Supplies? How much do you keep on hand? Good idea or bad?

[Ann.without.an.e]

I've never been a super stocker but @Garga mentioned the spaghettio's and when covid was first escalating I bought a few boxes of honey nut cheerios (and we don't really eat Cheerios). It just has me thinking...

What are your thoughts on stocking? Do you stock extra supplies and for how long? What sort of things do you stock?

I don't think clearing shelves is wise, it escalates problems with supply, but I can see how it would be wise to have 1-3 months of supplies on hand at all times. The problem is, we don't eat a lot of packaged or shelf stable foods. We are gluten free and dairy free and eat mainly fresh foods. 

I would love to know what the Hive thinks on this topic - the good and the bad - and any tips you'd like to share. 

Edited October 12, 2021 by Ann.without.an.e

[Arcadia]

We don’t have food allergies. Our food stockpile is more for earthquake and inflation than for the pandemic. We stock what we like to eat because the last thing we want is to run out of comfort food during the pandemic or natural disasters. All the food items we stock are dry rations.

[prairiewindmomma]

9 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

I've never been a super stocker but @Garga mentioned the spaghettio's and when covid was first escalating I bought a few boxes of honey nut cheerios (and we don't really eat Cheerios). It just has me thinking...

What are your thoughts on stocking? Do you stock extra supplies and for how long? What sort of things do you stock?

I don't think clearing shelves is wise, it escalates problems with supply, but I can see how it would be wise to have 1-3 months of supplies on hand at all times. The problem is, we don't eat a lot of packaged or shelf stable foods. We are gluten free and dairy free and eat mainly fresh foods. 

I would love to know what the Hive thinks on this topic - the good and the bad - and any tips you'd like to share. 

I have limited space, so I try to stock the things that I can that are not easily replaceable and which, if unavailable, are really disruptive to our daily eating. My freezer has a lot of proteins in it right now. I keep the buckets of rice and beans full.  I have some shelf stable almond milk in backup, and some of the other special items (DF cheese, etc.) with a couple of weeks' supply. I need leeway time to scramble for alternatives if my weekly grocery order is disrupted (and it usually is, in one capacity or another). 

I'm not stocking to survive a grand apocalypse. I'm stocking to make life comfortable if we have a gap here or there in grocery orders. If we got really sick, we could get by for two weeks without a grocery pickup. I could keep everyone alive on basic rice and beans for a month. That's the space I have to work with. 

 

[SounderChick]

We stock up on some basics.  We buy 1/2 cow each year so their is always meat.  We keep buckets of flour, sugar, rice.  We keep some powders milk, eggs and butter just in case.  But not cheerios or soup etc.

[BakersDozen]

I have always bought a bit more than we immediately needed for most non-perishable supplies simply because it is cheaper in the long run for me to buy a box of something than buy things individually. With prices rising and availability decreasing, I have made sure to have about a year's worth of supplies on hand not only for our own use but to help others if need be. It felt really great during spring 2020 to give out flour, Lysol, baby wipes, etc. to those not used to buying in bulk.

Basically my goal was to not have to go out to stores or have to scramble to find things as much as possible. With the amount of food and nonfood items our family consumes, I don't want to empty shelves or even close to it should supplies get hard to find, so I've slowly bought/stocked up over the last 6 months or so. Eggs are one thing we would not have, otherwise we have these for about a year:

toothbrushes/floss
toothpaste
Band-aids, ointments, etc.
Bar soap
Dish soap
Shampoo/conditioner
Deodorant (whew, that stuff was hard to find last year!)
Feminine hygiene items
Diapers/wipes
Disinfectant stuff (Lysol, etc. - we go through this stuff like crazy thanks to stinky hockey equipment X 8!)
Spices, flour, sugar, oils, etc.
Vitamins
Pasta/sauce
Rice/Quinoa
Cornmeal
Soup (big soup eaters here)
Fruit in jars, not cans (applesauce, pineapple, peaches)
Juice
Powdered milk
Cheese (grated/frozen)
Meat (frozen)
Veggies (frozen)
Butter (frozen)
Crackers/snacks (not frozen, lol)
Peanut butter/Nutella/Jelly/Jam
Tea/Coffee/Hot Chocolate (only a necessity to the kids, lol)
Paper towels/toilet paper

Again, it just felt really great to get a request for something no one could find on shelves (like Lysol) and send it out. Whatever we buy, we will use or give away - we're not piled to the ceiling with stuff but we don't have to face crowds in stores when things get tight here - and with the population boom we've had but no new stores, things do get interesting rather quickly. It was very stressful watching stuff sell out in stores or on-line and realize that the one can of soup I might find would give each of us 1-2 bites for a meal. So with our family size, we are wanting to be more prepared than not. And it just saves money in the long run to buy in bulk for us, pandemic and supply issues aside.
 

