Poor Richard’s Almanac

Our friend Ben and Silence Dogood are addicted to the short-but-sweet news digest, The Week. We think it pretty well sums up (or sums up pretty well) the national mood for any given week. The latest issue’s headlines tell a grim story: “Household debt: Will your credit line disappear?” “Car loans no bargain.” “Employment: Job losses add to woes.” “The financial crisis: Looking for a scapegoat.” “The economic crisis: On Main Street, fear leads to frugality.” Even the food and lifestyle sections reflect our national woes, spotlighting a simple one-dish chicken recipe from Jamie Oliver using potatoes and cherry tomatoes from his garden, and addressing budget issues with “Wine: A guide for troubled times.”

Unfortunately, this is not hyperbole but truth in advertising. To excerpt from The Week’s excerpts in “The economic crisis”: “Auto sales are plummeting, airline traffic is dropping, and restaurant managers are looking out over acres of empty tables. A generation that is accustomed to living beyond its means is now scrimping like Scrooge…. Consumer confidence is shattered, as people watch banks and insurance companies fail, and their 401(k) retirement accounts drop by 20 percent to 30 percent in a matter of weeks.” In an ironic take on the situation, The Week quotes Lily Tomlin: “Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.”

Our friend Ben is a big believer in humor providing some much-needed perspective. But I’m also a big believer in that old Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared.” In an earlier post, “Be prepared,” I talked about some low-key, commonsense preparations people could make to ensure that they had food, water, light, and warmth if the usual sources of supply failed them, for whatever reason, for a shorter or longer time.

Silence and I also think it’s a smart idea to take advantage of the great self-reliance resources available to us. You can click on the links to our favorites in our blogroll at right: Backwoods Home magazine, which provides useful free content on its website as well as access to Jackie Clay’s wonderful how-to-do-it blog. Granny Miller, an amazing resource for everyone looking to be more self-reliant (and, incidentally, a marvelous example of what a thought-provoking how-to blog can be, even including videos of how to perform basic skills and featuring one of my favorite items, “Granny’s” pantry lists for 2007-2008 and 2008-2009, which not only show what and how much of each item they’ve stocked up, but what they’ve found they actually use). The Mother Earth News website, which, like Backwoods Home, includes helpful free content on its site. And Lehman’s Non-Electric Catalog, a great resource for basics and staples. If you know of other excellent resources we’re unaware of, please tell us about them! We are eager to know.

Today, however, our friend Ben would like to focus on some items that don’t seem like matters of life and death, but that would quickly make a big difference between life being okay or miserable. They’re all low-cost items and most of them keep forever, so you can stash them in the laundry room, guest or linen closet, under the beds, under the bathroom sink or in the bathroom cabinet, or even in plastic storage boxes in the attic, garage, or basement—anywhere you have a little extra space. Here’s the list:

* Toilet paper. Be you never so sparing, you know how fast toilet paper gets used up. And I don’t care what people say about using newspaper if you run out. Ugh! (You’re going to need that newspaper for fire-starting, anyway.) Look for bulk sales and stock up on toilet paper now.

* Cloth napkins, dish towels, and hankies. Unlike toilet paper, you may enjoy the convenience, but you don’t really need paper napkins, paper towels, and Kleenex (or your favorite brand). Of course you can also stockpile some of these paper products when you find them on sale, but it makes sense to have some of the old-fashioned cloth versions on hand just in case. Cloth napkins and dish towels are often available at thrift stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army for pennies, and, while our friend Ben would not personally want to buy a used hankie, new ones aren’t exactly budget-breaking, either. I suggest at least two cloth napkins per person, so one can be in use while the other is drying, and a dozen cloth hankies per household member isn’t really unreasonable.

* Toothpaste, toothbrushes, dental floss, shampoo, soap, vitamins, etc. These items are hygiene and health essentials, and you should have plenty on hand. You should be tossing that old toothbrush (or reusing it for crafts or home-cleaning purposes) every three months anyway, right? Buy plenty of extras of your favorite kind (ditto for your family). As for toothpaste, our friend Ben has read with chagrin that studies showed that the much-hyped whitening toothpastes did no more to whiten teeth than the plain old house brands. So look for the cheapest version of your preferred (cavity-fighting) brand and buy plenty of extras. As with stored food, use your stored toothpaste and replace tubes as you use them, and ditto with vitamins. No-nonsense bars of soap keep forever and will come in handy if your fancy brands of foaming cleanser become unavailable or you can’t get to them or afford them. As for shampoo, our friend Ben knows that people used to wash their hair with bars of soap, and I in fact know one person who still does (gulp). But I would prefer to avoid this, to me, nuclear option if at all possible. I suggest stocking up on shampoo, detangler, and conditioner, again looking for sales or haunting the Dollar Store or dollar aisles at the grocery. Your teenage kids may insist it ain’t so, but our friend Ben wonders how different the Herbal Essence sold for $1 really is from the Herbal Essence on the full-price racks? Needless to say, deodorant and (if you’re a contact-lens wearer) contact lens supplies fall into this category, too, as do female hygiene products for all female family members of reproducing age. Our friend Ben is not going into birth control here, but if you use it, consider this a word to the wise.

* Basic meds. Aspirin, Midol, bandages, antibacterial creams, and the like strike our friend Ben as household essentials. Maybe not quite as essential as vitamins, but still, if you have a headache, cramps, or a cut, you’re going to need these. It makes sense to have them on hand. Obviously, if you’re on a prescription medication, having extra on hand is a good plan.

* Laundry basics. What if you had no electricity or propane to power your washer and dryer? You still need clean clothes. Our friend Ben enthusiastically recommends that you invest in a half-dozen or more bars of laundry soap, such as Fels-Naptha (still available in your local grocery), and a wash bucket so you can shave off some soap flakes and hand-wash clothes if you must. Having a clothesline and clothespins and a wooden drying rack on hand means you can get clothes dry without a dryer, indoors or out.

* Dishwashing basics. Our friend Ben and Silence wash our dishes by hand, so it took a minute for me to remember that most people use an electric dishwasher. As with the clothes washer and dryer, it makes sense to invest in a few simple alternatives so you can have clean dishes even if you don’t have electricity. Make sure you have a functional stopper for the kitchen sink, or a washbasin (you can also use this for hair washing if the shower kicks out). Buy liquid dishwashing detergent, sponges, and brushes on sale, and keep a stock on hand. (The Dollar Store or dollar aisle of your grocery are good options here, too.) Get a drying rack—plastic, metal, or (like ours) wood, so you can air-dry your dishes, and get a tray or dishtowel to put under it.

* A teakettle. If this sounds like some kind of Victorian antique to you, our friend Ben has two words of advice: Wake up. You may need to heat water, not just for tea, but for cooking, washing clothes, washing hair, and bathing if there’s a power disruption. Buy a big, sturdy kettle that will not only hold and heat a lot of water, but will hold up over a woodstove or open fire as well as an electric or gas stove. You just never know. And you can always use it for tea.

Okay, that’s enough for now. Warmth in the form of bedding and outerwear, water, food, and fuel are all first priorities, discussed in my earlier post. But these “second-tier” staples are not only (in our friend Ben’s opinion) essentials, they’re just as vital as the ones that sustain life, at least if you have the luxury to accumulate them in time. No doubt I’ll have more to say about preparedness in a future post. But if you have the basics, you’ll also have peace of mind. And that’s priceless.