Yesterday I wrote about 30 items to purge in the New Year for a clutter-free homestead, and one of the purposes for purging is to make room for hoarded items that you do need! So here is a list of important non-food items to hoard in the New Year.
Keeping with the trend of that article, it’s important to make sure you have a clean and orderly way to store these items. Keep them dry, organized in categories, and regularly go through your stash to make sure everything is in working order, not expired, and will still be useful to you. It’s OK to hoard and then go through your stash a year later and throw out what you might not need anymore. Just keep on top of a functional, accessible hoard stash for emergencies, because you never know when you might need these items!
- Aspirin & ibuprofen
- Lamp oil, candle wicks and batteries
- Borax
- Bleach
- Garbage bags
- Hand sanitizer
- Hydrogen peroxide
- Rubbing alcohol
- Lip balm, lotions, balms
- Matches
- Buckets
- Cotton swabs
- Firewood and tinder
- Can openers
- Lighters
- Baking soda
- Duct tape
- Pens and pencils
- Vaseline
- Toothbrushes, toothpaste, and dental floss
- Dish soap
- Tissues
- Toilet paper
- Paper towels
- Rags
- Electrolyte powder or drinks
- Ziplock bags
- Paracord
- Propane and propane tanks
- Shampoo and deodorant
Some good suggestions for organized storage of items like this is cheap plastic bins from Costco or Walmart (these are also great to stock up on!) and also buckets. Make sure to label what you need, separate small items into smaller bins or Ziplock bins. Keep them somewhere that’s easy to access; keep in mind you will be needing this stuff in an emergency so you won’t want to be digging through cluttered crawl spaces trying to find batteries for your flashlights or aspirin for an injured person, for example. The bins are great because they’re easy to tote and move around, transporting your items quickly and easily will probably be ideal so plan for this as well.
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3 Replies to “30 Non-Food Items to Hoard”
Many thanks for this information Ethan….. Whenever I watch the news about disasters, local emergencies, etc., I’ve always thought about what one should do to survive successfully. And with the New England snows this year, your list was an excellent reminder of the importance of preparedness.
Here’s to a new year of good planning, and advice from the pros that’s really easy to follow:-)
Happy 2017!
Rona
Thanks Rona, Glad you like it!
Good list as there is some common uses for various items on the list. Too many alternative uses for me to list. You also listed what I consider some of the basics or essentials such as bleach, borax, baking soda, alcohol, and Vaseline (Petroleum jelly) but you need to add soap and vinegar. While I do not use it as a seasoning, table salt is also very useful as a preservative, to melt ice, kill slugs, gargle with, make saline solution, keep items dry or to clean and polish metal. And I would also buy canning jars because they are useful just to hold food or liquid even if you only use them for dehydrated or fresh foods, salt, sugar, flour, brown sugar, spices and so on. And extra lids are available. If the jars are not going to be used for canning, then one can keep and reuse the jars that are usually filled with mayonnaise, spaghetti sauce or other similar foods.
Since you chose special purpose items, I’d also have sugar substitutes, wet wipes or wet naps, and hygiene items as well as medications for pets.