Covid-19 shelter in place orders sparked a lot of anxiety and panic buying. Grocery stores saw a mad rush on products ranging from hand sanitizer to toilet paper, and for weeks, it was nearly impossible to find some items.
Thankfully, the shelves at our grocery stores are nearly fully stocked again, and those desperate feelings have pretty much gone away.
David and I have lived in areas where natural disasters were common. Tornados in the Midwest. Hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. And earthquakes in Southern California. But when the shelter in place rumors began with the coronavirus, we didn’t know what to expect. This was our first pandemic – do we just buy enough food to get us through a couple of weeks, or do we prepare for an apocalypse?
I plan to learn from this experience, and to be better prepared for the next time life delivers this kind of uncertainty. So, I’m looking forward to getting together with friends and neighbors after the social distancing is over and asking a lot of questions! For example:
- What did you stock up on when you learned you were going to have to shelter in place?
- What did you buy that you actually ended up needing?
- What did you buy that ended up being unnecessary?
- What products do you wish you had bought but didn’t realize how important they might be?
What We Bought During The Covid-19 Shelter In Place Order
Here are some things we bought that we are glad we did and a few things we wished we had purchased…
1. Toilet paper – We purchased enough for a couple of months.
2. Trash bags – We bought an extra box of 13-gallon bags and one box of 33-gallon bags. This was important to me because I don’t like placing messy trash directly into my outside bins (why clean one more thing if I don’t have to?)
3. Ramen noodles – We bought a few packages and then a few more! Instead of throwing away small bits of random leftovers of chicken and veggies – we added them into a package of ramen and viola two more meals! Plus, they are very inexpensive at about .10 cents per package.
4. Canned Fruit – We were happy we had the individual fruit cups and a couple of cans of peaches when we ran out of fresh produce.
5. Ground Turkey – We bought large packages of ground turkey. We cooked it all at once – some got seasoned and frozen for taco night. Some were made into burgers.
6. Candy – I was happy we had a big bag of M&Ms!! The bag we bought in March still has some left! M&Ms are a good sweet treat for me. As long as I keep the bag in the pantry and only take a couple at a time 😀
7. Coffee – We bought a couple of months worth of ground coffee, and K-cups and Nespresso capsules. I also bought a couple of large dry creamers in case we ran out of milk.
8. Soup – I bought a few jars of my favorite soup stock – a filling meal that isn’t’ too heavy and can be used with leftovers or with the beans or lentils we bought.
9. Peanut Butter – If you buy the store brand, peanut butter can be an inexpensive and tasty source of protein. We found large containers for around $6 each and bought a couple.
10. Gasoline – I filled my car with gas. David drives a Tesla and he made sure he had a full charge at all times.
11. Hand Sanitizer – We had a couple of small bottles of hand sanitizer, and the stores were out, so we bought 70 percent rubbing alcohol and aloe vera gel so we could make our own and refill the two bottles we had.
12. Water – This was hard to come by especially early on. We bought several gallons of spring water and one 24 pack of spring water
Things I Wish I’d Bought – Prior to Shelter in Place
1. My favorite Mascara – I was thinking we were not going to see anyone and would not be wearing make-up but it turns out I was doing more Zoom meetings than ever, and often they required a more professional look, aka makeup required. Now that we can go out – we are opting to wear masks, the only thing showing is my eyes – often, I can skip makeup and just do Mascara.
2. Face Masks – I know I am supposed to have these in my emergency stash, and for months the last year, I had been thinking I needed to get some, but at the time, there was no hint of a pandemic or shelter in place orders, so it seemed like an unnecessary purchase. We found a great deal on masks at Boomer Naturals – if you need some, you’ll find them here.
What Did You Buy or Wish You’d Bought During Shelter in Place?
Hopefully, we won’t see another COVID-19 shelter in place order but until there is a vaccine, it’s a possibility. Sharing our experiences during the first (and hopefully last) round of coronavirus could be very helpful to this online community. So, if you could…