Can’t seem to stop

[Carrie12345]

I’m not mad at myself or anything, but every week I say I’m not going to shop, and then every week I decide it’s entirely safe enough to get some fresh stuff, and I wind up grabbing “just a few more things” that turn into a pretty big order.  Sigh.

Today I went into Aldi for one specific request my son had. I knew I’d wind up with more than just that, and I did, but it was still HARD to refrain from getting even more. And then I got home, unloaded, and caught up on pandemic and political happenings and felt like I should have just gone hog wild. 😛 

[Kassia]

43 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

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Today I went into Aldi for one specific request my son had. I knew I’d wind up with more than just that, and I did, but it was still HARD to refrain from getting even more. And then I got home, unloaded, and caught up on pandemic and political happenings and felt like I should have just gone hog wild. 😛 

I'm struggling with this, too.  My house is stuffed, but I am so panicked/anxious about rising covid numbers, supplies, shortages, etc. that my instinct is to just keep stockpiling.  I'm driving poor DH crazy with all the "what ifs" and packages arriving.  I just wish I had more freezer space so I could stock up things like meats and bread but I'm out of room. 

 

[saraha]

I totally feel you, in fact I did it all spring as it never got bad here. It makes it worse that I have 2 daughters that work at our local grocery store so I am there multiple times a day to drop off and pick them up as they don't work the same days/shifts! I have no idea what I am going to do since I keep filling up the freezer and we have a beef we're are having done in December!

I was going on the other day and my dh laughingly told me I needed a chill pill, haha. Glad to know I am not the only one. I am getting better though, at the height of spring we had food stacked up in weird places because I had bought so much. I am on a no buying food week to try to get some of it under control. Out of sour cream? Sorry, have to wait till next week which apparently everyone here thinks is a punishment! I told dh if the world ends,the lack of sour cream will be this family's undoing...

[saraha]

Whenever dh starts to say something, I just respond with, do you remember when your parents needed toilet paper? Who had toilet paper? We did, that's right, so hush.

[Ditto]

I'm doing the same over here.  We have turned an extra bedroom into a pantry of sorts complete with a wall lined with shelves and a chest freezer.  I have spent all these months filling those shelves and the freezer.  Every inch of floor space is filled with toilet paper, paper towels, and cleaning products as well.  Yet, it still doesn't feel like enough. 

@saraha...I instituted a no food shopping week for this week too.  Do you feel slightly panicked by not going?  I do.  I am sticking to it though. 

[Carrie12345]

@saraha Yup, it’s the stuff like sour cream that reels me in.  

For normal emergency prep, and even a little in the spring, my family usually just rolls their eyes and leaves me to my various stashes. But now dh keeps suggesting a little more and asking if I think we need more. Today, I told dd about my struggle with willpower and SHE was even like, “Well, it wouldn’t hurt.”  So I don’t even have my family’s judgment to keep me in check anymore, lol.

And I’ve got my parents, sisters, nieces and nephew in the back of my mind. I’m in PA and they’re in GA, but I shipped them gloves and my stepbrother shipped them toilet paper earlier in the year.  My mom has prepping tendencies, but they don’t go as far as mine do.

We really don’t have a lot of room, but I’ve made it work so far.  I’m trying to picture myself doing this with more room to spare and it’s kind of a scary thought, lol.  I’d probably prep for the whole town!

[saraha]

How are you guys getting people’s names in blue?

I am feeling panicky about no shopping week! Especially since stuff is getting eaten! I really don’t have a choice this week though, we had paid off our credit card last week (yay!) and then immediately had both car trouble and plumbing problems, so to not put anything back on the card we needed to spend nothing this week. I guess that’s what we prep for right?

My family didn’t say too much about my preps until we had totes of crackers and cereal in the living room that we had to move around to vacuum

[Carrie12345]

11 minutes ago, saraha said:

How are you guys getting people’s names in blue?

You can just @ and once you type a letter, screen name options will pop up.

