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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

Heh, I didn’t even notice the covid paper products shortage on accounts of having every day life insurance in the form of a Costco membership and having bought toilet paper some months before. Buying in bulk isn’t even a cost, the cost of capital sitting idle in the form of a shelf of stuff I won’t need for a long time is more than made up for with the volume discount.

Not only are the bulk beans a tiny fraction of the cost per bean, they’re fresher and higher quality.

Also it is an investment that returns in time savings. Buying 50 rolls of TP takes the same amount of time as buying 1.

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The problem with buying in bulk is that it requires the money up-front and that works only if you can save enough money at least once. Poor people can be permanently cash-strapped, so they never manage to get to the point for that upfront investment.

Money up-front AND storage space.

I can't help you with the $ problem, but if storage space is your limiting factor you can buy commercially packaged "survival food" that comes in #10 cans and/or 5-gallon buckets. A 2-week supply of food at 2k calories per day takes up about 2 5-gallon buckets. #10 cans can be stored under a bed. You'll additionally need water and a way to heat it. I think most of them can be eaten cold, but that seems very unpleasant.

This, obviously, is a different strategy than buying bulk and cycling through your regular eating. A 1-2 week supply is plenty for most people. You aren't trying to become a prepper, you're just wanting to get through a crazy blizzard/hurricane/whatever.

...and transportation

For elaboration, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

Same here, we try and keep 3 months supply of groceries on hand from costco at all times. Once a month we look through what won't last 3 more months and stock up, and once you actually figure out what you need it's surprisingly cheap. For example we skipped our December trip because of the holidays and so spent around $1100 for our family of six. Which sounds like a lot but when you stretch it out over 2 or 3 months that less than $100 a person. I'd recommend everyone who can does this.

you have any tips for managing expiration dates? Me and the wife were getting into this subject recently. I'm considering buying a barcode scanner and just have an in and out spreadsheet that somehow I manage. Still tinkering with a few ideas. We have a big family and there's potential for a lot of food waste if not managed properly.

The way we do it is we just take the new stuff and put it at the back so the oldest stuff is at the front. The other thing is we only buy things we know we eat regularly. So we have 3 months worth of applesauce, goldfish crackers.

We also freeze anything that isn't in a can or a sealed, so bread we usually buy 4 loaves and freeze 2 or 3, and accept we'll have to get more from the store before we go.

The limitation is we can't get things from Costco that aren't used regularly, for example, we don't go through enough cream cheese to buy Costco size, and it doesn't account for all our food needs. But if tomorrow I lost my job we know we could survive without having to go to the store for anything but milk and eggs* for the next month or two.

* Hopefully we'll remedy this in the summer with chickens.

Yah physical arrangements to support turnover are good. That's so true on that point about the rate of consumption for different food types is just irregular.

I've been contemplating somehow tracking the pounds of food bought per trip as a quick informer on the spot. The tricky thing is that the kids are growing so their consumption has a steady ramp but not yet enough for a timely consumption of stuff like cream cheese etc. Lots of products seem to be in the 2lb range. 2lb is actually a good deal of food I'm finding out.

This only works if you don't live in a dense city. People in cities simply don't have space to store (many) bulk purchases, and the stores near them (i.e. that don't need a car) don't sell things in bulk (transporting bulk items by public transport is not feasible, and it's too expensive by Uber).

When I visit friends who live in dense cities they are very excited that I have a car, and often ask me to take them to make some bulk purchases.

I don't think that's accurate. The bigger issue is economic access - poor people can't afford to stock up since they are often living paycheque to paycheque. Even middle class folks living in dense urban centres have access to car shares and delivery services. Yes there is a cost, but it's usually quite cheap.

As for storage, except for the smallest apartments, most storage spaces can be optimized quite a bit for very little cost just by purchasing containers that fit spaces properly, have good seals, and abandoning commercial packaging, especially for products that are packed for shelf appeal, not bulk storage.

> poor people can't afford to stock up

Sure, that's a problem. But that's not the problem I was talking about.

> have access to car shares and delivery services. Yes there is a cost, but it's usually quite cheap.

It is most definitely not cheap! You can't buy much because you don't have room, and the cost savings of what you can buy are destroyed by this added expense, making it pointless.

> most storage spaces can be optimized quite a bit

Sure - up to a point. I mean you can also just fill your bedroom with stuff, and have a narrow corridor to walk in. But realistically, people in dense cities just don't have much space for bulk purchases.

I think "1 kilo of food per person per day" is a reasonable approximation (e.g. 1kg of dried beans is 3300 calories, 1kg of canned tuna is 1300 calories). 400 kilos of food should be enough to last a family of 4 for 3 months. Efficiently packed, you can fit 400kg of food in a 0.5m x 1m x 1m space (1 large kitchen cabinet).

It's a fair bit of space, but it's not a "fill your bedroom with stuff" amount of space.

The problem with efficiently packing that is you won't have access to it easily, in order to rotate stock.

If you are not careful you'll end up with spoiled food when you need it.

Plus there's a lot more to stock than just food - It's not just about disaster preparation, we're also trying to save money and packaging and resources.

I know this subthread is talking about saving money, but imo that shouldn't be the first priority. The first priority is avoiding disaster. Insurance costs money up front. The "cost" you are insuring against is being without food after a hurricane/blizzard/etc. If you can ALSO save money up front, that's great.

I live in a downtown highrise, have a car. It works with a shelf for added storage which takes up 5 or 6 sq ft. Having the space for, say, a chest freezer, would up my game a lot but I can do plenty of bulk purchases with what I have.

The lack of space is annoying though still.

If you live in a dense city, you may be better served by getting a commercial "emergency food supply" product. A 2-week food supply from one of the major suppliers of such products is about $125 and fits in 2 5-gallon buckets. Alternatively, you can get similar foods that come in #10 cans, they store nicely under a bed.

I use these products for backpacking and they will obviously never match a real home-cooked meal but they are decent in a pinch.

That covers you for food (you will need water), and just expanding your paper goods slightly should be plenty. You're not trying to become a "prepper", you just want to get through a bad week.

I always figured the cost of the additional square footage in a home per property tax etc was part of the equation. There's some cost for additional size usually. But if you're already paying that cost better to get some use out of it in the form of bulk storage for sure. I suppose there's a freedom to store in having that space. I like the time saving angle, I was looking at old receipts last month and am always stunned by the slice of life they capture. I had transactions where I'd go buy filtered water. Since buying a RO device I never had to haul water any longer. Such a different time of life, definitely saving time there.

I was right there with you. Dealing with the deliberately obfuscated price/sizes of TP/PT bothers me, so my life is much improved if I only do it ~once per year. And paper products are exactly the type of thing you can easily put on the top shelf of a closet and stack to the ceiling.

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