Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

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livesoft
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by livesoft »

retiredjg wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 3:51 pm That may be the nature of where you live and where you shop. It is certainly not the same in the stores I use in my smaller town. Things are there one week and not the next. It's always a crap shoot when looking for some items and certainly for some brands.

Well, maybe there is still a shortage of Common Sense.
That's likely the same. :happy
But of course. :)
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chemocean
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by chemocean »

Regular sized canning lids. Maybe the supply will increase as peach canning season wanes, before pear season starts.
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Nestegg_User
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Nestegg_User »

radiowave wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2020 10:12 am The local King Supers Soopers (Kroger) is no longer stocking Private Selection pasta for some reason, not available anywhere??
Fixed that for you (familiar with them, ages ago, when in Denver metro area, long before they were bought out by Kroger.... Kroger also has the brand "City Market" (see area around Boulder and around Frisco/Silverthorne/Dillon among other areas)

AFA thread:
one item in shorter supply is pellets for pellet grills (BBQ), which might be somewhat expected given that there's less milling and downing of wood products (mills aren't up to normal capacity) and the excess wood pulp (remade into pellets) would thus be lower. It's also likely that more people are using whatever grills they already have and driving up the demand.

Late ETA: another odd item in otherwise short supply or unavailable is "Lava" soap... used when cleaning up from heavy grease conditions {I needed some after repacking the bearings on the trailer axles}. Used to be easily available... had to order some online after no one had it.
Last edited by Nestegg_User on Wed Oct 21, 2020 10:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
ballons
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by ballons »

neilpilot wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 3:11 pm
ballons wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 2:48 pm
Jeanz wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 2:12 pm White vinegar has disappeared from the shelves here in the suburbs of DC. Are people making pickles, or are they soaking their coins in vinegar -- a very old habit, that. I don't think it does any good.

We've been through shortages of bleach, flour, yeast, and rice, but they all seem to be back now except for yeast. Cleaning stuff, too.
This entire thread is self fulfilling prophesy for shortages.

One comments X is out. Those that use X now buy more "before the shortages hits my area." Those that don't have any X, buy more when it is available. Manufacturer wonders how X just sold 2500% more. They either produce more or just announce X is in short supply. This causes people to seek out X even more.

America isn't running out of sugar, water, or AL yet people are stockpiling sugar water in AL cans like we are.
I think you overestimate the influence of the thread.

However, I am intrigued that you are "stockpiling sugar water in AL cans". How do you seal the cans to prevent spoilage or evaporation?
Not this thread but the spread from here and elsewhere. Registered users and lurkers tell family and friends. They post on social media. Next thing you know people are fist fighting over the last X at your local target.

That was in reference to the WSJ article about canned drinks posted. People read it and think, "Hey I better stock up more on my favorite drink before it's gone!" They tell their friends to buy their favorite drink. They gloat about having a stockpile. etc.
radiowave
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by radiowave »

Nestegg_User wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 7:23 pm
radiowave wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2020 10:12 am The local King Supers Soopers (Kroger) is no longer stocking Private Selection pasta for some reason, not available anywhere??
Fixed that for you (familiar with them, ages ago, when in Denver metro area, long before they were bought out by Kroger.... Kroger also has the brand "City Market" (see area around Boulder and around Frisco/Silverthorne/Dillon among other areas)

AFA thread:
one item in shorter supply is pellets for pellet grills (BBQ), which might be somewhat expected given that there's less milling and downing of wood products (mills aren't up to normal capacity) and the excess wood pulp (remade into pellets) would thus be lower. It's also likely that more people are using whatever grills they already have and driving up the demand.

