2023, Business, Media

Stamping

91 Comments

Big warehouse stores don’t do it for me.  While I have a huge house, I’ve never found it convenient to buy massive quantities to keep the price a bit down.  (With the exception of toilet paper, of course.)

However there is one thing that I use a lot of: postage stamps.  Most months I send out 10-12 birthday cards and then there are the anniversary cards, get well cards, sympathy cards, thank you cards and then all the other things that I feel the need to note. At least one card a month goes overseas. 

So when I noticed a news story about postage going up (it increased yesterday), I thought maybe stamps was one thing I would load up on.  Apparently I’m not the only one to think this…. a couple of the stamps that I like were out of stock at my local post office.  So I chose some others and then came home and ordered a bunch more online.  I figure I won’t have to buy stamps until August!

What do you never like to run out of?

91 thoughts on “Stamping”

  1. I never like to run out of cheap white wine. I still buy it “by the bottle” (not by the case), but I’m always very aware of how close to the last bottle in the house I have come.

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    1. look at boxed wine
      years ago i was at wine tasting and a woman asked about boxed wine . the guy in charge smiled and said it recently changed identity (15 years ago) and while it used to be only reall crappy vintages like francia that recently black box started putting really good wine in the box for $25 the equivilant 4 bottles
      since then total wine made it $16 and many competitors came up
      bota box is good
      my wife goes for sippers because 5 liters instead of 3 for that price
      i used to but pinot grigio from trader joe’s at 3 64 a bottle . it was their best

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      1. Thanks for the guidance. My “typical tipple” is $2.89 per bottle Chardonnay from Aldi. (I’m not a wine snob.) Some years back, when I was drinking from boxes (probably the crappy stuff) I found that my consumption was more frequent and higher volume, not a good thing. Now a glass a day (4 or 5 from each bottle, keeping my weekly consumption in check) works well. Besides which, I get a bottle to drill a hole in and put on a rack in the yard. Can’t do THAT with a cardboard box.

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        1. Here in Minnesota you can’t get wine at Aldi‘s. No alcohol in grocery stores. That’s why some of us have turned to Trader Joe’s and three buck chuck. But what is the with the rack of wine bottles in the backyard?

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        2. It’s a decorative thing. I’ve made too many of them. If I could attach a picture, I would. To get colors other than dead-leaf-green, I purchased some cases of new blue bottles and got some red flower vases. 19 bottles wide, 4 bottles high, and really looks good when all around us there’s snow.

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        3. If you want to send me a picture and a paragraph or two about the how and the why, we could turn it into a post? My email is shelikins at hotmail.com.

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    1. Funny because a box of tennis balls (the big ones) just arrived yesterday… YA ordered them for Gwen. Obviously the six that she already has aren’t enough!

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  6. It’s tough to single anything out. I take it as sort of my job to keep track and make surecthat we don’t run out of any of the things we use regularly—not just foodstuffs but also household necessities like cleaning supplies, sidewalk salt, furnace filters, and when the occasion arises, postage stamps.

    Some things are out of my control, however. I never like to run out of good fresh tomatoes for example but this time of year the ones in the store are hardly worth considering.

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  7. We also try to keep a good supply of frozen turkey wings for brodo, an Italian broth made with the wings and beef bones. They are hard to come by out here. I also just bought 5 lbs of lard from this place in Pennsylvania that is supposed to have wonderful lard for pie crusts. Good pork fat is hard to come by here, too.

    On Saturday we defrosted the Lutheran freezer, the one we keep all the leftover soups, casseroles, brodo, vacuum sealed garden produce, and homemade enchilada sauces.we now have a much better idea what we actually have, and decided to focus for the next month or so just eating leftovers out of the freezer. Last night it was leftover leg of lamb for supper. We also decided we don’t need to grow quite as many peppers this summer, as we have enough enchilada sauce to float a boat.

