Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Non-food storage list

I've been considering what non-food items I want to include in my storage. Here's my list. Any thoughts?

Kitchen Stuff
Salt
Dog Food
dish soap
aluminum foil
plastic wrap
ziplocks
garbage bags
paper plates
plastic utensils

Other
matches
laundry detergent
fabric softener
stain remover
fuel
contacts
contact solution
diapers
wipes

Bathroom Stuff
tooth paste
soap
shampoo
conditioner
toilet paper
birth control
pads/tampons
tooth brushes
deodorant
razors
lotion
hand soap
floss

First Aid
bandages
tape
gauze
antiseptic
tylenol/ibuprofen
anti-histamine
alkaseltzer/antacid
cold medicine
cough drops
cotton swabs
sun block
aloe
hand sanitizer

I plan on having all this stuff in our storage along with all the canned and dried foods that we normally eat. I intend to guess how much of that stuff we use in a year, buy some portion of that, and then keep track of how much we actually use for a number of months to refine my year's estimate. We'll keep with a print-out of the list on a clip-board with all the items in a column on the left and then columns for each month on the rest of the page. We'll put hash marks in the current month every time we take an item so I can estimate at first from one month's use, then two, and so on. It should give me a pretty good estimate.

I also plan on setting up my shelves so that you can access the front and the back to make FIFO easier. I've considered getting some of these shelves. They're pretty expensive, but look like they'd work really well--and I wouldn't need access to the back. We'll see how my initial plan works.

Finally, we're going to do better at storing water when we move. We've done pretty well at filling our empty juice containers with water, but we never rotate them. The plan is to have a number of shelves devoted to water. We'll rotate the water by always having a "fill" shelf and a pull shelf. The idea is that you pull from one shelf, drink that water, fill the container and replace it in the fill shelf. Once the pull shelf is empty, it becomes the fill shelf, and the next oldest shelf becomes the pull shelf. I think we'll be able to make this work. We'll see.

3 comments:

Mike said...

Oh...I should add napkins/paper towels

Andy Laura Nick and Noah said...

razors with out shaving cream wouldn't be much fun...
As for tracking how much you'd need, I would be very generous with the first aid stuff. In the event that you'd need all your storage, these might have a much higher demand. I'll often go months with out needing any anti-acids and then go through a bottle of tums the next month.

Mike said...

Good thoughts, Andy. Thanks.