2020, 2021, Business, home, Uncategorized

I’m Not Hoarding – I Swear

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I hate buying toilet paper.  It’s just irritating to cough up cash for something that ends up being flushed away.  The fact that it’s constant doesn’t help and I make it worse by not liking most of the conventional tp.  My preferred is Seventh Generation, which I purchase at my co-op.  It’s unbleached and comes individually wrapped in paper, not plastic. 

I’m not a Costco/Sams kind of person – I don’t have storage space for huge quantities – but for years I have purchased my tp by the case from the co-op.  48 rolls at a time for a huge chunk of change – but this means I only have to be irritated every 10 months or so.  We keep the case at the top of the attic steps and bring down rolls to the bathroom when we need them. 

When toilet paper first became the cause celebre last year, I wasn’t worried; we had plenty.  Or so I thought.  As the spring and summer came and went, I watched our supply dwindle.  Unfortunately, by the time we started to run low, the co-op had suspended bulk orders and for several months I was having to pick up tp on a regular basis.  You’d think I had better things to get irritated about, but you’d be wrong.  As if that weren’t enough, the co-op quit getting the Seventh Generation and what they were carrying didn’t last as long per roll.  Crazy making.

Two weeks ago, just for jollies, I asked somebody at the co-op’s Customer Service desk when bulk orders would be re-instated.  They called the manager out and they said I could again order tp by the case.  Even though I wasn’t crazy about what was available from the co-op, I figured that the lack of irritation would make it OK.  Then about an hour later, they called me from the co-op; the stuff they now carry comes in case lots of 96, not 48.  That would make the price tag close to $200.  Aaarrrggghhhh.  I told them not to place the order.

As I was explaining this to YA, she started banging away on her phone.  “You know, you can get a case of the Seventh Generation at Amazon.”  Calm as could be.  I looked at her phone and confirmed that it was exactly what I wanted, and unbelievably cheaper, than what I used to pay at the co-op.  An additional benefit is that I didn’t have to worry about anybody looking at me funny for getting a case of toilet paper during pandemic.  So now we have the tp I like best and I don’t have to get all worked up and buying more until Solstice!

Is there anything you like to have in bulk (or used to like to have in bulk….)?

77 thoughts on “I’m Not Hoarding – I Swear”

  2. This week I ordered 11 lbs of carnaroli rice. It is like arborio rice but better, and I haven’t seen it since we were in Winnipeg and there it was on line. I also got 2 lbs of these enormous Italian Butter Beans, and some borlotti beans, things we can’t get here. Is this hoarding? I don’t think so, but I am starting to call our basement freezers and our pantry the Anxious Gourmand’s cache.

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    1. Oh my you have ingredients for a borlotti bean risotto! Some people also add chopped sopprasotta or salami. I think America’s Test Kitchen or Splendid Table have a recipe.

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        1. Given where you live and the scarcity there of specialty groceries, I don’t think it is hoarding.

          My “official” diagnosis.

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    2. Anyone else on the Trail watching Stanley Tucci’s “Finding Italy” on CNN? We have cable here so we can watch it. The foods and restaurants in the various regions are so appealing.

      When the pandemic is over you can find me planning a trip to Italy within the year.

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      1. I’ve been watching it. Makes my mouth water. I want that lemon pastry from the first week in the worst way.

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  3. funny vs.
    different houses
    i’m a charmin guy ultra soft or ultra strong 36 pack at costco every 3 weeks
    debbie comes from a house where they raised their children with toilet paper rationing as a thing
    i did not
    if i try to use less i ends up needing to wash my hands
    we go through 36 rolls in about 3 weeks
    4 bathrooms
    each bathroom has a tower that holds 4 and the one on the roller there’s only three of us full time here now but we burn through tp in no time at all
    every month i’m sure
    i’ll have to check now
    my kids laugh , i buy everything in bulk
    rice, flour, dog food are my 50 lb carry ins
    popcorn too
    bulk eggs (60 pack) tea 300 packs of lipton and 1 lb loose earl gray delivered monthly on amazon auto reload
    peanut butter, cheese, butter8 lbs at a time bird food in 50 lb bags dried beans pinto red and black cans of green beans corn tomato sauce paste purred and chopped tomatoes black olives green olives chili beans canned black beans
    when i move into a normal sized kitchen i’m in trouble
    i have 3 cupboards of spices and and extra refrigerator and an extra freezer
    aldi being so close allows me to buy potato’s and onions in little 10lb bags and chips on a weekly basis just 10 or 12 bags at a time
    i added pellagrino bubble water to my garage stash
    i grab 2 bottles at a time to do my door dashing
    ( oh i got deactivated for sins against the corporate mandates i’ll let you know how it turns out ) so 24 bib bottles in 2 cases on the garage steps is a new norm
    hoarding or just stashing in the pantry … i need clarification