It looks like some King Soopers stores are stocking Private Selection pasta now.
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Clever_Username
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Clever_Username »

After all the trouble finding Powerade flavor White Cherry, especially zero, I've now found it at a few places, including a few carrying the zero! Found the zero at a Rite Aid, found non-zero at a Ralph's and at even the Pavillion's, which I'm not sure had it pre-Covid.
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lthenderson
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by lthenderson »

chemocean wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:58 pm Regular sized canning lids. Maybe the supply will increase as peach canning season wanes, before pear season starts.
I discovered this as well a couple weeks ago but found that you can order them directly through BallMason if desired. I ordered enough to finish out this year and take care of next year as well. They had two weeks delivery times so mine should hopefully arrive this week.

https://www.ballmasonlids.com/?gclid=EA ... gKTwPD_BwE
JBTX
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by JBTX »

Clever_Username wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 11:11 am After all the trouble finding Powerade flavor White Cherry, especially zero, I've now found it at a few places, including a few carrying the zero! Found the zero at a Rite Aid, found non-zero at a Ralph's and at even the Pavillion's, which I'm not sure had it pre-Covid.
It does seem powerade zero and Gatorade g2 are selling out.

Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
cas
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by cas »

lthenderson wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:24 pm
chemocean wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:58 pm Regular sized canning lids. Maybe the supply will increase as peach canning season wanes, before pear season starts.
I discovered this as well a couple weeks ago but found that you can order them directly through BallMason if desired. I ordered enough to finish out this year and take care of next year as well. They had two weeks delivery times so mine should hopefully arrive this week.

https://www.ballmasonlids.com/?gclid=EA ... gKTwPD_BwE
The canning supplies shelves of the local stores here are bare as well.

However ... that website looked very suspicious to me. It wasn't there when I was looking for online sources of canning seals/lids back in March/April during the shutdown, it has a "contact us" address in England and a gmail email address, it calls itself the "offcial [note spelling] online store, and it is price gouging (although not as badly as some other places ... $14.98 for a single 12-pack of Ball canning seals on amazon? Seriously!? [for people who don't can ... it would be in the vicinity of $2.00 at any grocery/target/walmart/homedepot/etc in a normal year.]) Googling "Ball canning lids" also turns up several similarly named websites, all with the word "official/offcial" prominently displayed, but various physical locations, all with gmail email addresses, all price gouging.

That caused me to do a bit of poking about. Apparently, the Ball Mason brand is currently owned by Newell Brands (so says Wikipedia and the Newell Brands site), which is headquartered in Atlanta. If you get google to tell you the Newell Brands site, go to the "Our Brands" page, then the "Ball" page, it has links to their official website, facebook page [filled with people commenting that they can't get canning supplies], etc. and none of them are the above website. None of their real official pages sell directly to the public, though, so it doesn't do anyone trying to get canning supplies any practical good. When I scanned through the facebook comments, the company did respond to some comments with the usual "supply chain problems + warehouse backups" reasons.
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lthenderson
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by lthenderson »

cas wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:39 pm
lthenderson wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:24 pm
chemocean wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:58 pm Regular sized canning lids. Maybe the supply will increase as peach canning season wanes, before pear season starts.
I discovered this as well a couple weeks ago but found that you can order them directly through BallMason if desired. I ordered enough to finish out this year and take care of next year as well. They had two weeks delivery times so mine should hopefully arrive this week.

https://www.ballmasonlids.com/?gclid=EA ... gKTwPD_BwE
The canning supplies shelves of the local stores here are bare as well.

However ... that website looked very suspicious to me. It wasn't there when I was looking for online sources of canning seals/lids back in March/April during the shutdown, it has a "contact us" address in England and a gmail email address, it calls itself the "offcial [note spelling] online store, and it is price gouging (although not as badly as some other places ... $14.98 for a single 12-pack of Ball canning seals on amazon? Seriously!? [for people who don't can ... it would be in the vicinity of $2.00 at any grocery/target/walmart/homedepot/etc in a normal year.]) Googling "Ball canning lids" also turns up several similarly named websites, all with the word "official/offcial" prominently displayed, but various physical locations, all with gmail email addresses, all price gouging.

