It’s weird how we’ve all come to accept shortages. It seems the shortages/had to find items are in all aspects of our lives. Prior to the beginning of 2020, it seemed rare to find shortages of much of anything in our county. During peak canning season, the store might run out of canning jars or when there was lots of fresh fruit, they might run out of pectin. Before a predicted storm, whether it be an ice storm, a blizzard or a hurricane, bread, snack foods and bottled water would be in short supply.
I can remember my grandma talking about shortages of elastic during World War II and she talked about using drawstrings in underwear. I was a teen when she would tell me that story and I probably thought . . I’m glad I don’t live where there would ever be shortages. Never say never, right?
These days, there seems to be no rhyme or reason for shortages. We’ve all hopefully learned to always keep an extra package of toilet paper and paper towels stashed but, for the most part, I’m no longer surprised at what I find in short supply.
There’s always a reason for a shortage, though I’m not sure I believe or understand some of the reasons we’ve heard. I’m not sure I understand the run on toilet paper and paper towels other than panic buying.
I know we do things a little differently from most people but we try to order toilet paper and paper towels for a year when we find it on sale. This was an order received in early 2018. It was all toilet paper and it actually lasted til late 2019 so we had ordered around Thanksgiving 2019 and never had to buy toilet paper during the entire time it was hard to get. I was very thankful for the way we shop when things were hard to find. On the downside, when moving, you don’t want a year’s worth of toilet paper to move. Other than picking up two packs when I found it at Walmart, we hadn’t bought any toilet paper since that Thanskgiving, 2019 order. I doubt we find any deals on toilet paper any time soon so we won’t order a huge amount but will make sure we don’t get low and just buy it locally.
My recent experience with shortages is for linen for cross stitching. There are the usual brands of linen but there are several brands that are harder to find, mostly the rather unique hand dyed linens. Last week I found a shop that appeared to have some of them in stock so I ordered small pieces of three different linens. Yesterday I got this email.
Thanks for the recent order. We are currently out of stock on the linens that you have requested.
They are on order for you and we hope the linens will arrive in 3 to 5 months – they are having production issues with heavy demand for their products, limited base stock to dye as well as dye and staffing shortages as well as shipping delays which are all impacting production times.
Once these start to arrive, we will collect them and let you know when your order is complete.
I understand the supply shortage, as well as the personnel shortage but I do think a whole lot of it is the renewed interest in cross stitch. Since I’m one of the new users of cross stitch supplies, this is one shortage that makes me smile. I’m happy for those who hand dye the floss and the fabric. I’m happy for those who create the designs. I’m happy for the small (and large) needlework shops who sell things as fast as they can get them in. In this case, there are a whole lot of home based businesses and small businesses that are thriving. From what I see, there’s a whole lot more buying of overdyed floss, patterns and fabric from the small shops, directly from the designer/dyer or from etsy shops than from Amazon or Walmart and in my opinion, that’s a good thing!
Fancy hand dyed linen for cross stitching I can do without. Toilet paper . . not so much!
Kim Webb says
I found a shop on Etsy a few years ago that Jo
from Jo’s Country Juntion shared on her blog. It’s called Needle Case Goodies and Nancy is very helpful and responds to any inquiries pretty quick. It’s a great shop and shipping is very quick if she has or can get the stuff.
Judy Laquidara says
Thank you. I will look there!
montanaclarks says
Costco Kirkland brand non fat Greek yogurt–not a container on the shelf but the shelf was crowded with all the sugar filled yogurts such as Yoplait. Tater tots–don’t judge–we are eating lots of things in this household during covid and having to cook every single meal we eat that we wouldn’t normally eat. In my disastrous Walmart pickup order the other day, tater tots were out of stock. I went to Fry’s this past Tuesday, not a bag of tater tots to be had. My friend in norther AZ said she can’t find Spray & Wash or Shout or any stain removal agent. I’m with you, the shortages make no sense!
Judy Laquidara says
I’m right there with you. Since Addie was at our house this summer, we’ve become big tater tot fans. I have them on my order to pick up Sunday so we’ll see what happens. Stain sticks have been impossible to find in Joplin for months. Vince was able to find a couple in Texas and brought them to me when he came. We can’t even guess what will be hard to find any more.
Nancy H. says
In Idaho last year they were dumping potatoes because the processing plants were shut down because of Covid. Plus the restaurants were not buying from the warehouses so there was not a place to put the potatoes if they had them. One farmer dumped a million pounds of potatoes and posted the location on facebook telling people to come and get them for free. They were gone in a really short amount of time.
With China corporations owning many of our processing plans they may be punishing us for the tariffs placed on them. Also farm land is being bought up and left to stand fallow. I think all food is going to become short in supple. My husband and I are already talking about making a bigger garden. I need to buy a propane stove to be able to process food though as we have a glass top range. When we moved I gave away most of my quart canning jars guess I will need to buy more jars. I never expected to be doing full scale canning again.
Judy Laquidara says
It’s scary and absurd how much farm land is being bought and no longer being planted.
Becky Louise Rhodes says
Spray Starch is what I’m having problems locating. Strange!
Judy Laquidara says
I think I’m good on that for a long time so I haven’t looked to find any in the stores.
Peg Turner says
Yes! I’m having a hard time finding starch in Oklahoma. My favorite is Niagara and I haven’t seen it at all since the pandemic started.
Linda Garcia says
My husband likes to drink Fresca. I haven’t been able to find ANY for months. Just last week I was able to buy 4 boxes of his favorite flavor. He has been without since before Thanksgiving. This past week, almost all the shelves for cat food and cat treats were bare. Good thing I have plenty of cat food on hand.
Judy Laquidara says
I haven’t been inside a store for probably two months. It’s hard to judge what’s fixing to be out of stock when I don’t see the shelves getting more and more empty. It’s weird and probably scary too.
patti says
we have a local outlet that carries lots of costco items. they advertised sometime in nov they had many pkgs (the ones with like 24 rolls) in their store. a few weeks later, if you bought an artificial tree, you got a pkg free. a bit later, they were on sale @ $1.69. what a rollercoaster we live in.
Joyce says
I haven’t really noticed any shortages here lately. I will say the toilet paper/paper towel shelves are not as full as they used to be, but they’re not totally out either. I do know that items coming from other counties may be back-ordered. There are still a lot of total lockdowns in other countries and restrictions for mailing out of country for them. (Specifically for yarn and spinning fiber). It could be the counted cross-stitch fabric is coming from somewhere outside the US.
Judy Laquidara says
I think there’s very little that doesn’t at least at some point come from other countries. Not much that’s created start to finish in the US any more.