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      1. door dash
        they incentivize sharing invites to be a door dash driver with you’re friends but you can’t list or mention it on facebook twitter and evidently i did

        they upped the bonus to 1000 for each person who followed your invite and joined but i zipped through it and chose from my list of friends and hit the go button and something got plugged into twitter and that’s against the rules

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  4. Is there something I’d like in bulk quantity? Well yes!

    I never had to eat school lunch food when I was in school. Our family dined together every day. Now God is getting even with me, for the food from the kitchen of this senior citizen complex is classic school lunchroom stuff. Cooking for myself long ago lost its charm. The best option for me is to heat up a can of some kind of processed food, but we all know how salty and unhealthy that stuff is. Urgh!

    To my delight, Campbells has introduced a line of low sodium, lightly processed soups. I couldn’t believe how good their Hearty Lentil and Vegetable soup is. With a handful of croutons, this is a whole lunch. Although I’m an old carnivore, this is a vegetarian soup I love. I have eight more flavors to try in this line. Send me two dozen cans of each.

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  5. Well, we also got 5 lbs of Finnish licorice, and three bags of these dried apricots that Husband likes, as well as dried pink beans, (we like them better than pinto beans) and two packages of fregola sarda pasta. In two months, they will all be gone and I will have to order again.

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  6. Husband finally dragged out a 22 lb pork butt from the freezer last night. (He has two of them). Since it will be almost °70 here this coming weekend, he is going to smoke half of it to make Jerk Pork. The other half will be made into Nuremberg bratwurst (seasoned with marjoram, mace, ginger, and caraway), Ungarische bratwurst (seasoned with sweet and smoked paprika, caraway, and red pepper flakes), and a Southwest sausage (seasoned with Aleppo pepper, coriander, cumin, ancho chili powder, and garlic). They will need to go back into the freezer, of course, but at least they will be in a far more useful form than in the behemoth butt form.

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      2. Husband grew up in Sheboygan, WI, and the reverence that Sheboyganites have for bratwurst and sausage is strange and amazing. Our daughter complains that she was fed so much bratwurst growing up she can’t eat any now.

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  8. Sherrilee, why are you surprised that tp is cheaper elsewhere than at the coop? I can’t think of anything that is cheaper at the coop.

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    1. When Daughter was tiny, Seventh Generation unbleached diapers were cheapest in bulk from a co-op. Cheaper than Amazon. And since she was in daycare, we needed to have disposables – so finding good ones less expensively was a mission. 😊

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    2. I am actually new to the Amazon party. So for years and years it just would never have occurred to me to look up toilet paper online. Part of it is because for years I figured why should I pay for shipping on some thing if I’m gonna be driving right by a store that has it. But these days with prime and everybody else vying for your online dollars, shipping isn’t as much of an issue anymore.

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        1. Of course if you live in the heart of the metropolis like I do, paying for shipping is a little harder to justify

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      2. We buy on-line from Nuts.com, Sogna Toscana, Penzeys, King Arthur, Upton Tea Imports, Sunnyland Farms, and Kool Beans, which is a coffee roaster in Brookings we like. Are we spoiled? You bet!

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        2. Nuts.com have good products and ship speedily. I prefer actual nuts from Sunnyland Farms, though. Nuts.com has everything else like licorice and beans.

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        3. I was actually looking at lemon baking chips. They’ve been out of stock at King Arthur forever and it looks like nuts.com are actually cheaper.