That caused me to do a bit of poking about. Apparently, the Ball Mason brand is currently owned by Newell Brands (so says Wikipedia and the Newell Brands site), which is headquartered in Atlanta. If you get google to tell you the Newell Brands site, go to the "Our Brands" page, then the "Ball" page, it has links to their official website, facebook page [filled with people commenting that they can't get canning supplies], etc. and none of them are the above website. None of their real official pages sell directly to the public, though, so it doesn't do anyone trying to get canning supplies any practical good. When I scanned through the facebook comments, the company did respond to some comments with the usual "supply chain problems + warehouse backups" reasons.
Thanks for the heads up. I may have been had. I know they were higher than normal but were the cheapest price I had found online. I do have a tracking number that is progressing through the mail system so perhaps it is someone who is skimming from the top and ordering from another source or somebody who took my credit card info for nefarious use later. I'll shall probably know soon enough.
rgs92
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by rgs92 »

JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:38 pm
Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
Amazon has lots of clean shower:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=clean+shower ... _nr_p_72_4
JBTX
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by JBTX »

rgs92 wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:55 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:38 pm
Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
Amazon has lots of clean shower:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=clean+shower ... _nr_p_72_4
Look at the prices. They are typically 1-2 dollars a bottle.
cas
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by cas »

lthenderson wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:49 pm Thanks for the heads up. I may have been had. I know they were higher than normal but were the cheapest price I had found online. I do have a tracking number that is progressing through the mail system so perhaps it is someone who is skimming from the top and ordering from another source or somebody who took my credit card info for nefarious use later. I'll shall probably know soon enough.
I hope it works out for you. Hopefully for you it is just someone who has been hanging out at the local Walmarts for the last few months scooping up all the $1.98 packs as soon as they come in, then selling them at a markup.

By the way, the packaging on the real Ball canning seals really did change this year. A darker green. So if your package does arrive, Ball packaging that seems to be the wrong color green is legit.
rgs92
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by rgs92 »

JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:57 pm
rgs92 wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:55 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:38 pm
Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
Amazon has lots of clean shower:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=clean+shower ... _nr_p_72_4
Look at the prices. They are typically 1-2 dollars a bottle.
How about Target? It says they will ship it for free with a $35 order. So if you buy some other things, that will work ($2.29 a bottle). Good luck.
https://www.target.com/p/clean-shower-d ... A-79389922
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ResearchMed
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by ResearchMed »

JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:57 pm
rgs92 wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:55 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:38 pm
Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
Amazon has lots of clean shower:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=clean+shower ... _nr_p_72_4
Look at the prices. They are typically 1-2 dollars a bottle.
Has anyone tried the 50:50 combination of Dawn & white vinegar? (Heat before putting into spray bottle if there are more deposits to clean)

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JBTX
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by JBTX »

ResearchMed wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 3:26 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:57 pm
rgs92 wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:55 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:38 pm
Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
Amazon has lots of clean shower:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=clean+shower ... _nr_p_72_4
Look at the prices. They are typically 1-2 dollars a bottle.
Has anyone tried the 50:50 combination of Dawn & white vinegar? (Heat before putting into spray bottle if there are more deposits to clean)

RM
I am actually using a concoction of alcohol vinegar and a touch of dawn, heavily diluted. It does work. But vinegar is an acid and repeated use on tile, metal etc probably not optimal.

Your suggestion is a very good remover of shower residue on glass. You just have to scrub a bit.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by JBTX »

rgs92 wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 3:05 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:57 pm
rgs92 wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 2:55 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:38 pm
Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
Amazon has lots of clean shower:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=clean+shower ... _nr_p_72_4
Look at the prices. They are typically 1-2 dollars a bottle.
How about Target? It says they will ship it for free with a $35 order. So if you buy some other things, that will work ($2.29 a bottle). Good luck.
https://www.target.com/p/clean-shower-d ... A-79389922
Thanks. I actually ordered from Target weeks ago and that portion of the order was never filled. It shows in store. Im just too lazy to go n
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El Greco
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by El Greco »

Let's see:

