Like many other parts of the world, NZ is in Lockdown. Which means that I’m in lockdown! (accountants are totally non-essential apparently)
Part of being under lockdown means that essential services, like supermarkets are still open. So you can (and should) still go shopping during the lockdown. But given that you should be making less trips to the supermarket (and that you need to disinfect a WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF when you get back) how can we be financially savvy in this time when $$ is hard to come by?
Buy the essentials!
Get only the essentials! What are essentials? Think of things that you literally CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT. Like food.
Food is by far the most important thing on your buy list. Let’s say that you are operating on a slim budget which needs to last you past the Viropocalypse(™) (however long that takes) you want to be focusing on the essentials. Think food pyramid:
Buy more of the stuff on the bottom – staple foods like flour, rice and bread. A note on that last one – bread is hard to keep for long periods of time (unless you have a big freezer) so you might want to learn some simple and cheap bread recipes and buy up flour (which keeps much better) instead – here is one for European Style Loaves and here is another one for Indian Style Chapatis.
As a general rule of thumb, buy as much as you need to feed your family for 1 month. Don’t hoard resources as other people who are more vulnerable than you need them as well.
Canned foods are your best friend
Canned foods can (in theory) last almost forever. Unfortunately they taste a bit yuck. But hey, it’s the Viropocalypse(™) right? So who cares?
Take care when buying canned foods – if $$ is your concern, go for the cheapest, value buy brands and skip all the fancy ‘Chunky Soup’ nonsense. Canned beans are a great source of protein. Canned tomatoes will add flavour to almost any dish. Depending on what your preferred diet is, with some homework in the canned goods aisle, you should be able to find the stuff you need at bargain prices, in a can!
Grab those disinfectants!
If you must buy ONE thing (hint: it’s NOT toilet paper), you should buy soap, handwash and/or disinfectant.
Arguably, the best way to combat the spread of COVID-19 (apart from social distancing) is to wash yer gorram hands!! (and elbows, feet, nose, mouth, etc). Obviously you will want to do your washing with soap because, duh. Fortunately there are many meme-friendly posts advocating how to wash your hands so you should be pretty clued up by now on how to do it.
The last thing you want to run out of in the Viropocalypse is a means of disinfecting yourself and your loved ones. And let me tell you that no amount of toilet paper is going to disinfect your dirty hands!
Should you buy up water?
This is largely dependent on the water supply of your general area. If there are no immediate threats to your water supply, I would say that it is business as usual, don’t stockpile water. However if your area does not have easy access to potable water (E.G living in a desert environment) you may want to stock up on water supplies.
The challenge with stocking up on water is finding a place to store 1 months’ water supply which unfortunately this blog can’t help you answer. Also – plastic bottles. ew. Quit polluting the environment – we got enough problems as is.
There you go! A quick and easy buying cheat sheet for the Money-minded Viropocalypse $urvivor. Stay tuned for more updates and keep those hands clean!