COVID19: What are you stocking up on?

[missy]

I have never used it by itself for other stores. I went through Costco same day delivery. You have to pay for Instacart if you use it through their website right? I don't know enough about the service other than through Costco and I didn't order much.

They're connected so when you are on Costco.com and choose same day delivery it becomes Instacart. I like how you can give them detailed instructions about each item such as please choose the hard avocados, the greenest bananas and you can tell them what you want substituted if anything if they are out of stock of an item etc. They are very pleasant and the few times I used them I was pleased. But there is nothing like being able to choose your own produce so as soon as we were able to go back to shopping in person we did. And now with the mad crowds I don't think I would want to send an instacart person into Costco...you just don't know what/how much will be out of stock making it a not worthwhile trip.

If you really enjoy being an Instacart member you can purchase a yearly membership making it worthwhile.

 

[missy]

Don't forget coffee! I won't be able to survive 2 weeks with toddlers without coffee!

Amen!

 

[missy]

impossible to fnd a parking spot at my usual market - gave up and will try to get there by 6:15am tomorrow morning - my sister said it was insane at her grocery market this afternoon

It was like that here too today. It was super crazy. I went for a walk and was curious so on the way back I stopped at the local market and I have never seen it so busy. I turned right around and left. Not worth it.

 

[msop04]

I posted this in the other thread but just as a public service announcement, if you have medications that are essential but insurance refuses to give you more than a month supply, you can ask your doctor for an extra prescription and pay for it out of pocket, check goodrx.com for coupon and where you might get it cheapest. Also some meds can be safely cut in half, and you can talk to your doc about possible prescribing a higher dosage (which is often not much more expensive) that you can cut in half to make it more affordable out of pocket.

If it's something super expensive and branded, I'd chat with your doctor about potential possible back up med options in case of supply chain/staffing disruption. Meds that are very expensive and niche are sometimes more vulnerable to this, I've in the past had families driving state to state to get their meds when there have been shortages.

Again, I"m optimistic our country's health care resources will be able to keep up as long as everyone practices good common sense with hygiene and social distancing to slow transmission. But i'm also a "hope for the best, plan for the worst" kind of person. And getting an extra month supply of meds you absolutely need to stay healthy I think is a reasonable precaution for both you and to help reserve hospital resources by keeping yourself out of needing to be in front of a doctor.

To add this to this FYI...

Most insurance companies are allowing early fills with the proper PA codes... your pharmacist will help you.

 

[lyra]

My daughter is doing all the shopping to minimize contact, instead of my husband or I having to go out. All the stores in town have been raided. All the usual things are out, plus no rice, canned soups and some fruits. Ugh. People are lining up for over an hour to cash out at grocery stores. Crazy. I think we're good on every form of chicken and noodle soup though.

 

[arkieb1]

I went and bought the special diet cat biscuits from the vets one of my cats has to have otherwise he vomits, so I literally bought no extra toilet paper but spent over $100+ buying food for a cat with a sensitive stomach, in case we cannot go out to get his food. Ahhh what we do for our animals.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

on a less serious side ive been thinking about all you good peeps out there in internet land
what are your preparedness for boredom ?
My other half has had non contagouse health problems since well into last year.
its effected his eyes (they will get better) and i don't drive so we go out only when he can see safely (otherwise we stay home or if its a doctor's appointment we took taxis)
and usually only when absoltluly necessary
on the plus side we havn't had a cold all year all through last winter and lucky no flu because we both missed out to the flu jab due to a shortage of vacine

anyway anyway im getting to my point
we have probably never got on so well despite only having each other and the cats for company
i mean we're no coped up in a tiny flat in a high rise -although he has light sensitivity and doesn't go outside
much
i potter around in the garden
start to paint the toilet room
my baking has improved no end

but if there are people out there that get bored at home get prepaired for cabin fevour
i love the odd day we get in the car and drive around, get some lunch, go out to the river mouth but they are few and far between - im talking weeks without leaving our property

as kids my parents and my sister and i did lots of things at home together
i would get one trip to the movies or go roller skating in the school holidays - the rest of the time we had to occupy ourselves at home. remembering this was years before PCs and the internet etc


hopefully if you do have to self isolate you won't be too sick so just think of all that nervous energy being stuck at home in your house
with reports of a lot of fortunate people having very few symptoms it would be nice to make the most of all this enforced family time to spend together

if you have a few DIY ideas in the works check your garage/workshop and make sure you have all the supplies you need now
also for any arts and crafts the kids might like to do
maybe make a list of suggestions of things to do around home
if your a sewer or a knitter, quilter etc look out a few projects and make sure you arnt short of any critical materials
have a book or two up your sleeve to read

do you have all the things you need for baking that you now may have all that time to finally do some ?

anyway just a thought from someone who has spent a lot of time in the last long wee while not going out

 

[Dee*Jay]

I am spending the evening downloading ebooks from the public library site. I do this periodically, but tonight I am On A Mission.