Paper towels (again)
3 oz bathroom size Dixie cups
Paprika
Various brands of dijon mustard
Microwave jasmine rice packs
Chunky Beef with Barley soup
Frozen Cut leaf spinach
Tilex
Shredded cole slaw mix
Claussen pickles
GasX chewable tablets
Vitamin C tablets
Last edited by El Greco on Sun Sep 06, 2020 11:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Freetime76
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Freetime76 »

nisiprius wrote: Thu Jul 16, 2020 9:55 am What I've seen is consistent with the hypothesis that our normal smoothly-flowing manufacturing, distribution, and stocking flow has gotten more turbulent. There's no particular pattern to it.
Sample size n=3, different states “all stores” because aunt and mom check several. I only have Walmart.
Item. Mom. Aunt. Me
Charmin. Out of stock. Plenty. Available
Campbell’s soup. Completely gone. Nada. Plenty. Some, but not all kinds.
Swiffer duster. None. Found some. Plenty.
CleanShower. 2 on shelf. Bought both. None anywhere. Out of stock.
Scott’s 1000 tp. None. ? Sporadic supply
Soymilk. Plenty. Plenty. Sporadic supply.
Brown sugar. Plenty. ? Comes and goes
Tuna in water (can). None. Sporadic Rare as the white buffalo.

Fresh produce and bakery seems ok in supply now.

My mom must be a closet Boglehead...she told me she bought 2 of everything when they had it and blew the budget.
She spent about $100 extra.
Please spell out new acronyms. Thank you.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Mudpuppy »

JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:38 pm Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
You could always try to approximate your own from this American Chemical Society post: https://pubsapp.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/s ... 9sci2.html
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by JBTX »

Mudpuppy wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 7:55 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:38 pm Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
You could always try to approximate your own from this American Chemical Society post: https://pubsapp.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/s ... 9sci2.html
Believe it or not I already did that and found that exact site. Basically it is alcohol, a surfactant and some other chemical that has ammonia and acetate. Probably not a coincidence that a mixture of alcohol vinegar and dawn kind of get you to the same place.
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ResearchMed
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by ResearchMed »

JBTX wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:08 am
Mudpuppy wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 7:55 pm
JBTX wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:38 pm Also, clean shower daily shower cleaner. Can't find it anywhere.
You could always try to approximate your own from this American Chemical Society post: https://pubsapp.acs.org/cen/whatstuff/s ... 9sci2.html
Believe it or not I already did that and found that exact site. Basically it is alcohol, a surfactant and some other chemical that has ammonia and acetate. Probably not a coincidence that a mixture of alcohol vinegar and dawn kind of get you to the same place.
"Alcohol"?

I seem to remember something with that name in the past! Was it mostly available in pharmacies, maybe?
IIRC, it was available in bottles, or sometimes, really conveniently, already absorbed by little pieces of some sort of soft papery substance.

Ah, memories :wink:

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pjhalifax
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by pjhalifax »

Red wine vinegar has vanished from the stores around me...that's an odd one. What are y'all doing with all that vinegar??
66Sally
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by 66Sally »

I bought red wine vinegar at Aldi here in East TN the other day. :happy
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Chip »

pjhalifax wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 7:00 am Red wine vinegar has vanished from the stores around me...that's an odd one. What are y'all doing with all that vinegar??
I mentioned the same thing earlier in the thread. It turns out that the supply problem in my area was only at Kroger stores. Wal-Mart had plenty of the Pompeii brand that I prefer.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by chemocean »

lthenderson wrote: Mon Aug 31, 2020 1:24 pm
chemocean wrote: Sat Aug 29, 2020 6:58 pm Regular sized canning lids. Maybe the supply will increase as peach canning season wanes, before pear season starts.
I discovered this as well a couple weeks ago but found that you can order them directly through BallMason if desired. I ordered enough to finish out this year and take care of next year as well. They had two weeks delivery times so mine should hopefully arrive this week.

https://www.ballmasonlids.com/?gclid=EA ... gKTwPD_BwE
I saw the offers on the internet, but they were over $10 for a pack of 12. I got three packs at a high-end grocery store for $3.45 /12 pack.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by jebmke »

Contractor we use regularly was out to do a minor roof repair today. He said lumber prices are skyrocketing around here -- if you can even find it. Not your typical recession.
Don't trust me, look it up. https://www.irs.gov/forms-instructions-and-publications
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by iamlucky13 »

jebmke wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 5:20 pm Contractor we use regularly was out to do a minor roof repair today. He said lumber prices are skyrocketing around here -- if you can even find it. Not your typical recession.
I'm adding to this one:

Declining lumber supplies were driven home today by $170 higher bill than I planned for 2 weeks ago.

