I'd rather store more important items in the space a thousand rolls of TP would take up. Nothing wrong with using a rag and rinsing it out. And I think you'd be "cleaner" after using a rag than TP. Toilet paper takes up a LOT of storage space. I could fill that space up with food, water, ammo, medicines, clothes, fuel, the list goes on and on..... I have about 60 rolls of stored TP and I'm not getting any more. I have a LOT of rags lol!
I think it is pretty simple. Prepping looks like this (mind you this place could use a clean):
Hording is mental illness at work and looks like this:
But on the other end of things, ... this is total OCD:
As for storing the TP, we store the Industrial size rolls that I get from the big box store. They take up very little space and the boxes stack nicely (you can see them in some of the pictures of our Doom Room). I did some calculations and each box contains approximately 41 rolls of Charmin Basic. We have five boxes and are about halfway to the ceiling. Once I reach the ceiling I'll stop and if we ever run out of that I have several packages of wash cloths specifically for this purpose.
LadyHK, you don't need to validate your preps to anybody living outside your household.
Really, you'd only need to validate them to those in your household who share the responsibility financially for the household, since preps takes money.
Only you can decide how much is enough. Really, I think we can all agree that there cannot be enough. We just each decide on what is a reasonable amount based on our expectations of needs and our expectations of being able to reestablish supplying those needs.
Those who don't prep will never understand it, no matter how you try to justify your preps. You can usually justify a week or so to the average person, but once you get past that, they just don't get it. Since they don't think like us, they never will. They will have to undergo a major reevaluation of their survival needs and see their lack or preparedness in order to change. Usually this requires a major event in their lives.
Doesn't mean you can't be friends, you just don't bring up or feed a conversation about preps.
I had to learn this the hard way. I don't talk with many of my friends about my preps, or what they should be doing. I tried. It only brought me grief. Many of my friends now do prep, at least some. With those I will talk about it.
My response is dicated by who I'm talking to, and what tone the discussion has. If its rude, I just straight people to "stfu and listen for the pop. "I don't judge your lifestyle, don't get judge me on mine." Or, I'll say "you may be right, and if I'm wrong, I'll simply have extra goods I can use over time and suffer no loss - but, if I'm right, having this stuff could literally be the difference between life and death." My 3rd major position is centered on Judeo-Christian principles and validated in scripture. As I said, it depends on who I'm talking to and how they approach me.Originally Posted by ladyhk13
ETA: I am also with everyone else though. There really aren't too many people we need to justify this with.
Last edited by mitunnelrat; 11-12-2011 at 01:29 PM.
Consilio et animis
Essayons!
Bingo.
If someone is generally just kinda rude I typically ignore them all together. They don't really get a vote in the matter anyway.
If someone is really rude I typically ask the person why they feel the need to have such an asinine house, three new cars and take 3 vacations a year. Why would they "need" such a large TV. Since they feel my items are useless and should be mocked I typically go for the jugular and mock theirs.
If the person isn't rude, but misguided, I might try the "would you have a fire extinguisher in the kitchen just in case" or "wouldn't it be nice to have some water on hand in case the power went out/city water was contaminated" sort of reasoning. You end up sounding like an idiot by arguing that having a fire extinguisher is somehow a bad idea/tinfoil/crazy/wacky, so most people will either (1) STFU and move on or (2) be quiet and maybe consider things.
If the person is genuinely interested I'll expand my discussion much further to include preparing for larger events because I think local governments will fold or even getting into the direction I think the country is going (if I really trust people).
Never, under any circumstances, do I get into Mad-Max/roving hordes of zombies as justification. 99.9% of people will look at you like an alien. Why on earth would you turn off someone who may possibly be open by using the worse-case extreme example? That's simply dumb.
Ease them into it by getting them to consider smaller scale events. Then when they are comfortable with that gently guide them to consider larger scale events. Let them figure out the zombie horde/catastrophic scenarios on their own. If they fall in line on the smaller stuff they'll get to the bigger situations.
If you think that come SHTF you are gonna jock up in all your kit and be a death-dealing one man army, you're an idiot - izzyscout
I was flabbergasted yesterday morning. The hubster actually said I wasn't a hoarder and that he knew the stuff I was collecting was good stuff that we can use. But he's scared I might turn into a hoarder. That won't happen. I get just a big of a kick getting rid of stuff as I do getting stuff. I love tossing out useless stuff. It makes me feel so free and unencumbered!
We actually have lost friends when we settled for the "duration" out at the farm. I had one friend who routinely thought it was "funny" to refer to me as the "crazy survivalist living on the commune" until one day, the jokes were just intolerable any more...and now he isn't invited over.
Being a business person and overly educated in my prefarm life, I have a great deal of former colleagues who think I have just plum lost my nugget. Its interesting though that they all keep in touch peripherally. And I hear from them from time to time, usually after there was a hurricane on the news or the like and even their mind must wander to..."what if".
By and large we can't hide who we are, this is after all not just our lifestyle but we run a commercial enterprise off the farm. We muse frequently we should start a cult since we already get called a commune...lol, we say we should call it "The Cult". LOL.
People are morons, post shtf that will not change, the world will still be 99% morons.
The floor in the first picture gave me hives, the second picture sent me into a panic attack and the third picture was just my sort of crazyI think it is pretty simple. Prepping looks like this (mind you this place could use a clean):
Hording is mental illness at work and looks like this:
But on the other end of things, ... this is total OCD:
since i can only type a little i will just say for now that my preps are more like the 3rd pic-although i do have a lot of home canned items as well. i don't have a basement so all of my foods are on industrial shelving and i try to keep all things organized. my material, sewing stuff and and all non food items are in tubs in closets or the attic. i think being somewhat organized also has something to do with being prior military as well (plus i have 20 years of accounting behind me)...i think all of you military households will agree.
will address other posts later, there are good responses.
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