[73349]

We're a household of 3 and only stock things to the extent that they will keep well and would be inconvenient to do without. So... soap (and materials to make more), rice, tomato sauce, beans, some sugar, chickpea flour (like, one extra bag after the current one), a couple of jars each of peanut butter and jelly, a carton or two of shelf-stable almond milk... just not a ton of stuff.

The irony of the toilet paper fiasco, to me, was that TP is easier to replace than a lot of other things--one t-shirt each, a pair of scissors, a bucket, and the  washing machine, problem solved.

We haven't had trouble getting fresh produce or eggs. We eat local meat about once a week and have had no trouble getting it. We do tend to buy one more vegan mozz than we need at the time, and one more pack of almond flour tortillas (which we freeze).

We do have a few days' worth of food in an emergency kit (pop-top cans of soup, etc.), but we live in a fairly densely populated area, and there are many resources (year-round farmers' market, several different chains of stores--some of which I could walk to--etc.). And we don't have a basement or garage to store things in.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Carolina Wren

[Garga]

Well, after the Spaghettio snafu 🙂, I made the decision to stock up on only some paper products and on the foods that my very picky eater eats. 

If there’s something that the rest of us can’t get, we’ll just get something else at the store. But for my picky eater, it would be difficult to find alternatives for him.

And even then, I only keep about 4 or 5 extras on hand. So, if he likes spaghetti (regular spaghetti and not the O’s!), then I keep 4 extra boxes of it on hand. And he likes bacon at breakfast, so I have 4 packages of bacon in the freezer, etc.  So, we have about a months’ supply of extras for him. Hopefully if there’s a shortage, it won’t last more than a month before we can track down the item for him somewhere else. 

That seemed to be what happened all throughout 2020: something would be out of stock in one store, but if you searched a couple of other stores, you could eventually track it down.

Of course, it could be different in the future and items could disappear for months at a time from all of the stores. In that case, my son will have to think hard about what he wants to do. He’s 19, so it’s not like he’s a 5 yo without logic. He’ll either eat more of the foods left to him, or find alternatives. I’m also a picky eater, and there may come a day when something I love is gone forever and I’ll have to make due with something else, which would be difficult for me, but I could do it.

 

[SKL]

I don't really do it, though I probably should do some.  I think the ideal would be to stock a few days' nutrition in forms that don't require heat or refrigeration to store/eat.

I'm taking a class called Community Emergency Response Team training, and they have repeatedly mentioned that people should have stocked items and a "go kit."  I'm sure they are right.

But psychologically, it gives me the jitters if I have too much crap.  Kinda like the opposite of whatever causes hoarding.

[gardenmom5]

We stock, and have done so for years.  Before covid hit - my sister made a "comment" about how much TP we had. . . . . we had plenty when the shortages hit and never had to buy any.  And some stores are back to rationing.  When I run out of something in the kitchen, I love being able to just run to the basement and grab that ingredient.  dh bases most of his shopping (he likes to do it . . . .) on what the basement stock is like.  Then there is fresh meat and produce.  We've used it during periods of dh's unemployment.

storms hit (and power outages . . . .. We're in the middle of a city . . . twice, we lost power for an entire week. In the winter, when we have storms . . . Our "supply" includes firewood - madrona is great, high btus and burns slowly - and a wood burning fireplace. dh rented a splitter and split all of it), unemployment, civil disturbances, earthquakes (dh jokes he wishes "the big one" would hit so he can drop our earthquake coverage.)

start with the basics  - things to sustain life.   (that you use - don't just put it in a storage area and forget it.  kids especially need to be used to eating what you store.).  Include water or a good filtration device so you can make potable water.  (people get frozen pipes in winter.)  They make fabulous ones for backpackers.

Incl. a good first aid kit.  and cash.  In the aftermath of one storm - the stores (and gas stations) had no power so most were only doing cash. (they were walking people into the store to get what they wanted, and escorted out.  it was slow.)

then comfort items, and 'extras', both food and comfort extras.  dh has added a couple gas cans of gas - it's rotated.  and we tend to keep our tanks higher.  and if a storm is coming, we'll make sure the tank is full.

when we remolded, we put in a gas water heater and gas stove so we'd have those even when the power was out.