I previously bought a small quantity of the lumber needed for a fence project. After making sure everything was going together and looked the way I envisioned, I went back to the local lumber yard to get the rest of my supplies. I thought the price was different when they rang me up.

I compared receipts when I got home and found out the prices had gone up by about 25% on average, in just 2 weeks!

NASDAQ commodities tracking confirms lumber prices started skyrocketing in July:
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/commodities/lbs
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by curmudgeon »

iamlucky13 wrote: Sat Sep 05, 2020 11:31 pm
jebmke wrote: Tue Sep 01, 2020 5:20 pm Contractor we use regularly was out to do a minor roof repair today. He said lumber prices are skyrocketing around here -- if you can even find it. Not your typical recession.
I'm adding to this one:

Declining lumber supplies were driven home today by $170 higher bill than I planned for 2 weeks ago.

I previously bought a small quantity of the lumber needed for a fence project. After making sure everything was going together and looked the way I envisioned, I went back to the local lumber yard to get the rest of my supplies. I thought the price was different when they rang me up.

I compared receipts when I got home and found out the prices had gone up by about 25% on average, in just 2 weeks!

NASDAQ commodities tracking confirms lumber prices started skyrocketing in July:
https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/commodities/lbs
I suspect lumber will be much cheaper next year with all the salvage logging from the fires in WA/OR/CA ... (lots of times the trees are killed by the fire, but not deeply burned).
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Watty
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Watty »

I just heard of something else that is in short supply. That is garbage bins. In my suburban location each house gets a wheeled trash can and a similar looking wheeled container for recycling.

In my area the trash service is not provided by the city or HOA so each homeowner has to contact a trash company and the trash company provides the containers. Some people have tried to set up new service and the some of the trash companies are not taking new customers because they do not have any trash or recycling containers that they can give to new customers.

I looked on the internet and there were several mentions of this shortage and there were not a lot of details but it sounded like like with more people working from home people have been generating more trash.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by jcar »

I ordered a new gas range on line in late March. They had no availability until September. They honored the March price which was great as this range went up 300.00 between order and delivery.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Thegame14 »

off and on I have had trouble finding Diet Mountain Dew at the Big name groery stores, Stop and shop and Shoprite, so when they have it and it is on sale, I stock up.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by moladybug »

Lysol laundry sanitizer
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heartwood
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by heartwood »

Note this is an update to an old thread.

We've been buying a lot of household items online at Costco.com. Haven't been to an actual Costco since early March. Costco.com notes items may be cheaper in the warehouse. Many household items at Costco are limited to one of an item and are two-day shipping items that have a $3/item shipping charge unless your 2-day item total is over $75. Easy to add $9 or $12 so I try to combine to get to $75. We'd got used to paying the fee for things that were not available locally.

I've been trying to do an order for a week or so and the items I want are disappearing from the site. No more Charmin even listed. Yesterday, no KIrkland TP listed at all. No Kirkland kitchen 13 gal garbage bags, only a note that its unavailable through 12/31 online and status will be updated 1/1/21. Something else I looked at, the unavailable till date was in June 2021.

Are these items still available in the warehouse near you? Costco.com says they may be in limited quantities.

We have much food etc delivered. It's become a very poor experience again lately. Did a supermarket order that actually went to Instacart. Ordered over $100, plus delivery chg, tip, brought it to $130+. We got only $24 of our order and paid an additional $20 for delivery and tips that were based on the original full order. I called both the store and Instacart with no satisfaction.

When we do shop the actual stores it seems like we're back in April. Meat, seafood, produce, dairy easily available. Most packaged food easily available. Paper products mostly no brand names or just empty shelves. Diet Pepsi caffeine free in cans is finally back in store. Polar seltzer cans is very hit/miss. This week we also saw a line to get in to Trader Joe's, first time since June? Maybe that's Thanksgiving coming? No lines at other stores.

