UPDATE: I have to apologize to everyone who left comments the past week while I was doing the pantry. I never checked them and when I looked a while ago I was surprised at how many there were. I just wanted to let you know that I have responded to them all.
Have you thought about how you are going to spend your stimulus? I am sure there are as many answers as I have readers.
I realize that some people who have been laid off from work will use it to try to survive. I pray for you and your families every day.
I have seen people say they are going to save it.
Since it is meant to stimulate the economy, we are going to spend it. I will tell you how we are going to spend it and you can tell me what you are going to do with it.
Hubby and I were pretty prepared for this pandemic. For that I have to thank a Mormon online friend and a couple of friends from Arizona. I always kept a small pantry but nothing like I do now until I learned how the Mormons did it and why they did it. It made a lot of sense to me.
So in Arizona, I started keeping a moderate sized stockpile. I did not have a freezer when we lived there because the only place we had to put it was in the garage and with temps from 100 to 125 from March until October, it would have cost a fortune in electricity to run it. So I only had the freezer in my refrigerator. When we lived for 34 years in Eastern New York, we had a large freezer in our basement and that saved our family of 4 a lot of money on meat, veggies, fruit, French fry’s, and ice cream because I always bought these things on rock bottom prices.
When we moved back to New York, we purchased a 7 cu ft. freezer figuring it was big enough for the two of us which most of the time, it is. However when it dies, I will buy a larger one. Hubby helped with getting shelving for the pantry.
Getting back to being prepared, we were. When everyone was looking for toilet paper, we had it. We had masks, disposable gloves, and some sanitizer but not much. I had lots of Lysol and Clorox wipes but no Lysol Sprays. All of these things were purchased many years before the pandemic. I am an asthmatic so I have always kept a few masks. I am severely allergic to dust which is another reason we keep them. I always kept a little Purell near the sinks in our home and a small one in the car. But I only do this in the winter. So when it looked like we were going to get many cases of this virus, I was able to snag 4 bottles of sanitizer at Walmart. I shared one with a son and his family. The other son said he needed none.
We had plenty of food and an almost full freezer when this virus hit because of my stockpiling. We have eaten a lot of it since.
So we will spend it to replenish our freezer and stockpile. I have learned through this pandemic where my holes are in the pantry so I have a handle on what I should be stockpiling. That way we will be prepared again if the virus comes back next Fall or Winter or if there is some other emergency.
Being in the high risk category, we will wait until it looks safer to even think about restocking. Right now, as you all know, it is difficult to get a pickup or delivery order. At least it is here. A lot of things are out of stock. So we will do the best we can when we can actually safely shop again.
I finally finished moving everything back into the pantry yesterday as you can see in the photo above.
It was huge job which took me a week. But now I am inventoried. That will help me a lot when it comes time to restock.
So I am curious, how will you be spending your stimulus? Feel free to leave a comment and share with all of us.