[Carrie12345]

I’ve kept +/-3 months of almost all supplies we use on hand for years. It got us through many mini disasters. I’ve been increasing that almost consistently since the first hints of Covid. I had decided to downsize for moving, but then there was Delta, and now there’s today, so...

Food wise, I mostly keep ingredients to cook with, so they get rotated regularly. There are some convenience things like boxed Mac and cheese, cereal, and snacks, but I focus on scratch cooking.

[Ann.without.an.e]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

 

I'm not stocking to survive a grand apocalypse. I'm stocking to make life comfortable if we have a gap here or there in grocery orders. If we got really sick, we could get by for two weeks without a grocery pickup. I could keep everyone alive on basic rice and beans for a month. That's the space I have to work with. 

 

 

If there was a grand event, those with supplies would surely be killed for the supplies or eaten by the zombies 😂

So yea, there's no need stocking to that extreme.  I just want to fill in supply gaps and weather events, job loss, inflation, etc. 

[Carrie12345]

5 minutes ago, SKL said:

 

I'm taking a class called Community Emergency Response Team training, and they have repeatedly mentioned that people should have stocked items and a "go kit."  I'm sure they are right.

I’m CERT trained, too! 😁

[cjzimmer1]

I've been a stocker long before COVID hit.  There are so many benefits especially for those with a big group to feed.  For instance, I make and can my own applesauce.  Even with buying the apples and lids, I can produce a quart for under 50 cents and it's perfectly sweet with no added sugar.  But because I do it myself, I can enough for 1-2 years at a time.  The benefit is, when we are sick, I never have to worry about do I have enough "sick' foods on hand.  So I have a healthier product at a fraction of the cost of store  bought and it's always available.  Another reason I stock is time savings.  I HATE shopping so when I go shopping I buy multiples of whatever nonperishable I'm buying so that I don't have to shop for that item again anytime soon.  I've gotten things so streamlined that I can shop at ALDI, my local grocery store, and Costco and finish all three stores in between 60-90 minutes total (and I don't even do it weekly).

I went to the grocery store for the first time in a few weeks and I will say I'm having sticker shock on some of the recent price hikes.  Glad they were things I could totally live with out.

[73349]

26 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

I’m CERT trained, too! 😁

Me three. 🙂 Our team is new. I've been seeing that often it's not the "what" (though yes, a first aid kit, a few days' food, etc.), but the how. So what goes at the top of the first aid kit? Light source, gloves, mask--or your other items won't help you help a neighbor in the dark. What if you can't store a squillion gallons of water? Think about how you'll purify non-potable water. (This is a water-abundant area.) Knowing what you really need and what you can work without saves a lot of storage space.

 

[Murphy101]

I prefer to keep most supplies at 3 month supply level.  Produce and refrigerated items at weekly.

[Pawz4me]

I've always tried to stay a little ahead strictly for --

(1) Convenience -- I've never been that person who wakes up, stumbles to get some coffee and then realizes she's out of coffee or milk/creamer. Or needs to refill the TP holder and realizes there's none left.  Nope to the nope, ain't gonna happen here as long as I'm functional. That type of basic stuff is easy peasy to stay ahead on (assuming finances permit, of course).

(2) Weather events -- If we get an ice storm or bad thunderstorm and have trees down everywhere and the power goes out I want to have plenty of non-perishable stuff to keep us going for a week or two. So I keep plenty of extras of things I know we'll eat anyway--PB, a variety of crackers, pouches of salmon, etc. I have no aspirations to make gourmet meals or even our normal, simple meals. I just want enough stuff that we like that will meet caloric needs for a week or two if needed. I also don't want to be the person fighting the hordes at the grocery store the day before a storm is supposed to hit.

Last fall I did stock up a little more than usual on the non-perishable stuff, since who knew what was going to happen with store stocks due to the pandemic. This year I'm only slightly less concerned. I don't think I'll go to the extent I did last year, but still will probably up my game just a little bit above my normal winter level.

I have no desire to stock enough food to last months and months. Practically, I don't see any need or benefit. And if the world as we know it ends to the point that I can't relatively easily buy food -- I don't know that I'd want to hang around long anyway.

