Stuff I Stockpile
(Working on a more interesting post about Hardware Security Modules, but it’s going to take more time than I have today, so this. Missed yesterday too, which is -3 so far in about 2 months.)
I’ve lived in a bunch of places at the far, wrong end of supply chains: conflict zones, tropical islands, etc. I also hate overpaying for things — if I know I can buy something for $3, it causes me psychological pain to pay $5 for it, even if it’s in a more convenient location or delivery context (I do at least treat “stuff at restaurants” differently from “food at the grocery”, but not completely…). I’m also somewhat of a prepper — wanting to continue operations successfully and as normally as possible in spite of external events. All of these combine to make me buy things in larger quantities than I use, and to stockpile, but also to manage inventory in a somewhat more autistic way than most people. Generally I’d say skills > equipment, but stuff I’m using routinely I like having in inventory at all times, and some things are hard enough to buy that I buy them well in advance of need even if not using them routinely.
Some things are obvious, and really should be stockpiled by anyone who can afford to do so, at least to some degree. I keep ~10-15 cases of bottled water in my place, as Puerto Rico fairly frequently has water utility outages. My building has a cistern, so we’re ok for single-day outages, but it’s plausible to need to drink only bottled water for a week. I have friends with much better set up places within walking distance, and I’m 10 minutes from an airport, so I’d probably only remain here for a week or two after a major storm or no-water disaster, tops, so this seems pretty reasonable.
I keep easily 6 months of stored, shelf stable food, and probably about 1-4 weeks of refrigerated and frozen food (plus, I can easily go without food, or with much less food than normal, for an extended period). I might have as much as 12-18 months of stored food, but a lot of that is stuff like rice, pasta, etc. which would be challenging to prepare in any sort of disaster. In a situation like a hurricane affecting Puerto Rico, I’d probably either leave in advance, or stay for 2-4 weeks through the hurricane (and try to help with immediate response), but I wouldn’t be remaining where I am for a longer period — I’d either move to a different location within PR, or leave PR for some months to focus on other stuff. So, no particular need to keep really long term food supplies here, and in the aftermath of a disaster I’d probably give a lot of it away to neighbors who couldn’t leave. I cook >99% of the meals I eat in Puerto Rico, so I have a decent stockpile of spices, kitchen appliances, etc. too. Very well equipped for coffee and tea preparation as well.
Craziest survival-critical thing I have stockpiled (and in my EDC backpack) is iodine tablets (for radioactive fallout), thanks to the Ukraine conflict.
I have ~50+ bottles (750mL) of alcohol, despite not really drinking much (maybe 10-20 drinks/yr, and not at home), because I tend to give bottles of rum as gifts, and collect random stuff from travel.
Cleaning and maintenance supplies, I have a bunch of — partially this was Covid supply chain motivated, but it’s also something I did before. I have probably…20 bottles of dish soap, and use at most 1 per 3 weeks when at home, and similarly 2-4 years at current use, and ~6-24 months at full-time high-intensity use, of stuff like toilet paper, cleaning sprays, paper towels, etc., with no rationing. This could be easily 5 year if it had to be.
Guns, ammo — I have far more than I could realistically use in any plausible scenario, and have them for reasons unrelated to any kind of disaster. I have guns in variety stockpiled primarily as a collector; ammo is primarily for cost-averaging, as it has varied from $0.20-0.40/rd in ~infinite availability to $1-2/rd and extremely limited availability, so it’s perfect to stockpile. There are some accessories (30rd STANAG magazined, pistol mags, etc.) which also seem worth stockpiling, also for regulatory reasons, and there are other things which are super cheap once a year (Black Friday sales), which I buy essentially annually and use throughout the year (Geissele triggers, some optics, etc.). I’ve got the range of other associated stuff as well. This isn’t really stockpiled for “need” reasons, but as a hobby/collector.
Batteries (AA, AAA, C, D, 9V, CR123A, 2032 primary, and 18650 and a couple other form factors rechargeable) also are things I maintain in decent inventory. They have a shelf life, but lithium aren’t as bad to store, and are cheap enough I can afford to rotate them every few years.
I’ve got HEPA filters and ~3 years of replacement cartridges at normal use rates (so, if there were perpetual Sahara dust, or fires, I could probably get a year or more out of them); these are also sometimes unavailable, so I stocked up. I also have a zero water filter (two systems) and ~3 years of filters, although I wouldn’t use the system in a high-contamination setting.
Medical stuff, I’ve got any medications I take for 90-180 days, plus some other medications, plus ~5 trauma kits and essentially a BLS bag and some other stuff.
I have a Toyota/Lexus truck so spare parts are pretty common here, and I would like to keep more spares/second car but don’t really have a good way to do that right now. I also try to keep at least 50% tank of gas (which would cover me for two months of required driving; I don’t drive much), but don’t have an easy way to store more fuel.
Rounding out what I’d consider “emergency supplies”, I have tools, communications equipment, etc. None of this is really interesting.
The “interesting stuff” I tend to stockpile falls into two broad categories: tools and computer stuff. Plus digital goods, but that’s a completely separate thing for me. I have books (one large bookshelf here, more elsewhere), but I strongly prefer digital.
For tools, I have a pretty decent set of 20v De Walt system rechargeable tools; some in excess of what I use, but useful to have, and they go on sale periodically so I was able to get “a bunch” of the good brushless stuff pretty cheap, along with ~20 batteries. I also have a decent amount of hand tools from Wera, Wiha, etc. (I like nice German stuff…). A lot of this is in kits for specific purposes.
For electronics, the big concern is obsolescence. Buying a bunch of latest-model laptops or PCs or something is sort of silly, as they’ll not be high end latest model for long. I do have a 3090 and a couple lesser cards, a good 27” 5K and a 27” 4K, a bunch of cheap Costco 1500va UPSes, about 100TB of HDD space on a RAID/NAS, a headphone library, and basically every interesting hardware security device, HSM, etc. I try to keep at least two laptops ready to go at any time, and two phones, with live backups of everything, especially as there’s no Apple Store here.
Main “weird” thing I do is buy accessories/consumables for products when I initially buy them, or at least plan to do so. For instance, I have a couple toner cartridges for my printer, bought a week after I got the printer. Aforementioned refills for air and water filters. Stockpiled bulk-packs of razor blades/toothbrush replacement heads. (I also collect hotel toiletries in small bottles, at least from higher end places, so lol.)
I probably have impulse bought way too many “nice but unnecessary” things on Amazon/etc. on-sale (Yeti 26oz cups for $15/ea, surprisingly nice; a bunch of hydroflasks; some high end coolers on deep discount, a 27 gallon black plastic tub full of knives, etc.). Big fan of sites like https://slickdeals.net/ and https://gun.deals/.
Managing expiring items and inventory levels is reasonably easy (I don’t have the “Mormon canned goods shelves”, though, sadly.), although I’d like to computerize more of it, especially as I integrate spares kept elsewhere.