Testing your supplies

How long will your supplies last?  While others talk about using rags, cloth diapers, cloth feminine products, etc. in a TEOTWAWKI life, I'd rather go in the opposite direction and use more paper products at that time so I have less items to have to wash and sanitize. 

 

I have a huge stack of paper napkins even though we always use cloth napkins.  I have lots of boxes of kleenex and about 30 rolls of paper towels.  I know how long paper towels last in my house.  I have a roll in the laundry room and another roll in the kitchen.  A roll of 80 in the kitchen will last about 3 months.  The roll in the laundry room lasts 6 months at least.  I rarely use them since I use lots of rags.  I know if we are in a TEOTWAWKI situation I would expect to use more.  I expect that I'd use a roll of paper towels in a month.  That's about 3 sheets per day.  That sounds about right. 

 

Well, my expectations have been shot out the window.  As I've said before daughter, son-in-law, and infant are home with us now.  Since they've been here (2 1/2 weeks) we've gone through four rolls of paper towels.  They use them to dry their hands, blow their nose, as  napkins, wipe spills on the counter, and probably other things that I haven't witnessed.  I'm not telling them to cut back because I really want to know how fast they go through things.  I want to figure out other people's normal. 

 

I thought my 30 rolls was a 2 1/2 year supply.  If they keep it up it will be a four month supply.  The expense isn't that great but I'm looking at other items that we use slowly and seeing how fast they go.  Since I know that if things go south I'll be supplying my immediate household and several other family households who aren't wise enough to prepare. I probably have greatly underestimated how many I would use if I wasn't using the rags and cloth napkins.