[mathnerd]

The pandemic lockdown taught me that there is no need to stockpile given that I live in suburbia with a ton of grocery stores and ethnic stores around every corner and that I stocked up on unnecessary stuff like canned foods and carbs that we don't eat so much. So, this time around, I am stocking up what we might actually consume and things that were in short supply during the pandemic: organic milk powder for emergencies, various nuts, dates, 2 month supply of various dry beans and legumes, 2 bags of rice, cheeses (with expiry date 4-6 months out), organic almond milk/oat milk, spices of all kinds, specialty grains that were out of stock, gluten free flours, dry elderberries for making my syrup, frozen berries and fruits. I am also freezing bell peppers, onions chopped, ginger paste, roasted zucchini, roasted cauliflower and broccoli, garlic paste and pesto. 

I will also freeze some cream, greek yoghurt for smoothies later on. That is all the room I have in my pantry and freezer.

I am not worried about supplies for toilet paper, hand sanitizer and cleaning products anymore. There was always something that I could find even during the worst of times.

Edited October 13, 2021 by mathnerd

[bluemongoose]

I have always stocked up for weather events and when we are ill and can't get to a store. We live out in the country and it has happened that we got stuck in for a month before. A month without lots of options to eat and plenty of toilet paper is misery. By the end of that month, we were down to beans, rice, and PBJ. We were so sick of it by the end of that month, but we didn't go hungry. After that experience, we have done better to stock up on more options. When the pandemic hit we had plenty of TP and food and all that stuff. The list from the PP above was really good. In addition to that I stock dent corn (for cornmeal) and grain (to grind for bread/crackers/pancakes/waffles etc). I also make sure to have seeds and have an indoor lettuce and kale "garden" so we can have constant greens. A big rule of thumb, don't stock up on it if you don't eat it. So if you don't like canned green beans, don't buy them! Only stock up what you know you will eat.

[Arcadia]

1 hour ago, mathnerd said:

The pandemic lockdown taught me that there is no need to stockpile given that I live in suburbia with a ton of grocery stores and ethnic stores around every corner and that I stocked up on unnecessary stuff like canned foods and carbs that we don't eat so much.

We are also stockpiling only what we usually eat. Prices has gone up faster than inflation and supplies have been inconsistent for Chinese/Korean/Japanese food items like daikon, bitter gourd, eggplant, persimmons. Karela gets moldy much faster than the Chinese bitter gourd unfortunately. We were at the two Korean supermarkets today and both have shelves with empty sections. 

[Ann.without.an.e]

Y'all have some given some great thoughts. Thank you.

Bunny trail warning. Are y'all seeing supply issues where you live? The other day at Sams there were no pecans, vinegar, bleach, rice, and a few other things that I wanted were gone.

[mathnerd]

38 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

We are also stockpiling only what we usually eat. Prices has gone up faster than inflation and supplies have been inconsistent for Chinese/Korean/Japanese food items like daikon, bitter gourd, eggplant, persimmons. Karela gets moldy much faster than the Chinese bitter gourd unfortunately. We were at the two Korean supermarkets today and both have shelves with empty sections. 

I did notice that the prices for fresh produce are either higher or the quantity is lesser per package - interesting, since most of the produce here is locally grown ...

[Ethel Mertz]

34 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

Y'all have some given some great thoughts. Thank you.

Bunny trail warning. Are y'all seeing supply issues where you live? The other day at Sams there were no pecans, vinegar, bleach, rice, and a few other things that I wanted were gone.

Local grocery: lots of empty spaces in the dairy, paper goods, and pet food aisles. Tuesday evening in NC.

[Pawz4me]

7 hours ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

 

Bunny trail warning. Are y'all seeing supply issues where you live?

Sometimes, yes. But it's not long term or widespread. I only shop at two stores regularly. Most often what I see is that one might be out of something but the other will be fully stocked with that same item, or one store will be out of a particular item one day but have plenty a few days later. So far (knock on wood) I've had no real trouble finding any item that we needed or just wanted.

[HomeAgain]

7 hours ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

Y'all have some given some great thoughts. Thank you.

Bunny trail warning. Are y'all seeing supply issues where you live? The other day at Sams there were no pecans, vinegar, bleach, rice, and a few other things that I wanted were gone.

There are some supply issues here, but mostly it's the costs that have gone through the roof.  Milk, sausage, red meat...all have nearly doubled in price. Limes have gone up considerably.  The one supply issue we found this fall was toilet paper.

It's telling when looking at the loss leader ads.  Either they have virtually nothing on sale and have just listed the usual price it has been at, or it's wacky stuff that doesn't usually make it into the late fall sale rotation.