There's also some closet cleaning in my future. (Maybe. )

 

[Karl_K]

Crazy started here this morning, stores were mobbed and the shelves stripped.

 

[Dee*Jay]

Crazy started here this morning, stores were mobbed and the shelves stripped.

Stormy, I went to the Meijer on Perryville around 1 pm today and it didn't seem to much busier than normal. There are of course some things sold out (hand sanitizer, certain canned and frozen food) but in general it seemed much more normal than downtown Chicago, which is where my condo is.

Where were you shopping?

 

[Karl_K]

Where were you shopping?

I haven't been, just talking to people.
Walmart and woodmans and dollar stores were crazy today much more than normal from what people are saying.
I have been watching walmart's tp stock online for the local stores and they were fully stocked yesterday but are showing little tonight and hand sanitizer is out also.

 

[Gussie]

We are staying at our cabin in remote NW Arkansas until school resumes. My parents came up for a visit this week and my dad took the kids to the grocery store (before absolute mayhem ensued). They convinced him that we needed $40 worth of Little Debbie snacks to last through armageddon.

I have pounds of coffee in reserve!

 

[mtsapphirelovingannie]

I bought canned goods, TP, and extra coffee about three weeks ago at Costco. I was worried the panic was coming.

I have plenty of coffee, whiskey, and vodka to get me through.

Today, I started to worry about the supply chain so I bought an extra bag of cat food and cat litter.

I also filled the truck up with gas – I needed to do this anyhow because it is forecast to be about one degree Fahrenheit tomorrow.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

from an environmental angle, with all the santarizer in plastic bottles sold out it might force the masses to go back to bar soap - that comes wrapped in paper

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

They're connected so when you are on Costco.com and choose same day delivery it becomes Instacart. I like how you can give them detailed instructions about each item such as please choose the hard avocados, the greenest bananas and you can tell them what you want substituted if anything if they are out of stock of an item etc. They are very pleasant and the few times I used them I was pleased. But there is nothing like being able to choose your own produce so as soon as we were able to go back to shopping in person we did. And now with the mad crowds I don't think I would want to send an instacart person into Costco...you just don't know what/how much will be out of stock making it a not worthwhile trip.

If you really enjoy being an Instacart member you can purchase a yearly membership making it worthwhile.

i just read this

Can I shop for groceries safely during the coronavirus pandemic?

Afraid of how many people touched that apple? Don’t be.

thehill.com

it seems its not nearly as unsafe to be out grocery shopping as i thought

 

[Queenie60]

To make your own wipes. 1 cup alcohol, 2 cups warm water, 1 TBS dish soap. Mix and pour over one roll of paper towels, cut in half. Store in a zip lock bag. I put both halves of paper towels in a tupperware type of container and gave it a good shake. All stores in my area have been out of wipes and hand sanitizer for a few weeks. I purchased small travel spray bottles from beauty supply, filled with alcohol and added a few drops of vitamin E oil to keep hands from drying out. Also, I wear rubber gloves while out and about, dispose of them before getting into my car. We always have a stock of TP, napkins, paper towels and tissues. Today I went to the local market and stocked up on meats and put them in the freezer. Store clerk said that they are running out of meats. Purchased enough of produce for one week and bought chicken breast that I can bake in foil and slice for sandwich meat. Doing the best we can without hourding.

 

[missy]

i just read this

Can I shop for groceries safely during the coronavirus pandemic?

Afraid of how many people touched that apple? Don’t be.

thehill.com

it seems its not nearly as unsafe to be out grocery shopping as i thought

I agree. Not worried about the food (I wash all my fruit anyway) but concerned about being in such close proximity to so many people. No 6 feet apart in NYC or LA anyway.

 

[missy]

Today, I started to worry about the supply chain so I bought an extra bag of cat food and cat litter.

Definitely. Gotta keep the kitties well fed. Or they might start looking at us and thinking hmm...

 

[missy]

We are staying at our cabin in remote NW Arkansas until school resumes. My parents came up for a visit this week and my dad took the kids to the grocery store (before absolute mayhem ensued). They convinced him that we needed $40 worth of Little Debbie snacks to last through armageddon.

I have pounds of coffee in reserve!

I just ordered more coffee. One cannot have too much coffee.

