Could this be the end?! Joan Crain’s Self Reliance Exchange series on long term storage seems to wrap up with a discussion of what non-food items to store.

I’m a big fan of this one. Whenever the prices are low on facial tissue we stock up. We’ve noticed in the past how every single box of kleenex in the house tends to run out about the same time. If we didn’t have our stockpile we’d be wiped out by the first cold to hit the family. Nothing is worse than having a runny nose and no kleenex around. Toilet paper just doesn’t cut it for long. And speaking of toilet paper, that’s another one you don’t want to run out of.

Cleaning products, on the other hand, is one we haven’t really considered. We get door-to-door salesmen through our neighborhood regularly, so we have a couple years supply of the latest and greatest all-purpose cleaner concentrates, but some of the others we really should keep a supply of on hand. Same goes for laundry detergent.

Of course all of this is great, but it all comes down to space. We don’t all have the space to store all the things we know we need to store. Finding a place to put it all where you can get at it easily and can rotate it conveniently–well, I can see why a lot of self reliance advocates want to build their own houses. It’s the only way to ensure you have the storage space you need.