Got toilet paper and paper towels.

Cleaning supplies for sanitation and laundry.

Personal hygiene products.

Restocked my pantry to some extent (no more room to store) and included spices and salt/pepper. Flour and sugar.

The other things I will work on the best I can.

thanks for the heads up! I appreciate your insider's take on this.

I started in January. I think this a good idea and am glad to see it suggested on DU.

I have also increased the size of my backyard garden and bought a canner.

due to large trees in my neighbor's yard, but I have strategically planted tomatoes, sweet corn, pole beans, squash, melons, cucumbers, and peppers in pots. So far it all looks great, but I will have to rig up sunshades I can erect in the afternoon on superhot days this summer or it will all fry in the heat.

I hear ya, I have the same thing, my oak and the neighbor's maple, and little garden in the middle. I used shade cloth over my tomatoes a lot last year and probably will later-on. Kentucky gets around a month of "nice" spring then the heat shows up.

Good luck with your veggies!

I appreciate your perspective. So little of the mass of consumer goods we depend on is manufactured in the US, this shut down in global trade is going to bite in ways big and small - bandaids to appliances to solar panels. Xi doesn’t need to concede anything. I am thinking that right now he may be our biggest help in undermining the Mango Mussolini, as our economy is going to tank hard and Americans don’t like not having stuff. And many of us are not going to have money/jobs to pay for that stuff if there even was any.

Yes, we better brace ourselves.

It is very sad (on my part) that I am rooting for China over my own Country.

But, Trump is doing everything possible to make sure our Country looks like a shit-hole Country.

And, if Trump was to stay in power, I fear for the world because he, his supporters and enablers are Evil.

...you mentioned recovering from a surgery. I'm sure Dunc loves having you nearby! Whatever it was, have a smooth and speedy recovery.

I stocked up on cat food and cat litter first. Then I stocked up on food, cleaning supplies, toiletries, and clothing (winter coats, boots, and shoes). I once asked my grandmother what she would have put aside if she had foreseen the Great Depression and the rationing of WWII, and she said "coats and shoes".

especially for the pets.

I'll need to add some cat litter to that as well.

Heck of a time finding cat food during most of Covid.

for the heads up. Hope you recover quickly from your surgery. Take care.

had sort of picked up just a little in the first two months of the year but now in the last 6 weeks it has fallen a great deal. The load boards are way down for number of loads and the rates have fallen back to less than 20 years ago. As you know freight activity is always an early indicator of what is going to be. I feel bad because when this hits it's going to hit hard. I'm older than stardust and so I'll be shuffling along and living in the truck if I have to but a lot of young people are going to lose what they were building for.

When marriages get stressed by downturns the frustration and the fighting can start and then some don't make it. It's just a fact of the numbers and what divorce lawyers/courts see and know is coming. Parents fighting in front of the kids is a horrible thing and there is no place in the house to go where you don't hear it when Mom and Dad are screaming at each other.

thanks for your journal entry today. I appreciate the advise and will take my precautions.

Let’s hope we all somehow get through this Trump calamity.

Didn’t know about your surgery, but I’m sending strength and a hug. Take good care.

Geez, the ripples from the Turd Reich's bellyflop are gonna swamp us all.

Odd size. Made in China. Gotta score a few of those!

As someone pointed out last fall, it turned out to be a promise.

If it's on sale, and the price is right, I buy it whether I need it immediately, or not. Shit happens, and it's always best to be prepared. Not to mention that it saves money in the long run.

I find these types of reports incredibly helpful.

SiriusXM has a channel, Road Dog Trucking, for drivers to talk about what's going on inside the industry and now I'm wishing I had been listening more to that. What an idiot I am not to have thought of that. I'll be programming it into my player today because I'll bet that is another great place to get reports like this.

I drive daycab, as a contracted driver for a big multinational ... They make Tide, Gain, Pampers among other things.

While I personally have not had a day without work - and they're long days - other drivers working different lanes have had days when they have been "benched" - i.e. they're not driving that day. I've also had my choice of truck when I come to the yard in the morning.... Usually I get a choice of one or two, or if we've had a number of breakdowns we get to wait for another driver to return. (We're a slip seat operation, AM driver hands over their truck to the PM driver). I know management had been trying to address the truck shortage by taking trucks that were near the end of their working life and instead of turning them into Penske (they're on a long lease) they've kept them and reassigned them to us.

