My thoughts the other day about the reasons I buy with ’just in case’ being one of them brought back memories of my mother and her habits and realisation that maybe there’s a case of Like mother – Like daughter in my house.
My mother was a funny one – at times so tight with her money and yet so free at others. She had a thing about buying things ‘just in case’ – according to her she didn’t stockpile (a dirty word during and just after the war)…….. she would have things on hand – ‘just in case’.
Not quite as bad or in the same vein as my Irish granny (her mother in law) who I’m sure had saved enough string to go round the world (just in case anyone needed it ) as well as oodles of other ‘useful’ bits and pieces that really weren’t needed at all but she had lived through two world wars and a depression so I suppose could be forgiven (except by my aunties when it came to clearing the house out after she died!)
We all try to be a little thrifty at times so when things come on special I’ll pick up extra bits that I know we will use – not actually stockpiling, because to do that properly you have to check dates and rotate oldest to the front and all that, and that’s almost like work – these extra bits are for ‘just in case’.
Do you remember when the only way you got toilet rolls was singly or in double packs? Then came fours and ….now as we all know, anything is possible.
On occasion I may have picked up a couple of extra packs of the really soft brand we use and left them in the garage – because they come in 20s (or even more) these days, the packs are so large they need to be stored out there in an old cupboard.
Do you also remember what I was saying the other day about having too much stuff…..
well I popped out there to bring another pack into the house and….
well, it would seem that (once the initial panic buying slowed down and it became a staple item on the supermarket shelves again) I’ve picked up quite a few extra packs of loo paper during this pandemic time – how long do you think it will take us to use 180 rolls of toilet paper??
Buying in bulk – ‘just in case’ – good idea or not?
A little bit of trivia….this is printed on the inside of the cardboard roll….
Quilton loves your bum 😊
Still Waters 
I hear you. Sadly I am a ‘just in case’ buyer too. As the groaning cupboards will attest.
I have often been tickled by Quilton’s logo (though it occurs to me that tickled is probably not the most appropriate word to use.
As an aside, thank you for your comment on my last dark post. I really appreciated it.
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I hate the large packaging that seems to have become the norm for every product I buy. Some of the bottles are so heavy that it makes my hands hurt to use them. And those multi packs of paper towels, toilet paper, and even kleenix boxes makes me crazy. I don’t shop at Costco for this very reason. We live in a very small house so not a lot of extra storage space for these big packages.
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I associate the term stockpiling with wholesale and retail and other establishments that mean to sell or distribute the product at a later date, perhaps at inflated prices.
I don’t think of households who buy “just in case” as stockpiling, as they are not hoarding goods to sell or distribute at a later date, they are taking care of their own needs.
The Mormons encourage every family to keep a year’s supply of food and water in their homes, to weather natural, and unnatural, disasters. This makes perfect sense to me, and it means that items are garnered from retail when there are no shortages and there is plenty for everyone. This leaves items on the retail shelves when there is a disaster and a shortage – so that others who have not thought ahead will have more access.
I live in Canada where the winters are harsh and long, and food does not grow here most of the year. I grew up on a farm, and preserving our harvest and putting in supplies for the winter was common practise and only made sense, since by spring local foods would be getting very scarce. Even the Aboriginal people historically preserved food for scarcer times in Canada – e.g. Pemmican.
Of course there are those who wait until a disaster hits, then they stock up from the stores, emptying the shelves. Those who shop “just in case” don’t usually approach it that way.
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I have a bit of difficulty storing household needs items in my small house – I just don’t like having things in odd places as then I forget I have them. I do however have a “LOT” of art supplies, sometimes like paint brushes they come in packs and some haven’t been used but I could if need be…I recently bought a box of 42 individually coloured sewing threads to top up my meagre supply – and I don’t think I truly have many double-ups so that all good…
Of course a month or so back, I made a major mistake with my food shopping and ended up with about a months supply because I wasn’t paying attention to the online ordering system…and that was a major storing food – especially in my semi compact freezer!
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So it is your place where all the toilet paper disappeared to. I din’t know about the Quilton toilet rolls. That’s funny.
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You all needed to know my mother’s take on “Just in case.” She bought it before the hoarders could get it.
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We buy in bulk when we susoect that something we like or need will disappear…..one of our favourite supermarkets have promotions which never reappear so if we like it we stick up.
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Ahhhh you see, it’s the old saying about the paperwork expanding to fill the briefcase space available. If you didn’t have a garage (or a garage cupboard) the ‘just in case’ toilet paper would be sitting under the bathroom hand basin and confronting you every day….. All you need to do to reduce ‘stuff’ is downsize the storage space available; the rest is then easy.
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My mother got so tired of our house running out of toilet paper that she bought a carton of horrible stuff from an industrial supply place. I could never believe how scratchy it was and it was certainly never overused.
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Before the pandemic was even a thing we traded in our two caravans to buy one really good one
Both vans had brand new packs of 36 toilet rolls.
A few weeks after we emptied and delivered those vans the great toilet paper buy up began
I was set as I had not only the packets from the vans but I always kept a big packet in reserve
Since then I’ve again gone back to having the extra packets and I’ve stocked up the caravan as well.
I think we are set when it comes to dunny rolls lol
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