[Carrie12345]

13 hours ago, Kassia said:

I'm struggling with this, too.  My house is stuffed, but I am so panicked/anxious about rising covid numbers, supplies, shortages, etc. that my instinct is to just keep stockpiling.  I'm driving poor DH crazy with all the "what ifs" and packages arriving.  I just wish I had more freezer space so I could stock up things like meats and bread but I'm out of room. 

 

I am not, not, not a fan of bread baking anymore (I had a moment about a decade back, lol), but having the ingredients to do it if needed is part of my food storage.  Still space consuming, but not in freezers. And I just hope it doesn’t come to that, because I don’t want to bake bread.
We do have a lot of flour tortillas in the freezer. Again, something that can be made, but I don’t really want to.  They take up less space than sandwich bread or rolls, though. And you can wrap anything up in those.

[Kassia]

1 hour ago, Carrie12345 said:

I am not, not, not a fan of bread baking anymore (I had a moment about a decade back, lol), but having the ingredients to do it if needed is part of my food storage.  Still space consuming, but not in freezers. And I just hope it doesn’t come to that, because I don’t want to bake bread.
We do have a lot of flour tortillas in the freezer. Again, something that can be made, but I don’t really want to.  They take up less space than sandwich bread or rolls, though. And you can wrap anything up in those.

Thank you!  That is a great suggestion and now I have one less thing to obsess about. ❤️

[Carrie12345]

Another thought for meat - precooking saves some space.  Not exactly a whole lot, but some.  I’ve got a good amount of cooked ground beef and chicken breast (shredded and chunked) that would take up more room in their original not-preshrunk-form.  I could fit even more if I were to store them flat in ziplock bags, but I’ve been trying to use easier to re-use packaging, so I’ve got some wasted air space going on.

[Kassia]

32 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

Another thought for meat - precooking saves some space.  Not exactly a whole lot, but some.  I’ve got a good amount of cooked ground beef and chicken breast (shredded and chunked) that would take up more room in their original not-preshrunk-form.  I could fit even more if I were to store them flat in ziplock bags, but I’ve been trying to use easier to re-use packaging, so I’ve got some wasted air space going on.

You are a genius!  Not sure I'm up to cooking all that meat, but that's a really good idea.  That would save room.  

[Carrie12345]

7 minutes ago, Kassia said:

You are a genius!  Not sure I'm up to cooking all that meat, but that's a really good idea.  That would save room.  

I try to be as lazy as possible, so I’ll shove some into the crock pot, instant pot, And/or giant roaster pan and not really have to be there while it’s cooking.  I mean, I’ve done some things that take effort, too, lol, but not as much.

[saraha]

I taught my girls a couple of breadmaker recipes, and breadmaking is all up to them! We don't use the special bread flour or anything, we just use the regular all purpose flour and it turns out fine. We still use a lot of store bought sandwich bread because that is how we like sandwiches, but I love my breadmaker. We use the dough setting to get cinnamon rolls started, pizza dough, any other rolls they want to try. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes really easy to throw the ingredients in, turn on and walk away.

[saraha]

I picked a bad week to have to go no spend.our governor just made an address saying that retail establishments have to step up mask monitoring and in a week will decide if bars and restaurants and fitness centers can stay open. It doesn’t seem fair to the businesses but I can’t figure out what the answer is. I just don’t know what to think about any of it anymore

[Carrie12345]

9 hours ago, saraha said:

I picked a bad week to have to go no spend.our governor just made an address saying that retail establishments have to step up mask monitoring and in a week will decide if bars and restaurants and fitness centers can stay open. It doesn’t seem fair to the businesses but I can’t figure out what the answer is. I just don’t know what to think about any of it anymore

I’m sorry.

I don’t want it to sound like I don’t care about the impact on businesses, because I really do. Dh is the OM for a (non-retail) company that was scrambling and struggling with major regulations across multiple states in the spring and it was absolutely concerning.  But targeting the highest risk places before it’s “too late” (whatever one decides that is) is a way to keep other things operating. My real worry is that we (individuals, community, states, nation, world) won’t make the smaller sacrifices, which will force us into bigger, scarier, “fair-er” but more disastrous ones at some point.

All of the big stores in my region are pretty great about masking now.  It’s the smaller, family-owned businesses where there are some issues. (I’m generalizing, of course.). I just don’t get it, because they’re the ones who will be hit the hardest by more shut downs.