          Liked by 1 person

  9. Funny topic and comments…

    I like to buy all my grains and spices in bulk at the Co-op. I also buy eggs in bulk there when local chickens aren’t laying. Soon I should be able to find a local farmer and buy my eggs from them. I don’t buy tp at the Co-op because it’s so expensive there and there are similar biodegradable brands available. Unfortunately those are packaged in plastic wrapping which does not recycle. I buy Scott tissue, the kind that’s easy on septic systems. I’ve lived in homes in the country and I got used to that kind. I didn’t hoard it at the beginning but when I ran out and couldn’t get any, I wished fervently that I had hoarded it. I have a Target store literally in my backyard so I buy it there. I agree with the annoying nature of it, VS. It’s annoying to spend money on something that gets flushed away so quickly.

    I like to go to a local farm supply store to buy bird seed in bulk. It cuts down on heavy plastic packaging.

    The St. Peter Food Co-op carries these amazing chocolate Wilbur buds. I buy those in bulk every time I’m there. Yummm!

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    2. I added a board to the coop door to keep one of the dogs out and my egg count has tripled. I’d find the random shell in the yard so I knew she was eating an egg once in a while; I had no idea she was eating as many as she evidently was!! Dang!!
      This is the same dog that still won’t eat her food when I put it out and if I give her a milk bone, she’ll carry it off and bury it in a snow drift.
      She sure has her quirks.

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  10. It’s funny the things that bug us. I never thought about spending money on TP only to flush it down the toilet.

    I buy oil in bulk. Bolts and nuts and misc hardware. Gas and diesel fuel. I used to get 30 gallon barrels of hydraulic oil or engine oil and a year ago when I wanted to buy one, the dealer didn’t have barrels as everyone has gone to bulk. (It’s cheaper that way) I could buy 5 gallon jugs, but one tractor takes 8 gallons of engine oil and if you blow a hydraulic line it’s not unusual to replace 10 gallons of hydraulic oil so rather than be buried in 5 gallon buckets I got some used totes, had a stand built and got 60 gallons each. That will last me a year or two and then I’ll have the truck come to refill them.
    500 gallons diesel fuel will last about a year. And that’s nothing; I know a lot of farms with 1000 gallon tanks refilled a couple times / year. Big 4 WD tractors might hold 350 gallons! Yikes!! My big tractor holds 140 gallons of fuel. Heck, I only have to fill it 3 times / year! Clearly I’m not working hard enough…

    We have a good stock of paper towels and TP. And three sizes of zip lock bags. Not hoarding… but Target sells the 12 packs so that’s what we get. We use a lot of paper towels and I think about growing up with the dish rag hanging on the sink. And we never had zip lock growing up. All those left over bread sacks and regular saran wrap…

    I use the ‘Propel’ water flavoring packets. I buy those in 12 pack boxes from Amazon.

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    1. If we’re going to talk about the things we resent having to buy, I resent having to buy dirt. Over the years I’ve purchased many cubic yards of sand, gravel, garden soil and compost. It’s not something I envisioned as a kid ever having to spend money on.

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      2. Last fall was the first time I bought dirt in large enough quantities I had it delivered in a trailer. Two trailer-loads later (I lose track of how many cubic yards it was… a lot), I probably still need a bit more. Will see how much the dirt has settled after a winter under the snow.

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  11. We have a problem going to our Family Fare grocery store, since they have these wonderful sales on large cuts of meat. That is why we have three stand alone freezers in the basement. One is for pork and baked goods, one is for lamb, beef, poultry, and garden strawbwrries/raspberries, and the other is for soups, homemade stock, garden vegetables, and leftover portions of dishes we make from the meat in the other freezers. We call that last one the Lutheran freezer. It also doesn’t help that husband is a compulsive griller. We have decided, though, that until further notice, we will not buy any more meat. Husband promises he will really grill the remaining whole duck. If so, he will have to eat it since I don’t care for duck.

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  12. My daughter buys groceries for me, so she is finely attuned to my peculiar anxieties about essential supplies. She long ago figured out that I’m irrational about V8 veggie juice, bread and facial tissue. “Enough” of them is not enough for me psychologically. TP does not make that list. And, hey, if you’re out of TP but have enough tissues . . . .