 

To the original question, I mostly stock to get us through wintery days.  I can make a meal with nearly anything, but we rely heavily on rice, potatoes, and grains in the winter.  I don't have to worry about there being a run on barley 😄 but I do keep my eye on the rice costs and am buying more of the other things instead.

[marbel]

14 hours ago, Pawz4me said:

I've always tried to stay a little ahead strictly for --

(1) Convenience -- I've never been that person who wakes up, stumbles to get some coffee and then realizes she's out of coffee or milk/creamer. Or needs to refill the TP holder and realizes there's none left.  Nope to the nope, ain't gonna happen here as long as I'm functional. That type of basic stuff is easy peasy to stay ahead on (assuming finances permit, of course).

(2) Weather events -- If we get an ice storm or bad thunderstorm and have trees down everywhere and the power goes out I want to have plenty of non-perishable stuff to keep us going for a week or two. So I keep plenty of extras of things I know we'll eat anyway--PB, a variety of crackers, pouches of salmon, etc. I have no aspirations to make gourmet meals or even our normal, simple meals. I just want enough stuff that we like that will meet caloric needs for a week or two if needed. I also don't want to be the person fighting the hordes at the grocery store the day before a storm is supposed to hit.

Last fall I did stock up a little more than usual on the non-perishable stuff, since who knew what was going to happen with store stocks due to the pandemic. This year I'm only slightly less concerned. I don't think I'll go to the extent I did last year, but still will probably up my game just a little bit above my normal winter level.

I have no desire to stock enough food to last months and months. Practically, I don't see any need or benefit. And if the world as we know it ends to the point that I can't relatively easily buy food -- I don't know that I'd want to hang around long anyway.

This is about what I do. I don't think we have ever run out of our basic everyday staples except cow's milk, but that can be replaced by canned milk or oat milk, both of which we keep on hand. 

I'm preparing more for weather events. Last month there was a crazy storm with massive flooding and a tornado nearby. Tornados are not really a thing in my area (SE PA) and I'm still shocked a month later when I see all the broken trees and houses with blue tarps on the roofs. Some people also lost everything in flooding. So I'm preparing for more extreme winter weather than we usually experience. For me this means propane so we can cook on the gas grill, canned beans more than dried to save fuel, peanut and other nut butters. We are also keeping lots of flours - even with a power outage we can make flatbreads on the grill. After pandemic yeast shortages we are keeping extra of that, though the breadbaking has diminished. We already had several coolers but I'm keeping a couple of bags of ice in the freezer - last power outage I had to drive around to find ice, that kinda blew my mind. But we don't have vast amounts of meat in the freezer anymore anyway due to the meat prices. 🤷‍♂️ Oh we also have a butane one-burner stove thing and extra gas, so we can easily heat water in the house, make a pan of oatmeal, things like that, without going outside to use the grill. 

I also don't buy things we don't normally eat. Though every now and then I eye the 8-pack of canned green beans in Costco, but I actually like them - no one else in the house does. They prefer frozen (if fresh not available) so I keep stocked on those. We are snacky people so there are crackers around all the time. No one is going to really go hungry here and like Arcadia said, I want to keep comfort type foods if we are stuck in the house for days on end, with or without power. Oh yeah, I bought a new bottle of Kraken spiced rum and need to check our whiskey supply to get us through the worst weather months. 😎 

Edited October 13, 2021 by marbel

[ScoutTN]

No room here to stockpile. I keep an extra or two of many things, as space allows, and try not to let things like dog food or tp or batteries get down too low before buying. 

We do have decent emergency supplies: water filtration, propane stove and grill, firewood, lanterns, tarps, solar chargers, hand crank radio etc.

Tornado is our most likely danger - usually spring or fall. Ice and snow happen here occasionally, but never last long enough to be a huge issue. We just stay home til it melts. 

[prairiewindmomma]

15 hours ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

Y'all have some given some great thoughts. Thank you.

Bunny trail warning. Are y'all seeing supply issues where you live? The other day at Sams there were no pecans, vinegar, bleach, rice, and a few other things that I wanted were gone.

Yes and no. There is usually some store somewhere that is carrying items.  My local store, where I do my grocery pickup orders often has several items out, some of which are not substitutable.

Our local Costco has been short on paper goods like toilet paper and paper towels again since late August. If you shop at the end of the day, there might be a few packages of something industrial left, but mostly it's just empty concrete floor.  There are other gaps in the store, but they have been creating wider displays of what they do have to hide what they don't have.