 

[missy]

To make your own wipes. 1 cup alcohol, 2 cups warm water, 1 TBS dish soap. Mix and pour over one roll of paper towels, cut in half. Store in a zip lock bag. I put both halves of paper towels in a tupperware type of container and gave it a good shake. All stores in my area have been out of wipes and hand sanitizer for a few weeks. I purchased small travel spray bottles from beauty supply, filled with alcohol and added a few drops of vitamin E oil to keep hands from drying out. Also, I wear rubber gloves while out and about, dispose of them before getting into my car. We always have a stock of TP, napkins, paper towels and tissues. Today I went to the local market and stocked up on meats and put them in the freezer. Store clerk said that they are running out of meats. Purchased enough of produce for one week and bought chicken breast that I can bake in foil and slice for sandwich meat. Doing the best we can without hourding.

Thanks @Queenie60 -helpful info.

You all probably know this already but you can make your own hand sanitizer if you are out and about and cannot get to soap and running water with Proportions 60% alcohol (alcohol should be at least 60% or higher in concentration and luckily I have 90% alcohol on hand for cleaning my ring-see bling is good for our health!) and 40% aloe/moisturizer. The stores here have been out of Purell for weeks so our handmade sanitizer is coming in handy.

 

[missy]

I went and bought the special diet cat biscuits from the vets one of my cats has to have otherwise he vomits, so I literally bought no extra toilet paper but spent over $100+ buying food for a cat with a sensitive stomach, in case we cannot go out to get his food. Ahhh what we do for our animals.

Yes, us too. We also stocked up on our Tommy's hyperthyroid meds so we have enough for 3 months...I hope that is enough.

Tommy's oblivious to the pandemic and he's like oh I love all the extra boxes.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

Gary said we need more soap
i looked in the bsthroom cupboard and we have 4 cakes left
a cake of soap seems to lasts much longer than liquid soap
im thinking do we really ??
not including the emergency 4 pack we have 3 toilet rolls left and most of one on the holder to last till Tuesday grocery shopping - its sunday here already
i think we doing ok

 

[chemgirl]

There is talk of closing our liquor stores because alcohol is government run.

Will be making my own so I stocked up on grain. Maybe I can use it to barter for things...

(Only sort of joking)

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

@chemgirl if you have a still, you'll be famous! (or infamous....)

cheers--Sharon

 

[MaisOuiMadame]

I will have to homeschool 5 of 6 kids...

 

[GliderPoss]

I finally did a “big” grocery shop yesterday. I generally run a skeleton cupboard just for 1 person but my job advised us it’s quite possible we’ll all be WFH for a while so stock up now to be able to comply with quarantine rules. I also noticed many goods not available in supermarkets already!

I got my scripts filled & had to go to two supermarkets to get what I needed. Mostly just a few extra tins, some pasta, coffee, toiletries, long life milk & meat for the freezer. I’ve made some batches of veggie soup, casseroles etc and put servings in the freezer. Think I could last about a month if necessary.

 

[MamaBee]

I am not in a panic by any means, but considering the stores may not be restocked as often, or they may be understaffed and open less, and crazy panicked people buy up essential items, I do have a nice supply of things in my pantry and freezer that I imagine would last a month or more if necessary. I am over 60 so I do not particularly want to be making frequent trips to the store seeing that people have the virus before they have symptoms.

I have chicken and ground beef in the freezer and items to make soups with them which will make more than one meal. I have sealed deli meats with exp dates in mid April and whole wheat tortillas that will last much longer than bread. I have other canned (and frozen) foods such as soups, vegetables, and fruit. Pasta and sauces, cheese, canned evaporated milk, coffee. I didn't buy a lot since I keep my pantry fairly well stocked anyway. The main thing was that I buy fresh meat normally, so I had to buy extra to freeze some.

I am trying to be sure I have things like soap, shampoo, toothpaste, kleenex, TP, paper towels, etc. for at least a month.

I have plenty of Vit C, D3, elderberry, cough medicine, sore throat lozenges, ibuprophen.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. I'll be interested to read other lists to see things I might be missing!

We have the same list..minus the elderberry..

 

[MissCygne]

There is talk of closing our liquor stores because alcohol is government run.

Will be making my own so I stocked up on grain. Maybe I can use it to barter for things...

(Only sort of joking)

My son is purchasing things that he says that he will be able to barter, should things get bad in our area.

 

[chemgirl]

My son is purchasing things that he says that he will be able to barter, should things get bad in our area.

Hopefully it doesn’t come to that. So far stores are empty because everyone decided to panic buy on the same day.

In theory the supply chain won’t be disrupted.

 

[chemgirl]

I feel ridiculous, but I ordered a new thermometer (my old one had a dead battery) and a pulse oximeter (surprisingly not out of stock anywhere).

I want data if I’m taking care of my parents.