now, when it came down to it I would share. My problem might be letting anyone know what I have and them trying to take it all.
quite frankely any one who says they would not share scares me more than the non-preppers.
In fact this everyone for their own selves attitude that most people have is starting to scare me already and for most of us the s.... has not hit the fan yet.

You're right, a grocery store would be an ugly place to be if things got hairy. Those that haven't prepared for hard times and have nothing much in their pantries, will be panic-stricken and many people would be determined to get what they think they need and want - at any cost (and I'm not talking money).

You have little ones to care for as well as the adults in your family so you are wise to stock up on provisions whenever you can. I wouldn't worry about what others think; do what you feel is right in your heart.

Maybe the town/village should designate a storage facility in their midst where they can stockpile a few things to get them by in an emergency. I've heard of churches and small towns doing that.

So let me get this straight, I use a hypothetical example and you jump all over me? Alright then, how about I have enough food for two people for exactly three weeks. That's 42 people days. So then I divide that up among 200 some people who might have a week's worth of food, perhaps less. Instead of having enough to feed that many people one day, I can feed them all a small snack after they eat up all their food.

So let's see, if I store more than any historical bad event time frame, say a week or two in my local area, and I don't share it willingly to everyone who comes by or I don't flag people down and hand it to them, then I am being selfish and hording?

If I decide to spend my own money on food, water storage/treatment, medical supplies to ride out longer term events rather than on vacations and new techno toys or new consumer goods and such, I am being an antisocial hording piece of garbage?

If I have misunderstood you, please clarify because that's how your words come across to me. It is not my duty, one who prepares for the long term, to save those who don't think ahead beyond a week. To be quite blunt, where do you get off telling me that I have to give everything I have to others for the greater good? Charity to others is a gift, not a socialist obligation.

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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

Actually, I don't think any of us *really* know what we would do in a given situation until we are faced by it.

We can sit here on a computer posting at a forum dreaming up all these scenarios of what will happen and how we will handle it, but when it comes down to it, we don't know what's going to happen or how we're going to deal with it when it gets here.

When "it" happens, it will probably be something we hadn't even considered in advance.

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Reluctant, you so right. Its all about the ants and the grasshopper. I see no reason to feed the grasshopers in life. The ants do with out luxuries all summer then have to do without again to feed the grasshoppers? Nope sorry. Thats just wrong.

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Ehh, whatever.

The village here has no official town hall because the finances, funded by a quarter cent sales tax and $25 per year business licenses just barely pay for the highway side street lights and what few other expenses they have. I cover the board of trustees meetings for the newspaper I work for and know all the trustees and the village clerk/trustee. The have no street department, no police department, no public works department. We do have three churches that have limited food and clothing supplies and the Lions Club in the village has some as well. However, when the tornado came through in March of this year, all four of those organizations were struggling to meet the needs of those in a narrow one mile wide path where the tornado ripped through just south of the village limits.

I live on one side of a low water bridge and have a long 3/10ths of a mile driveway up to the ridgeline I live on. I can get out most of the time in really bad weather, but getting back home can be tricky. I have been flooded in for 10 days before during the floods of 1993 because the outside world is on the outside side of that low water slab and I am on the inside. I can hike out on the ridge about a quarter mile to get to the highway on the other side of the ridgeline if I have to but during severe weather I'd reserve it as a last resort.

Before I get jumped yet again, let me point out that I have no tractor or 4x4 right now and my front wheel drive sedan with chains does reasonably well to get me home under the weather conditions we've had the past several years. Even with a tractor or 4x4, I still would not be able to get past a flooded low water slab bridge and with three feet of snow even a one ton 4x4 with blade wouldn't be enough to clear a mile of three feet deep snow easily. Our local rural road district has its hands full with even a foot of snow with a 26,000 pound dump truck with a bed full of salt and cinders and a heavy duty plow and using the two road graders. The reality is that the road I live down is not even tertiary priorty since it is a private road rather than a public road for the road district to clear.

What I am trying to figure out is why I am supposed to risk my life, the lives of my loved ones and livestock, when logic dictates that I am safer to stay put in most disaster situations? If I am snowed/iced/flooded in, my priority is to stay safe and only leave if I absolutely have to, not trudge into the village with food on my back to save all its inhabitants.

It's not about being selfish, rather being logical and practical. I prepare so that I don't have to risk my life searching out supplies during a disaster and put more strain on the rescue systems that are already dealing with a certain number of people in need. However, the feeling I get, even using hypothetical situations, is that I am the bad guy for preparing for more than perhaps a couple of weeks and that I should just be like everyone else, left wanting for goverment help during an emergency.

What scares is not the "me and mine first" mindset, rather the idea that because I look out for my own needs first, I am obligated to save everyone and anyone that might be in need without focusing on my own situation. The idea that those who prepare for emergencies for their families are evil because they won't share or won't share enough to satisfy others really makes me uneasy.

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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

Those who expect me to prep for them are very much mistaken.
But I might barter, if they have some thing I need.
It would have to be the very worst of times to accually cause our preps to put us in danger.
But as far as what others think of what we do with preps I kinda gave up careing.

I work with the public as a newspaper reporter and am out and about almost constantly because of my job duties to cover events and regular meetings. It would be quite difficult to be in a public oriented job if I were antisocial.

I have done substitute teaching in the past in grades kindergarten through high school seniors on a regular basis. That would also be difficult to do as someone who is antisocial, especially around the younger elementary school age children.

The simple fact is, I expect people to take care of themselves and their own needs. I don't expect to be baled out if I screw up so I am careful and logical about what I do on the homestead and in the world. I take reasonable risks rather than expect someone to rescue me because I took an extreme risk.

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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