A quick follow up to farmgals post two posts below.
It is indeed costing a ton more money then I anticipated. Admittedly there are luxuries in types of food but still, a ton of money. Then there’s the laundry detergents, cleaning chemicals, medicines, balms, ointments....fix yourself quality medical supplies, extra batteries, radios, TP 😳 , spare parts for the various vehicles...
while I thought I was in good shape before, I now realize that I wasn’t where I should have been and I said to my wife, thank God we did what we did over the decades or the bill and labour / effort and
mental drain involved would really be high.
If I look at my situation, there are things I could have done for less but convienance and perhaps better security, made me turn a part of my forest near the house into my garden versus down in my valley where there is decent organic soil and no trees but is further away and watering would have been more of a pain. I wasted/ spent more money on that but it is closer to the house.
I echo FG’s sentiments about those who haven’t the means or are getting hit with lousy weather etc. then there may be those whose health has taken a nose dive and that’s messing up efforts.
So getting back to the topic at hand, besides what it has taught us, what are all the funny items that we have found we didn’t have but realize we do indeed need or want.?
I think for me, it was medicine,the limits of one month refills and impact of expiration dates if and when I did buy a few months supply at a time ( nice to get six months supply, but expiration was all the same!)
By people listing their “I forgot this key item” here, it may help others catch a gap in their plan and as we see some supplies dwindling, catch it and correct before the well runs dry.
Example; While peppercorns solar setup may be fantastic, most people are probably not able to get a similar setup in place in a short period of time or maybe even never, however, when he mentions a particular battery that was hard to obtain, it may be enough to tickle a person into saying they should get a really good one so they can be assured of running a medical device or charging of radios, a freezer... things that we see as important for one situation may trigger something else and save the day.
We're now a year / year and a half into this Pandemic and there is a signs that its winding down.
When this all started I was caught woefully unprepared for an airborne pathogen/Viral Pandemic, and was scrambling to play catch up. Now a year and half later as things start to wind down, I still don't think I'm really prepared for a real serious airborne pathogen, but I've managed to come through this Pandemic unscathed despite being on the front lines from the very beginning.
Earlier this evening I was digging for a disposable industrial mask for a little home project and was surprised to see that despite my starting this whole Pandemic behind on preps, I still have several hundred disposable Industrial Masks and a couple hundred Disposable Medical Masks not to mention a few mid-level quality reusable masks. After a year and a half into this Pandemic I was surprised to see I still had that kind of inventory.
Hopefully they can be tucked away after and never be needed again, but should the Variants take over or some other Pandemic hit us, its nice to know I'll at least be slightly prepared for the next one.
