Put food colouring in your liquid soap? It works for us for handwashing compliance!
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I heard a really useful corona virus tip today.
If it hits your area, try to only support businesses that treat their employees well. Most service workers will go to work with the flu because they canāt afford unpaid sick time. You donāt want people with the virus cooking your food, etc.
Figure out what places have paid sick time, like Costco, and go there.
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I fucking love this
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I feel like we have a lot of stuff to be prepared, perhaps from always stockpiling things. Not crazy stockpiling but always having extra on hand. I was working driving stuff down in the decluttering side but maybe not a bad thing to have lots of certain things?
I have 2 fairly full small chest freezers of beef, soups, meals, fruit, etc. And lots of cat food too, for making sure the boss is taken care of. It would be the perishables we donāt have much of, and as suggested above I should start keeping 3 dozen eggs in the house.
I also have my woodpile stocked up for my fireplace!
I donāt have a travel emergency bag prepared which is something I should work on, ut we do have a pretty good first aid kit, flashlights etc ready.
Itās seeming that panic is rising, and even though I havenāt been to the grocery store since last week I feel like Iām going to be walking into empty shelves! Maybe itās just reading all these groups preparations. I do think I will get extra flu meds, I do have a lot but maybe a bit more wouldnāt hurt. Knock on everything it has been a long time (September?) since I had a cold or flu.
Since I already work from home I donāt see any extra down time happening for me, the only thing that would be reduced would be site visits for reduced exposure. Iām grateful that we have a house and if quarantined I could at least be in my back yard for fresh air.
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Thank you, I shared the idea in a local fb group asking which businesses those might be so we can support them.
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I guess technically I stocked up this morning, but it was more āalmost out of rice, need to swing by the Indian grocery,ā followed by āoh, as long as Iām here I might as well pick up more daal since Iām not on this side of town much,ā finally followed by āoh, right, this is the plaza the cheap liquor store moved toā 
The one thing I do wish Iād done (and may go ahead and do if I can find someone, not because of coronavirus but more because I mean to do it every year as a just-in-case) is get my chimney cleaned. Thereās no gas to my neighborhood so when a snowstorm knocks out the electricity it knocks out the heat and cooking capabilities too, at least short of going outside to use a camp stove, and since my fireplace is wood burning it could fill in for some of that in a pinch.
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Went to the vetās office and the Walmart today, so can confirm we are now prepped for the zombie apocalypse.
Probably did buy more than many would because we are very dependent on deliveries from a long way away here, and with a low population, weāre low on the priority list. Anyway, rice, dried beans, and flour donāt take up all that much space. Looked like disinfectant wipes and the like are in short supply, but there were plenty of gallons of bleach.
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Bought two new foodsafe, intended for long-term storage, one gallon water containers. Will be washing and filling them tonight. One for home, one for the car, I already have one in the office. Slowly replacing the water I have stores in plastic containers that expire.
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Related questionā¦ I really donāt want to buy water in plastic since I have good tap water here. I want to fill up glass gallon containers I have, but my husband thought the water might go stale and taste bad. Does anyone know if this is the case?
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I think it might depend on the personā¦I had absolutely no trouble drinking water that was stored in the back of my car for two years, but a friend thought it was vile (then again he drank the mineral-heavy water at the AirB&B we were staying at with no problem, even though the taste of that is what made me haul in the gallon from my car in the first place).
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It can happen both in plastic or glass, as far as I know. I usually replace my stored water annually (I do it in July or August and use the water on the garden).
I also heard the recommendation to pour stale-tasting water from container to container to aerate it. Iāve never tried it though, because Iāve never had to use our water storage for drinking! knocks wood
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Just fill all the containers, but then keep one in the fridge for drinking water, and refill and rotate every time you empty one.
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My understanding is that taste doesnāt matter if youāre using stored water, but bacteria could. Either have camping disinfectants on hand, or look up the right amount of bleach
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Elleās on the money here. You need everything to be spotless.
This is a pretty good rundown of how to do it safely.
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Thank you, all. This is a lot more complicated than I realized.
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You should do a quick search on storing water for only a month as well - I donāt know how long you could bet away with this:
But I suspect once youāve cleaned your glass containers once,.if theyāre the sort to fit in the fridge, this may be a good way to have 2-3 weeks on hand and know itās always fresh.
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Iāve wondered this too. Especially regarding how long it would last. I bought way more food than normal this trip but itās maybe enough for a week or two. Is that enough? How do I know?
I just did a big grocery run and we went to Walgreens and replenished our stash of cold/cough/flu meds, got some hand sanitizer and Vitamin C drops. I was kind of at a loss as far as what to buy grocery-wise - I donāt really eat canned soups or ready to eat meals. Some of my friends are convinced weāll lose electricity and water, whichā¦ really? Should I be concerned about that? Because, Iām really not but maybe that is short sighted.I didnāt buy any bottled water because of the waste. Maybe I should have. Iāve been assuming that I can batch cook and freeze meals in case weāre too sick to cook, that is a thing I do anyway, but if the power goes out obviously thatās no good.
I also feel like I need a way of separating our overstock from our regular food and putting it WAY out of sight so that we remember not to eat it, but I donāt really have a catproof, mouseproof place to do that. (Our buildingās basement storage has mice! Hooray! 
) I am REALLY REALLY bad about eating whatever food we have in the house.
Anyway, I got doubles of things we eat commonly (oatmeal, almond milk, coffee, canned tomatoes, fake meat), some frozen fruit, some larabars, a shitload of canned beans, a big bag of potatoes and one of onions, some canned mushrooms as I eat a lot of mushrooms but not so many that it makes sense to stock up on fresh, ingredients for easy to make meals like pasta and pizza.
Oh, and wine. VERY important to be fully stocked on booze if I cannot leave the house. 
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I just read thru this whole long Twitter thread on exactly this subject, with people telling stories about working while sick, feverish, vomiting. It was appalling. Even with paid sick time, the culture is that you come in, and people still get fired for using this benefit.
Add to this the fact that lots of folks in the US cannot afford medical care - just saw a story about some dudeās $3 grand medical bill for coronavirus testing - andā¦ yeah. Maybe this will be what finally convinces more Americans to vote out elected officials who do not support universal healthcare?
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Yeah this is pretty much my struggle too. Weāre fairly minimalist and we live in a small condo without a ton of room for extras. This last grocery trip I tried to focus on extras of things we would definitely eat anyway but maybe that we didnāt really need additional quantities of right now - so flour, yeast (I like to bake and I feel like this means I can have lots of options if we end up cooped up but still healthy), oats, meat that I had room to freeze, smoothie ingredients that live in the freezer. It was all stuff I wouldnāt have bought on this trip normally, but now we have extra and weāll use it up either way.
My next plan is to maybe get some of the cartons of soup that TJās has. We donāt really do canned stuff much either but I do like those soups and theyāre good when weāre sick. Bonus points in that weāll use them for quick meals on days we donāt feel like cooking. Maybe some of their pre-made curry too since those are shelf stable and easy to eat/make in case of illness.
If I had a chest freezer or a pantry that was not just 4 one foot wide shelves, Iād be fine with stocking up more like others have mentioned but we just donāt have the space.
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I wouldnāt be concerned about losing electricity and water. Technically itās possible but itās such a remote possibility that I donāt think itās worth preparing for, and iirc youāre in an apartment where things like generators arenāt an option anyway.
I just stocked up on some staples in case more people start panicking and stores start running out of things (coffee, kitty litter, laundry detergent, toilet paper, toothpaste, etc.).
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