Rain Country
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When enough is really enough in living a prepped life
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When enough is really enough in living a prepped life
To keep or not to keep. I work in a school district and the maintenance guys change the TP rolls and the remainders end up in the trash eventually. So….I started bringing them home once they were headed for the trash. My main thought was “it’s free!” but also” hey, if we can’t get toilet paper” (it was never that bad here), you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
But I’m just staring at these bags and shaking my head. I NEED the space more than I need the TP. With food and preservation supplies, herbal medicines and dried herbs, and other household supplies and back-ups, there’s a lot to store in a small space.
The thicker storebought is for my husband so that stays, but I used to use cloth TP years ago and had made some recently and figure it’s time for the switch back. I can give away the free TP.
I am really working on getting back to a “this is enough” mentality. I want to be prepared, but that is being refined into ways to live vs. just thinking about “stuff” to live.
My question always boils down to: what if I can never get this again after it runs out? What else could I do? And then I try to incorporate that into my life now so if SHTF with a natural or political disaster, the shift won’t be quite so traumatic in our home.
It seems like people like Heidi and Doug and Stacy and a few others are really trying to help people do that specifically, offering up what they do to live that others can try.
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15 Replies
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O my, do I get this! It is hard to pass up free stuff that is necessary consumable items. Even though I use only cloth, Patrick will only do so if he really has to and so I keep stocked up on TP for both him and any guests we have. My big issue right now is jars and bottles. Because we have been blessed through the years by being gifted jars from family, neighbors, and even from an estate sale that was trying to just get rid of stuff, I have far more jars than I could ever use and am running out of space for storing both them AND food. I hate to get rid of any though just in case there are those that will need them down the road or maybe I need to start putting up even more food in them….but then storage is still an issue. We do still have some space in our off site location so I can manage but I really do not need to be saving any more recycled jars (green olive, artichoke hearts, honey) but I still do because I cannot stand the idea of tossing such great reusable items! UGH!
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Jars are something that can be used for many purposes. I also save jars that can be re-used. And when it comes to canning jars, sometimes one might break, either in the canning process or simply by dropping.
Now plastic? I’m trying to get rid of it if it hasn’t served me or will not serve me. This past week I put in the recycle bin 2 large boxes of items I no longer use. I did keep some in excellent condition, yet I still question if I should have.
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Oh, I hear you on the jars. I was JUST telling my husband before I read this that my nightmare is going to be the jars. We have canning jars, half gallon jars I use for dehydrated foods, recycled jars I use for tinctures and dried herbs and fridge storage, and plastic containers we use now and then. I have these HUGE plastic jars teachers will buy with animal crackers in them for the classrooms and then give them away and I use those for chicken feed extras – like greens I’ll dry and mix in with winter feed. All of these are in three different places and they need to come home to roost in one place – TODAY! 😄 This has been on my summer vacation to-do list and I’ve gotten so much done, I can’t avoid it anymore.
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With everything going on and we’re worried about TP!😖
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I don’t think she is worried about TP, but rather the need for space for the things that are important to her. She is trying to use her space wisely. Or at least that is my take on it.
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You are correct! Thank you.
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😘 You are welcome.
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I’m not worried about toilet paper. I am more worried about tripping over all the prep supplies I have and breaking one of my highly arthritic hips what with no insurance and a small town that has no hospital. 🤣
You can give me an angry face all you want, darlin’, but I can’t fix the government and voting won’t either. What I CAN do is learn how to live as simply as possible in a way that meets our needs and help others, mostly young mothers in this town, learn how to do that also and learn to keep chickens, use herbal medicines to take care of their kids rather than rely on doctor lies, learn how to lower bills they can’t pay by hanging laundry and turning off the TV.
I can’t fix the globe, but I can help make one town a little more capable of taking care of itself. I can’t be angry at these powerful lying liars running the world anymore. They are hell bent on killing us all and either they will or they won’t. But getting angry isn’t going to help. Actually I wish for them to be supremely happy. Because happy people don’t crap on other people. I hope they find faith and peace and love.
But I appreciate what you meant. I just think you might have misunderstood my intent.
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I have a shipping container, and i decided that it would be a great place to store dry wood. This I did then I realized that all of that wood was of less value to me than having storage space for cheap items I find at garage sales…
Yesterday I actually gave away a spare cast iron pan because it was my spare, But it occurred to me cast iron pans do not wear out, so, why do I have a spare? So off it went, and I now have extra storage space 🙂
I am 1/2 prepper wanting to store everything for a time of need ahead, and 1/2 minimalist wanting to keep nothing that is not useful and keeping space clear for doing work. Inside there is a constant tug of war for when an item comes, do I become a house hoarder, or do I not have it for a time of need and regret not saving it 😉
I have been working more and more on working on barter swapping my goods I have extra with those that want them, not those that will regret taking them from me because they did it because we are friends. It is so hard to know who to offer items up for barter to as you don’t want to impose on people “junk”, or perceived junk. It has been hard for me to stock up items that other people want because I don’t know what they need or want.
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Eventually, full circle happens if you’re not suffering from Hoarder Disorder.
It is not about collecting “Stuff.” I been saying this for years, but get the 🖕🏻… u …. You’re not one of us 🤣😂🤪
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😂 I just gave most of the TP to a local family. I kept a little for emergencies. And I’ve gone back to using cloth.
Could I have used it for barter in the future? Probably. But the day I have to barter toilet paper for my life is the day I leave this world. I’m old enough not to want to live in that nightmare.
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If you have large families and bonus families, who need your help to prepare for them, there will never be enough. I say if you have more than you will need for your whole life, then it is for whom ever comes after you. They will need it. My question is what do you make your TP alternative cloths out of? Would it be old towels or quilting scraps? Am I even close? Trying to remember what my grandmother used, thats been a few years ago.
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I don’t have a large family. It’s me and my husband. My two grown kids live in another state and no grandkids and probably won’t be any. I gave the extra TP to a local family. I have used cut up t-shirts (jersey) for cloth TP, but prefer flannel. That’s also what Heidi shows she uses in her video about it. Toweling has those little loops that I don’t want to have to clean out. What I would have loved to use would be old-fashioned birds-eye. I could see sewing little layered wipes that would last a lifetime because it’s what diapers were made out of and those cloth diapers were great. But now they make them from some really terrible thin birds-eye and even the birds-eye you can buy at the fabric store is garbage. So flannel it is!
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Redcap.
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I use 100% cotton flannel as well, but also use 100% cotton
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This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by
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