Got an email yesterday from a left-coast friend in the Bay area describing similar situations there.

I thought the shortages were mostly behind us and was thinking of cleaning out our basement freezer. Food is still good availability; paper products not so.

This did just start as a heads-up on costco.com household items unavailability.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by InMyDreams »

heartwood wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 7:38 am
I thought the shortages were mostly behind us and was thinking of cleaning out our basement freezer. Food is still good availability; paper products not so.
Mr Money Mustache has an ongoing thread "Pandemic Hoarding" that has had posts about sell outs for the last month or so. Good to note that they have many posts from outside the US, too
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welco ... msg2736812

I have not noticed any empty slots on store shelves in my area, tho I don't often go to Costco. I do try to stay ahead by '1' for staples - i.e., open a new bottle or package, get a new one - or even grabbed one as the in-use started to get low.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Mudpuppy »

heartwood wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 7:38 am I thought the shortages were mostly behind us and was thinking of cleaning out our basement freezer. Food is still good availability; paper products not so.
I had to put in curbside pickup orders at two different grocery stores and a Target this weekend to get almost everything I would normally have gotten in one pickup order at the closest grocery store.

I do plan to do a run by Target or Walmart curbside pickup for general cleaning products this upcoming weekend, which is what I have done on the weekend before Thanksgiving for many years (I refuse to go in a store during holiday season to buy cleaning supplies or paper products).

My co-worker who is still doing in-store shopping says the paper products are going quickly, but there are still adequate cleaning supplies. Thankfully, I am well-stocked on the paper products front since those are easily shipped. I'm not a fan of shipping liquid cleaning supplies though.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Mudpuppy »

InMyDreams wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 9:06 am Mr Money Mustache has an ongoing thread "Pandemic Hoarding" that has had posts about sell outs for the last month or so. Good to note that they have many posts from outside the US, too
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/welco ... msg2736812
I'd like to point out that the MudPuppy on Mr. Money Mustache is not me, as evidenced by the fact that that MudPuppy can eat apples. I miss apples (particularly apple sauce and apple pie), but allergies are not to be trifled with.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by jlawrence01 »

We use the "Curbside pickup" at Frys (Kroger) and Walmart once a week for most of our grocery spend with an occasional stop at 99 Only in store.

We have really experienced no shortages in the past three months. We have been able to buy bleach, sanitizing wipes, toilet paper, King Arthur flour, all meat items, and everything else we could not in March.

A lot of my neighbors have pulled together to get through any more of these future "manufactured" shortages. One of our neighbors who has a garage has a strategic reserve of toilet paper and a few other products. We have a lot of food storage so we have a large supply of various canned goods should someone run short.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Marylander1 »

heartwood wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 7:38 am I've been trying to do an order for a week or so and the items I want are disappearing from the site. No more Charmin even listed. Yesterday, no KIrkland TP listed at all. No Kirkland kitchen 13 gal garbage bags, only a note that its unavailable through 12/31 online and status will be updated 1/1/21. Something else I looked at, the unavailable till date was in June 2021.

Are these items still available in the warehouse near you? Costco.com says they may be in limited quantities.
Our local Costco has both types of Kirkland 13-gallon kitchen trash bags in stock (unscented and scented), ready for delivery from https://sameday.costco.com/store/costco ... ash%20bags

Toilet paper is out of stock, except for giant commercial rolls.

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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by egrets »

heartwood wrote: Wed Nov 18, 2020 7:38 am Diet Pepsi caffeine free in cans is finally back in store. Polar seltzer cans is very hit/miss.
Diet coke caffeine free in cans finally showed up again a week or two ago in my area. In bottles, which have been available, it tastes awful, imho.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by EnjoyIt »

These shortage descriptions I am reading in the last few posts above is not what I am seeing when going to stores.

Those with shortages, what states are you writing from?