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        5. The first five days after his book came out I was clicking on a lot of the stories and a lot of the opinions. I have a girlfriend in Nashville, who is really into this and we were texting all day long as well. But then I realized that it was sucking the air out of my universe. So the first day cold turkey was hard but now that it’s been another four days with no attention from me, I feel kind of cleansed.

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        8. Are used to like him better when he was younger. It was easier to dismiss some of his behavior back then these days it just makes me tired.

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  8. Absolute essentials: Red wine – for “everyday” I do buy Trader Joe’s own by the case, since we have to travel to get to a TJ.
    Favorite black teas – again, have to travel to either LaCrosse or Rochester for these, so I stock up.

    And then I try to not run out of: Bananas, half and half, some kind of lunchmeat and sliced cheese so Husband can make his own lunch occasionally, salad greens, good canned tomatoes (see Bill’s comment above).

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  9. Rise and Check Your Supplies,Baboons

    I won’t repeat all the foodstuffs others have mentioned. Mine are the same, with the exception of frozen Lutherans. TP and paper towels are a must. I have noticed in the last month, with the arrival of hospice services for my 94 yo mother and with my decision to retire in July, I am more pre-occupied with time — as in life span time. How many productive years do I have and what will I do with those years? The question stands. The answer is still out there somewhere. But I am finding I do not want to run out of time, and yet I will do so.

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  10. The things I’m most concerned not to run out of: canned cat food, coffee, rice, steel-cut oats, TP, kitty litter, and unread books. The last is why nearly every trip I take to Lunds includes a side trip to Half Price Books.

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      1. Never never never! I got EXTREMELY cranky about them in my library/bookstore employee days, when I’d get told at least twice a week by a twirly-eyed ebook cultist how books were obsolete and ebooks were going to lose me my job (which was always followed by a laugh, like I was supposed to be thrilled about the idea of unemployment). Then there was that fiasco where books were remotely deleted from people’s Kindles (wasn’t it copies of “1984”? Delightful irony…) which made me wary as well as irritated. So I read blogs and fanfiction online, and occasionally read a rare old volume on Gutenberg or Archive.org, but am an ebook refusenik otherwise.

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        2. I’m ecumenical. I have a distinct preference for physical books, and for that matter hardcovers over paperbacks, but I sometimes buy ebooks on BookBub when I see something appealing and I can get it for $1.99. Library ebooks, when available, are easy to access. I have a Kindle app on my iPad but also a hand-me-down Kindle reader. I actually prefer the reader for ebooks.
          Often when I happen upon an ebook I really like I’ll also get myself a hard copy.

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        3. I’ve only read two books as e-books. One was something recommended by Bill that I couldn’t find anywhere else about women in New York, sorry, I don’t remember better, Bill. The other was something that was not available at all in any other format …?had a picture of a church in a small town on the cover but again I don’t remember it either. Both of these were a while back. And I did not enjoy either experience. Having to swipe to get to the next page every minute made me insane. While I’m willing to do audiobooks and books on cd, the whole e- book thing leaves me absolutely cold.

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        4. I’ve read only a couple of books on husband’s Kindle, and it was fine, but I really enjoy the sensation of holding a book in my hands. Lately, though, I’ve been thinking that any book longer than, say, 400 pages might be preferable on a Kindle or some such device; the weight of a tome can seriously hamper my enjoyment of it. I also like the fact that I can increase the size of the print which sometimes presents a serious challenge to my eyes.

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        5. The one form I almost never use is audiobooks. I can’t imagine the setting where I would use them and the sorts of books I tend to choose wouldn’t be available as audiobooks anyway.

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  11. After the fiasco with the run on tp the other year, I now keep an extra month’s worth on hand. Smaller stuff like toothpaste, deodorant, etc, I try to keep about a years worth handy. 2 people don’t actually need that much, thankfully.
    Now food on the other hand, oh man. I’ve pretty much given up trying to hold onto more than 3 weeks worth of stuff. We are not planners when it comes to dinners, etc, so we eat what we feel like and that doesn’t combine well with trying to stock up on stuff, hahahahahaa 😀

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    1. When YA got back from her trip, one of the first thing she said, was, did you go to the grocery store. I said no because from my perspective, there’s plenty of food in the house. She was stupefied; from her perspective, if she looks into a cabinet or into the fridge and sees any blank space that’s not filled with something, then we’re running out of food. I still haven’t been to the grocery even though she’s been back for several days. She did go to Target last night and I do see a few more edibles in the fridge this morning.