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  13. I don’t like to buy in bulk – I have a small house and it easily feels crowded. No bulk beans, no bulk oil (heck, the vehicles I drive don’t even use it), no bulk TP. Anything bigger than a maybe a 6-pack of TP or two-pack of paper towels and I have no place to put it (don’t get me started on the “double-rolls” – I hate them and they don’t fit on my TP holder)… lately Target has had bamboo-based TP in 12 packs, which I can just manage because they aren’t the giant rolls. I get deliveries of meat from friends with a small farm and meat CSA – five pounds of meat lasts me a long time these days, but mostly I can find room for it. The dogs, I’m sure, would appreciate it if I bought cheese in bulk so they could get cheese several times a day – they would be very pudgy, and very happy.

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        1. Oh, there’s a lot of repairs besides the engine. Suspension comes to mind. Is there any cooling system? And surely those electric motors will need repairs. Where does the passenger compartment heat or AC come from? So just a different type of mechanic Steve. Like the blacksmith that learned to work on tractors.

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  14. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I buy TP in bulk also. Last year I was so glad we did because when we arrived back in MN from AZ, we had enough to get through the big shortage. Now I am “hoarding” plant knowledge. Without our usual family gatherings here, as well as other in person gatherings which are not happening (Fountain Hills Band, Polymer Clay Guild), I have plenty of time to go over my Master Gardener lectures, quizzes and activities. Our condo here is quite compact, so I don’t buy anything in bulk because there is not enough storage for that. I do buy large containers of drinking water here, though. That is as close as I come to it.

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  15. Our house is tiny, and I don’t buy much of anything in bulk. That said, we do have various dried beans and grains in jars, and a chest freezer in the basement mostly for holding whatever of The Harvest doesn’t get canned. This year was a bumper crop of our friend’s apple trees, so bottom of chest freezer is lined with gallons of cider…

    . We tried buying a quarter cow a few years ago, but it took way to long to use it up. Since we have to drive to Rochester for a Trader Joe’s, I have been known to get a case of Cabernet…

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    1. We bought 3 lambs from a butcher shop in Newell, SD a couple of years ago, but we shared that with our son and dil.

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  16. I don’t call it stockpiling but I am going to fill my freezer with bison meat. I give my local rancher $200 and she gives me a variety that lasts months. Ground bison makes great chili. No fat. Years ago, I would split a whole beef and a hog with another couple. Very economical.

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  17. I suppose the one thing I buy in unnecessary quantities is BOOKS. I just went for a short walk, and of course managed to mosey by a Little Free Library, picked out one and brought it home. I only have a stack of 10 waiting for me…

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  18. I use Amazon sparingly, because I don’t think they treat their employees very well. Lately, though, I’ve been ordering Gerber ham baby food in bulk from Amazon. This is for my geriatric cat, Sammy, who laps up a lot of it. It’s easy to add powdered supplements to. I have been ordering groceries for pickup in recent months, and it’s always really aggravating if I order the baby food and it turns out they’re out of it – you don’t usually find out till you’re on the way to pick up the order. So I started getting regular shipments from Amazon. I’ll probably keep that standing order going for the rest of Sammy’s life.

    I often buy wine by the case too – think “case discount” – and I think it would be really nice to have a large wine cellar.

    I buy coffee beans in bulk too. One must never run low on coffee.

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  19. I’m a kid so I don’t really buy anything but I know my mom and dad hate buying toilet paper for one because it’s expensive for our big family and two it’s always gone at stores.

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    1. Welcome to the trail. And congrats on 4th on the beam. What level are you? (My daughter competed and was a coach for many years as well.)

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  20. It is extremely fun to read this post. The pandemic has changed everything. Things like toilet paper are gaining value while others before the pandemic kept consumers’ interest, were losing their precious value. Yes, everyone has experienced such a thing but the reversal will soon take place. it is a bit of all that which is linked to the principle of universal change. So much for science that it is impossible to predict everything because mutations are the work.

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  21. Pingback: I’m Not Hoarding – I Swear – #Sm #Bdsm #Candaulisme

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