I've sort of kept my ear to the ground with my former employers... They've been trying to cut costs... Instead of washing trucks every other week it's now once a month, unless the vehicle is absolutely filthy. New recruits are coming in a little less per mile. On the bright side loads to Canada are still healthy, Canadians still want glass for their windows.

So I don't know what to make of it. Wifey on the other hand became a full time community college teacher in January... Teaching medical lab science... But is still available to work for the hospital as a lab tech, and still has to put her 8 hours a month in to stay current and hired with them. She says she won't quit that because of Trump.... Worried that community colleges will see their funding cut, cos of DEI or some other shitty excuse, and she might be let go... never mind the fact that community colleges teach vocational skills very much needed.

Well, whatever will be will be.

I just got back from the Airport, where my wife picked me up.

I brought back some Constant Comment tea, since I can‘t get it here, and German customs couldn‘t care less about a couple dozen teabags. The best apricot marmalade comes from Austria, anyway, and the stores here haven‘t run out. To sweeten tea, you can always use sugar or honey, but apricot marmalade is ten stages better (not all Russian ideas are bad). Just make sure you never buy Smuckers brand, as they load theirs with HFCS.

So, whatever evil may be lurking back there in the heart of Trumpmuskistan, it hasn’t visibly affected the daily life of EU-Land yet.

Saw a pic on DU recently of Port of Seattle having only one container ship. As I worked there until retirement. I never saw it like this. Sure it could just be a blip but I doubt it. I wonder if Cruise ship dock will be similar this year.
I to don't know if the sky is falling but I would be willing to put money on a significant slowing with significant job loss. Just my NSWAG.

My daughters dog just had both lower molars removed due to his exuberance with a bone chew toy. My dog "NEO" is her dogs brother. Bone treats are off the menu. FYI.

Generally better to have and not need than to need and not have. Got this from a smart crazy Uncle. Sure he heard it elsewhere. I was 10 I think when spouted it. Has saved my ass in the past.

Sounds like young freight haulers should be saving however they can.

Last edited Mon Apr 28, 2025, 09:12 AM - Edit history (1)

U've already got a LOT of tp, toothpaste, & shower gel.

I worry about car patts.

My gs ordered some Bilstein struts from Germany. Originally, the arrival date was late April. Now the ship date is the end of May, & I suspect this is due to the customs changes that resulted in German companies indefinately suspending all shipments over $800.

Fucking repukes always screw up the economy!

It will take Wonder Woman or Superman Dem president to straighten out the mess ruskie agent kraznov has made for pootin.



On Edit: just saw article on NBC stating DHL is resuming shipments over $800!

but noticed that things are getting a little thin. Store I went to a few days had things a bit more spread out on their shelves rather than the usual crowding. Haven't noticed it in the grocery stores yet. We were already prepping any way, live where weather can get nasty and outages of a week or more happen a couple of times a year.
Take care of yourself Mr. Duncanpup.

Shippers "frontloaded" cargo when tariffs were first announced, but after that, a huge number of cargo ships are just floating in Chinese waters, not going to US ports.

US port traffic falling off a cliff. Good report from Wall St Journal (1:21mins)

Link to tweet

I am grateful for your insider observations and advice.

My youngest needs to have the a/c in his Volkswagen fixed. The dealer told him call back in the fall. !!!

Miss Sophie asked me if pizza comes from China and I said no, Sophie you’re worrying needlessly. Although she hopes Dunc will not have his supply chain interrupted any more with the circular chews. Knucklehead Solidarity.

Take care everyone.

All the indicators say we are entering a very rough season.

Call it the Spring and Summer of our discontent. Shortages and empty shelves are in our near-future and may be the least of our worries. Preparing for what's coming is prudent, not crazy-pants..

My daughter and I began stocking up in November right after the election.

We reinstated what began in 2020 as "the pandemic grocery" out in our garage and it's now rebranded "the tariff grocery." Not really hoarding ridiculous amounts of things, just been buying basics like coffee, toothpaste, ketchup, garbage bags, canned food and cat food etc. whenever we find a good deal on them. Shopping on websites like martie.com and visiting Costco and Grocery Outlet for multiples of things that have a long shelf life (with the added bonus that Costco is HELLA blue and GO as a company is mostly-blue, with our local franchisees having no record of political donations and a long history of contributing to local food banks).