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  13. I will admit that over the years as I get a bit annoyed, when I’m done with a phone call with a company and even though we’re completely done with what I called about they say, “is there anything else I can help you with today?” I respond with “well if you could help me get the money tree in the backyard going, that would be great.” It always elicits a laugh. So I guess so if I could stock pile money a little better, I probably would.

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  16. I don’t like to run out of any staples, including dog food. I put something on the shopping list if I’m running low. I do this even more since covid changed our lives. I include batteries, candles, toilet paper, paper towels, and staple food items in this list. If I’m making something that has special ingredients, I just buy enough for one use, if possible. Dog food is really important to Pippin. I must not run out of that!

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  18. OT but wonderful-The electrician is here installing the light fixtures. Once he is done, the whole remodel is done! I asked him how to replace the light bulb in the light in the shower, and he said it is an LED light that will last for 20 years.

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  19. Onions and garlic are near the top of my list, followed closely by an assortment of fresh vegetables. Aldi doesn’t carry parsley for some reason, so I make it a point to pick up a bunch whenever I’m near a fresh bunch. Without these, I find it damn near impossible to cook dinner. I consider myself fortunate to live in an area where it’s relatively easy to have access to all of these. Even in the dead of winter, the local Mississippi Market carries an impressive array of fresh produce. Nothing, of course, beats a fresh home grown tomato, but I find that the fresh Campari tomatoes that Costco carries are acceptable during the winter months. Aldi sometimes carries them too, though slightly smaller specimens, but perfectly good in a salad.

    I’ve told you about my knee woes, and my cortisone shot on Friday. I’m afraid it’s not working. This has been a pretty miserable weekend. I was told it could take up to a week or ten days before it has completely kicked in, but I’m afraid I’m having some rather unpleasant side effects. I’ll give it another couple of days, but I’m not overly optimistic. So, like Jacque, I’m particularly mindful at the moment of just how fragile my connection to everything is. The sudden death of David Crosby didn’t help either. Though he had a couple of years on me, and a hell of lot more medical issues than I have, still a stark reminder that our time here is finite.

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      1. Possibly. Next would be an MRI to determine what’s going on, but the fact that there may be a stress fracture is a bit of a complication. I have osteoporosis, so I don’t know to what extent that’ll impact what can be done, but I sure hope there’s some relief to be found. I’m pretty miserable at the moment.

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        2. Shoot. Sorry to hear that. My cortisone shots worked within a day or two, but only lasted a month too. Next there’s the ‘rooster comb’ shot you can try. Mine wasn’t helpful.

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        3. Thanks, Ben and BiR. I had a cortisone shot in my right knee about three months before my knee replacement surgery back in 2004. It worked almost instantaneously, though not for as long as we had hoped, and I had none of the side effects I’m experiencing at the moment. I’m not sure what’s going on within the knee, hopefully an MRI will give us more conclusive answers to what is the best way to deal with whatever it is.

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    2. My last cortisone shot in my hand/finger did take about a week. But I didn’t have any bad side effects either. So sorry.

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    3. I had a cortisone shot in a knee around a year ago. I was unsure how helpful it was – at first it didn’t seem helpful, then for a couple of weeks I thought the swelling had gone down, then it seemed the improvement was only temporary. I was thinking, probably won’t do that again. Over time, though, the swelling did resolve, though I can’t say whether it was due to the cortisone or not.

      My knees still sound really terrible though. Like I have coffee grinders embedded in my knees.

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  22. I try not to run out of canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, tomato paste. They are necessary for so many dishes.

    I always have to have butter. Not having butter is an absolute disaster.

    Coffee, milk, red wine.

    Some kind of chocolate.

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