At the Midway Aldi all of the "essentials" were still in good supply. I picked up a container of 80 "sanitising wipes" for $2. Looks like they are designed for diaper changes but they will do the trick. I'm not sure what effect summer heat will have if they are kept in a car trunk. Something I was just thinking of are those individually packaged alcohol wipes. I have had some in car glove compartments for years and they seem to stay moist. I may keep an eye out for a good price on boxes of 100.) Not a high priority.
In studying this the demographics of Aldi foods vary widely. It occurred to me that I have never found marked down pork at the Midway store. That has a lot of Vietnamese and Hmong customers and they like pork. The Midway Aldi has had marked down beef from time to time. Go figure!
At the other extreme the Minneapolis Franklin Avenue Aldi has a large Somali clientele so that is a literal "porkfest" when it comes to markdowns. I checked the Aldi price for dry milk. $5 for enough to make two gallons. They have nonfat milk for $2 per gallon and fresh is definitely better than reconstituted. The dry milk is more of a stockpile supply. Mostly, I love "skim milk" so if things go bad milk is something it would be hard to get along without. From my past experience up to one third dry milk mixed with regular milk works out, especially if you make it a bit "rich" with a bit more milk powder. Here is something I got off the internet.
"Our Mix'n Drink will keep its nutrition value for up to about two years if kept cool and dry, and the only vitamins that actually decrease over time are the vitamins A and D. These are not shelf-stable vitamins and are sensitive to heat and light. A good rule of thumb to follow is that the vitamins A and D will dissipate at a rate of about 20% every year if stored properly. The less heat and moisture the milk is exposed to, the better the vitamins will keep. A freezer could extend the shelf life, as long as the powder does not get moisture in it. If you had to put a time limit on the Mix'n Drink, for rotation purposes, I would date it at two years after the date of purchase."
Basically, you rotate stock. One thing to consider is that I have a basement. I've been told that most houses in the US don't and even some new construction houses in Minnesota don't have basements. It has a small root cellar room in the Southeast corner with storage shelves. With the taller house on the south side this gets little sun, I put a remote thermometer in there last year and even on the hottest summer day it has never reached 50 degrees Fahrenheit. If I decide to get some milk power I will keep it there. I will probably seal the unopened box up with a few plastic shopping bags and leave a note "Use in June 2010.".
This is all "preparedness 101" but the "discovery" can be interesting. The basic idea is to stock up on the less perishable items you will use anyway, especially if you can get them on sale and "rotate" the stock. It's some effort but it is empowering. So far. I've only got burned on a two $6 24 packs of snack size cookies. These got nasty after a year so I threw them out. I have had few old canned goods that were bad. If the top is bowed out throw it out and definitely cook thoroughly. That said rotate and manage.
March and April were the "big spend" where I paid the total $2650 2009 property taxes on my http://searhouse.com Also paying winter utility bills real time that definitely "hurt". The mortgage is paid off on my http://searshouse.com (no government bailout needed ). I get my "cash flow" recharged Friday so I will do more in-depth stockpiling and chronically it. More $8.69 a case Mountain Crest beer of course but I'm down to five rolls of toilet paper. Postage stamps are going up so I have to decide how many hundred "forever stamps" to buy (I'll probably put the stamps into my will). The Postal Service will be our lifeline in a pandemic. I fully support them (buying forever stamps now helps them now but with a future cost to the USPS).
I'll chronicle my spending here after the first of the month. I'm still thinking this out. The official government source is http://www.ready.gov/ Worth reading but I consider it somewhat "lame". I was a boy scout. Our motto was "Be Prepared".
For anyone wondering, I have actually dealt with terrorists who tried to kill cops and have a "well dressed" neighborhood defense network including myself and a lot of law enforcement people on my block who are "hot to trot" and "well dressed". I might consider having a meeting and giving all the "well dressed" attendees a case of Mountain Crest. No actual threat but several late night visitors to my house were challenged by off duty police who were "well dressed". Basically, don't even think about it. I think we have the total "Dirty Harry VHS/DVD library and we "share".
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