I don’t do curbside pickup (hate how they pick produce) and find myself at the supermarket probably every 3-4 days. Sometimes one of my regularly used items is empty but usually right back to full stock on the following visit so it has not been a big deal.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

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EnjoyIt wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 3:56 am I don’t do curbside pickup (hate how they pick produce) and find myself at the supermarket probably every 3-4 days.
The only place I buy produce from except in store is Amazon Whole Foods. They, like a local small market, have much better produce than Peapod etc. All the produce AWF delivers is fine.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by TomatoTomahto »

egrets wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:50 am
EnjoyIt wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 3:56 am I don’t do curbside pickup (hate how they pick produce) and find myself at the supermarket probably every 3-4 days.
The only place I buy produce from except in store is Amazon Whole Foods. They, like a local small market, have much better produce than Peapod etc. All the produce AWF delivers is fine.
I prefer Whole Foods for produce, but Wegmans is usually good. Their substitutions are wacky, but their app lets me decline/accept proposed substitutions.
I get the FI part but not the RE part of FIRE.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by EnjoyIt »

TomatoTomahto wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:53 am
egrets wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 7:50 am
EnjoyIt wrote: Thu Nov 19, 2020 3:56 am I don’t do curbside pickup (hate how they pick produce) and find myself at the supermarket probably every 3-4 days.
The only place I buy produce from except in store is Amazon Whole Foods. They, like a local small market, have much better produce than Peapod etc. All the produce AWF delivers is fine.
I prefer Whole Foods for produce, but Wegmans is usually good. Their substitutions are wacky, but their app lets me decline/accept proposed substitutions.
Wegman's is the best supermarket in the US I have ever been to.
Whole foods I find hit or miss, particularly on the price. A lot of very expensive items with no real improvement in quality. If I want Whole Foods type stuff, I prefer Trader Joes or Sprouts. I have this sense at Whole foods that they think that if they put the word "organic" on an item they can charge whatever they want. And they are probably right because people will pay just about anything for that word. I will admit, I have not been in a whole foods for a few years now so they may have changed since Amazon took over.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by TomatoTomahto »

EnjoyIt wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 8:27 am Wegmans is the best supermarket in the US I have ever been to.
With a local Wegmans and an Instacart membership, we have had a much better quarantine than many. Now if I could just convince the shoppers that iceberg lettuce is not a substitute for anything green . . . 🤣
I get the FI part but not the RE part of FIRE.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by Tamarind »

Shrimp. I went looking for a bag of EZ peel frozen shrimp for a dinner I was planning and could only find a single option at $18/lb. The fresh shrimp at the seafood counter were also twice the usual price. I rejiggered my menu.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by heartwood »

TomatoTomahto wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 8:45 am
EnjoyIt wrote: Fri Nov 20, 2020 8:27 am Wegmans is the best supermarket in the US I have ever been to.
With a local Wegmans and an Instacart membership, we have had a much better quarantine than many. Now if I could just convince the shoppers that iceberg lettuce is not a substitute for anything green . . . 🤣
your mileage varies from mine. The market I describe above is Wegmans. $100+ instacart order, plus $25 fees and tip; received $23(?) of the order plus $25 add ons, total $47. No satisfaction after contacting Wegmans (local & corp) and Instacart.

The best delivery for us is Amazon Whole Foods, not WF delivery. The produce is better than usually found in my actual market. Plus delivery is 2-4 hours, no fee (if over $30?), very moderate suggested tips. Experiences obviously differ by location. Our delivery experience completely changed when Amazon/WF became available in my area in April/May.
Last edited by heartwood on Fri Nov 20, 2020 9:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

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I removed a post discussing the coronavirus. As a reminder, see: Please read before posting on coronavirus/COVID-19
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

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I can’t get parts for the awning on my motorhome. Everything is back ordered until at least January, and the factory is currently closed because of an outbreak.
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Re: Oddly Difficult to Find Items During the Pandemic

Post by EnjoyIt »

Weights. It is impossible to find good gym equipment these days. Everywhere is sold out, and if it isn't, there is a 2x-3x markup.
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