We also have replaced our refrigerator and dishwasher and my 2018 desktop computer (which were all still functional, but getting older) and bought extras of small appliances like the juicer and crockpot at a local small business that buys pallets of stuff from Target/Walmart/Amazon and sells it for pennies on the dollar (and which is run by THE NICEST guy who is also a hardcore progressive).

Have had a few small projects done around the house that I've been putting off before labor/materials costs skyrocket. We're also trying, with mixed success, to start growing some vegetables and herbs.

Realize not everyone can implement all these strategies and I'm very thankful for what we have been able to do, but continuing to be frugal and doing anything we can to make ourselves less dependent at this point is the goal. I agree with Dunc's take that it's probably about to get pretty bad, so just do whatever you can afford to do.

I had to throw out a stick of cheese because when I opened it up, parts had turned green even though it wasn't due to expire until August.

(It had been refrigerated the whole time.)

They just don't know twhat they're doing to the economy. This isn't like a water faucet, you can't just trun things off and then right back on again.

And the economy is dirven by consumer spending, people are freaking out right now and after the initial "stock up" on stuff, people are going to just sit on their money.

A recession is probably already here, how deep it is remains to be seen, but I think it's going to be worse than 2008.

Who is able to stock up for a year or more? Very few, and certainly not the poor and those who are just getting by. Other than short term, the best you can realistically hope for is to stock up enough to keep yourself ahead of the game. But for those of us now who are just getting by, we can't stock up. So what do we do?

And my heart goes out to you i have no answers friend

Been stocking up since the orange turd won, you reminded me of some things I didn’t think of. I went and picked up a few more things. The most valuable thing we can give each other is information. We can’t fix this mess but we can give each other support. Again thank you.

Buy toilet paper, personal supplies (don't want to find out you just used the last tampon you have), OTC medications. Pet supplies. You might do without a meal, but it's not fair to ask them to do so.

Make sure you have adequate clothes for yourself and your family. Make sure you have extra oil, transmission fluid, antifreeze. If your tires aren't good enough, try to replace them now. Same with a battery.

If you aren't already, try to reduce your electricity usage, save some money. Buy things used, or do without. Don't need all the latest gizmos and toys. Stop eating out and put that money to stocking up, or paying off debt.

There's loads of places to learn how to live cheaper, even better, and a lot of it doesn't take a lot of money, just changes in habits.

W said "Faith-based organizations will step forward to fill the void." Problem solved?

I did dunk one in a pond today though.

That's what was so crazy about the last panic buy of TP.

(I've read that the US exports the wood to Canada to be processed, and then we import the wood pulp. I'm not in that business, so cannot confirm).

Packaging may not be produced in the US. Or chances are a part or two from the production line is sourced from China.

At any rate, not a bad idea to stock up a bit, or have a bidet (even the cheap-o version, not the actual toilet).

I've always used any extra money to buy food. Went through some tough times, growing up was a lot of empty cabinets, no clothes, no school supplies, and so on. Now empty cabinets make me anxious. It's PTSD. So, I buy stuff. Toilet paper, stuff to clean (personal wipes), OTC meds, food. I don't have a good place to store it, but I get it.

Craft stuff, ebooks, paper books. I got it. Past times covered!

One year, I used every penny I could get to buy up hamburger (ground chuck!) at crazy prices. Wrapped and stored in the freezer, a little chest freezer I got when I had some cash (a good job that didn't last). Every time I'd see something on sale, picked it up. Canned beef stew at Food Lion for .99? Hell yeah. Seasonings and mixes for .50 at Big Lots? You're damned straight. Condiments, powdered milk, anything that would keep that I could cook meals with. Lost my job, all of that fed us for a year.

I buy clothes from thrift stores. Underwear is new, but otherwise, I get better stuff used than I can buy. I don't need the latest phones, tablets, computers, cars. I don't go get my hair or nails done, don't pay for a gym, don't go out drinking, seldom eat out. It's not fun being poor, but I'll survive when other people are jumping out windows because they don't know how to get by without all the stuff.

Especially on canned beef stew neighbor I’m thinking food chain be fine.

in the UK. There’s always a shipping lull in Europe about 6-8 weeks after Chinese New Year.

So I’d reckon you’re probably right, moving into May won’t be pretty for the US for several weeks. We don’t feel the impact over here because companies prepare for the lull.
But there was no preparation for that stupid Orange Tyrant