Spices in particular are going to be harder to find this winter, particularly if they normally come in glass jars. They are limiting production due to packaging constraints on glass jars, and transport is just affecting the amount of spice volume they have to work with.

[Arcadia]

17 hours ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

Bunny trail warning. Are y'all seeing supply issues where you live? The other day at Sams there were no pecans, vinegar, bleach, rice, and a few other things that I wanted were gone.

The items we want that have supply issues are mainly shipped from SE Asia and Taiwan. They are probably stuck in shipping containers in Port of Oakland and Los Angeles port. Availability of rice, vinegar and pecans aren’t an issue but rice prices are up. Bleach we can buy easily at Dollar Tree.

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Our local Costco has been short on paper goods like toilet paper and paper towels again since late August. If you shop at the end of the day, there might be a few packages of something industrial left, but mostly it's just empty concrete floor.  There are other gaps in the store, but they have been creating wider displays of what they do have to hide what they don't have.

Toilet paper is often out of stock by lunchtime. Paper towels tend to be available until dinner time. There are gaps for sure.

[JFSinIL]

I have a bedroom walk-in closet lined with shelves that holds a lot of various packaged items.  We find the wee printed use by date on items and write the date in Sharpie on top where it is easy to see, and rotate items to be sure to use up older stuff first.  I restock as particular items run low.  I've a broom closet converted to shelved storage near the down stair bedrooms that has held multiple bags of flours, sugars, cereal, oats etc for years. One shelf is now extra medicines and bandaids, an oxygen finger squeezie thing, etc.   The bedroom with the now food storage closet is only used by adult son with autism every other weekend anyway so he doesn't need the closet space.  I store jars of favorite pasta sauces under his bed, too 😉  And the basement has, since last spring, been stocked full of Kleenex, paper towels and T.P. 

Trick is to only stock up on stuff you'd buy and use anyway over the course of a year, and rotate the stuff so nothing gets wasted. 

 

Oh, and spices?  I have for years either bought large packages from local ethnic stores or bought 8 or 16 ounce bags from Amazon.  Yes, we use up that much cinnamon and cumin, etc. - it does not go to waste.  Even smaller packages of nutmeg, cardamon, etc are reasonably priced on Amazon. I got into the habit of buying bulk spices, sometimes sharing a bag with one or two other families, when I was in a local food co'op years ago.   I never buy spices in the supermarket! 

Edited October 13, 2021 by JFSinIL

[Kassia]

2 minutes ago, JFSinIL said:

.  We find the wee printed use by date on items and write the date in Sharpie on top where it is easy to see, and rotate items to be sure to use up older stuff first. 

We have always kept a good stock of things (buy a lot when on sale) but recently started doing the Sharpie thing on some items.  It is a really good investment of time.  I need to do it on everything.  

Usually, buying in bulk of sale items works really well but sometimes it backfires when someone decides they don't want that food/product anymore.  Then we end up donating.

 

[elegantlion]

We don't really buy extra food items, but we do make sure there is always an extra coffee or two. 

I have been thinking of buying a little early for things like printer toner. I just put my last cartridge in and it should last until February at least, but I may buy another two pack just to have it on hand. 

I also have Boost mobile and needed to upgrade my phone because of the TMobile merge. They didn't have the phone I wanted in the store, so I ordered online. I didn't want to chance waiting until December and not be able to get the phone I wanted. 

[MooCow]

I hate, truly detest going to the grocer. I'm averaging about every two weeks. I used to keep stockpiles, but I just have no inclination to do it anymore. Unless it comes in my Amazon subscribe and save, I just wait until the next grocer run. 

When I do go, I try to stock up but my family then tends to eat more. I do keep a bit of meat and bread in the freezer. I always run out of mayo and fruits and veggies are a hit or miss. I seem to keep buying pancake mix and cereal though. I have enough pancake mixes for at least a year and we rarely eat pancakes...

 

[TexasProud]

LOL, well, we have had stockpiles since Y2K.  (Not that we still have food from that.) My husband likes for us to be prepared to live for months if necessary. It did pay off at the beginning of the pandemic.

My husband has done the grocery shopping lately, so I am not sure what is missing. What I have noticed is this: price increases. Our grocery bill is the same as when all three were living at home!!!!   Before Covid and when we had just 1, our grocery bill went down quite a bit. Then back up to our normal level when all 3 were living here for 6 months during the lockdowns.  Then it went down when all three went to college/work/grad school. But it is not up to the level where we were with the 5 at home, and there are only 2 of us. The prices are absolutely nuts.