To bring it back to the prepping aspect, I’m starting to see the rising numbers impacting the operations of businesses and organizations. Dh has two employees in quarantine right now, and an independent contractor battling the virus.  He, himself, quarantined this past weekend while awaiting test results. It impacts how (and whether) the business is able to function.  Teachers in in-person schools are calling out to quarantine, leaving schools putting students in the cafeteria. My daughter’s on an ambulance squad that can’t stay fully operational if more than one or two people have to quarantine or, god forbid, actually get sick.  My son’s employer struggled when he had to quarantine *twice and take time off for his grandmother’s death.

So, my concern is that, if numbers keep exploding, that’s going to impact how many people can go in to work Walmart pick up, drive trucks, manage warehouses, manufacture, grow/pick, etc.   There has never been a real proposal to stop access to grocery stores, but the virus itself can theoretically gum up the works in a very big way without government approval!  I mean, it isn’t only theoretically - we got a taste earlier this year.  Put an exponent on it and...
I would very much like to see targeted measures taken to hedge our bets.

[Ausmumof3]

Somehow I am seeing this group?  Is it public?  My prepping urges and need to keep the budget in check are kind of fighting each other.  Pantry is pretty full.  I realised a 10kg bag of flour only does 16 loaves so just over two weeks worth for us.  Meaning I really need to keep two in for a month of bread.  

[Carrie12345]

3 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Somehow I am seeing this group?  Is it public?

Do you mean seeing it in Clubs, or is it popping up elsewhere???
I didn’t really look at the settings since coming back here, but it looks like a whole “factory reset”.  I can play with that.

[Wheres Toto]

2 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

Do you mean seeing it in Clubs, or is it popping up elsewhere???
I didn’t really look at the settings since coming back here, but it looks like a whole “factory reset”.  I can play with that.

It appears in my list of "Unread Content" even though I'm not a member (I don't think).  It's a public club.   

[Ausmumof3]

26 minutes ago, DorothyNJ said:

It appears in my list of "Unread Content" even though I'm not a member (I don't think).  It's a public club.   

Yep same.

 

[Carrie12345]

On 11/10/2020 at 4:25 PM, Kassia said:

I'm struggling with this, too.  My house is stuffed, but I am so panicked/anxious about rising covid numbers, supplies, shortages, etc. that my instinct is to just keep stockpiling.  I'm driving poor DH crazy with all the "what ifs" and packages arriving.  I just wish I had more freezer space so I could stock up things like meats and bread but I'm out of room. 

 

Jus batch quoting so anyone who’s participated gets a notification. Club is still public, but I think you need to join now?  

On 11/10/2020 at 4:40 PM, saraha said:

Whenever dh starts to say something, I just respond with, do you remember when your parents needed toilet paper? Who had toilet paper? We did, that's right, so hush.

 

On 11/10/2020 at 5:08 PM, Ditto said:

I'm doing the same over here.  We have turned an extra bedroom into a pantry of sorts complete with a wall lined with shelves and a chest freezer.  I have spent all these months filling those shelves and the freezer.  Every inch of floor space is filled with toilet paper, paper towels, and cleaning products as well.  Yet, it still doesn't feel like enough. 

@saraha...I instituted a no food shopping week for this week too.  Do you feel slightly panicked by not going?  I do.  I am sticking to it though. 

 

6 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Somehow I am seeing this group?  Is it public?  My prepping urges and need to keep the budget in check are kind of fighting each other.  Pantry is pretty full.  I realised a 10kg bag of flour only does 16 loaves so just over two weeks worth for us.  Meaning I really need to keep two in for a month of bread.  

 

53 minutes ago, DorothyNJ said:

It appears in my list of "Unread Content" even though I'm not a member (I don't think).  It's a public club.   

 

[Kassia]

@Carrie12345I don't know how to join!  

[Carrie12345]

1 minute ago, Kassia said:

@Carrie12345I don't know how to join!  

Well, crud.  I’m not seeing the same amount of setting options as I’ve seen in a more recent group.  I wonder if that’s a glitch from the change over.