I Am My Mother's Child

I'm a hoarder. Nothing in my life has caused me to live a fear-based hoarding life, but I hoard. So does my mother. I learned it from her. We talk on a regular basis about how we re-arrange the canned goods in the pantry because you can't find anything.


I shared with my Mom this week how I panicked after a news story on hoarders --- real hoarders with basements and storerooms full of food in the case of an economic meltdown. The reporter came back to tell viewers that while the people featured were extreme all families should have at least THREE....and I start to panic. Three weeks of food? I don't know if I have three weeks of powdered milk. I know we could live for three weeks, but would I have all the food groups covered?.....DAYS worth of food, water, and medications. I sighed. I have enough food and water in the back of my car for three days. Because I hoard.

After the news story, I took stock of my cabinets, fridge, freezer, and medicine cabinet. Honestly, outside of clean unbottled water (we could always bucket the pool for flushing) I think we have enough supplies to go three months. Maybe more. Sure, we would eat dry cereal and beans without bacon (oh, wait, I have a jar of bacon fat in the fridge for flavor), but we could survive - and pretty easily.

Even Claire would be in diapers. Take a look at her closet:
That is 8 (yes, eight) boxes of diapers in her current and future size, plus 5 plastic "jumbo" packs. There are even two small boxes of swim diapers if we got really desperate or the emergency was of an arc nature. The plastic tub on bottom is her entire spring/summer 2010 wardrobe bought off the dollar rack at Walmart when it clearanced out in the past weeks.

The primary reason I stock pile is I buy a LOT when I get things cheap. My mom has approximately 12 jugs of Gain detergent in her garage. We call it the "Gain Army" because they look like little soldiers lined up. She got it when it was on sale and had coupons. My diaper closet was stocked by a walmart sale, plus grandma discount, plus coupons. Those boxes were around $10 each. Seriously? I have 6 boxes of Electrosol (now Finish) dish tabs because they were free after coupons. How can you not store them when they are free? I have 5 boxes of Kashi cereal because I got them for $0.33 a box. They don't expire until Aug. 2010, so if there is an Apocalypse, we will have organic breakfast cereal as the world crashes in around us.

Neurotic? Yes. Practical? Mostly. Cost efficient? Definitely.