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Hoarding is the process of collecting things not for use. Stocking is the process of collecting things that will be used.
While hoarders can hoard food they rarely eat it because it is for the future not for consumption.
 
Part of this is in the eyes of the beholder. For the leftist, "stocking up" to be able to survive in times of need is what they define as hoarding. They will do this to justify taking it from you. Just remember that. Remember they did this during the early phase of Covid. They will do it again.
 
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Hoarders are just a mess. Don't even know what they have. Keep buying more because they can't find what they need. Preppers buy what they need, and in the case of food, rotate it and use it. I would say prepping is a way of life, as it is for our family. Guess hoarders think the same. Preppers want to stock up and be left alone. I think hoarders want to hang out at the store and keep getting junk.
 
randyt said:
need help defining hoarding
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One of my very favorite subjects. Where-as many here will cover the subject.......here is my personal "Rant".

If I have three years of food, I am declared stupid, as that money would have been more wisely invested in Stocks and Bonds, and other non-eatable investments. It should be noted loudly here that having hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars stored in non-eatable digital/paper investment is 100% for sure "NOT" hoarding.

Should I point out that those people are hoarding wealth, they go bat'spit crazy, telling me I am wrong and a fool.

However should the preverbal SHTF, and all their non-eatable digital/paper investments vanish. "WOWZERS"........suddenly I am an evil hoarder person for having food they want and need.

Yet, if I want and need money.......they say, "Dude, that money is mine, and I sure as hell ain't sharing my money with you".

It gets more interesting because if I take or steal their money, the legal systems send me to prison. But if they are hungry and take my food.....well that is different, they needed it to survive, and beside you were hoarding.

And yet, if I had no food, and I am starving, and I ask them to share a small amount of money to help........they would laugh, and say it is my fault I have so poorly planned my life.

Funny.......how things can be viewed so differently.
 
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Here is another definition. Somebody stocks or preps when it is their normal way of life. Hoarding is when someone runs out at the last minute and buys all available stocks of an item either with the intent of never running out or with the intent of selling at a profit. The primary difference being whether the purchase was made in the normal course of business or within a window of expected shortage.

Hoarding, like many other words, has differing definitions depending on context.
 
This exact question came up on a Canadian prepper group I'm on, some of the answers though were absolutely boggling. I'm going to repeat, this was a prepper and survival group! I say this because a rather large number of people seemed to agree with a statement saying anything more than a month or so of supplies was hoarding.
Certainly there were a lot of people who disagreed with them as well. But still.
 
A month? Winter lasts three to four months! A bad season puts food a year or so off.
 
Rebecca said:
My thinking exactly. Hence why I couldn't believe how many people agreed with the nonsense!
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I am planning to feed my family and associates for a worse case scenario where STHF after the growing season and we have to wait 1.5 years before we can eat from our harvest.

I also think that the smallest group that can mount a 3 person guard (1 in front 1 in back and another coordinating and backing up) 24X7 without the guards going crazy (been there done that in the Navy when just barely had enough people qualified to guard the nukes on board ) AND still have enough able bodied hands available to tend to the crops and rebuilding needs is 32 people.

So a total of everyone's preps should be about 48 person- YEARS worth of preps... as a minimal goal for the group to be prepared for TEOTWAKI where there nobody coming to save us and it up to us on our own to rebuild society.

We also will enough seed stock to plant the fields and access to arable land to grow the next years crops. Bonus if already have orchards and vineyards in place.

The term "horder" has a common meaning and a legal meaning.

A person that can not throw anything away (pizza boxes, stuffed animals, 10 or more toasters) is the common sense of the term.

One that buys out the local grocery stores of supplies just prior to an emergency is the legak sense.

A person that buys a truckload of toilet paper knowing that hurricane season may hit Florida next year is speculator which is a type of investor.

Nuff for now

Ben
 
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Rebecca said:
This exact question came up on a Canadian prepper group I'm on, some of the answers though were absolutely boggling. I'm going to repeat, this was a prepper and survival group! I say this because a rather large number of people seemed to agree with a statement saying anything more than a month or so of supplies was hoarding.
Certainly there were a lot of people who disagreed with them as well. But still.
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Knowing what you just learned........perhaps more ammo is needed.
 
hoarder | ˈhôrdər |

Prepper definition:
A fictional character based on the theory that someone can have too much of something.

Nonprepper definition:
Anybody that has more than I do.
 
What matters is not how much you have, but how much others don't have.

One of the things I keep harping on is knowing what others around you will do post SHTF. Even to the point of having had such an in-depth concentrated on that, that you have a list of names, or rough description of individuals and their temperament, flash anger, covert deception, etc. all written down, for you and others.

For example where I am, there are less then a dozen humans, plus 38 Grizzly Bears. I expect no change in the bears behavior. I do expect that nearly all humans will soon depart for city or town or family or friends.

I have thought and thought about each individual, and can't grasp any of them staying. The only one who would have stayed through intense hardship is my neighbor and friend who got mauled to death this summer, he was also the only one I would have fully trusted.
 
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Description:
Hoarding disorder is a persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions because of a perceived need to save them. A person with hoarding disorder experiences distress at the thought of getting rid of the items. Excessive accumulation of items, regardless of actual value, occurs.

I think it is virtually impossible for a prepper to also be a hoarder.
 
Yep. I'd say your were safe from marauders, BLM. and Antifa with those 38 bears.
I've been watching pandemic preppers on YouTube. They are showing what they've done. Most started in March or April of this year, and their first videos they explain that they are not crazy and why they are buying extra. All the newbies that I've seen live in a city or large suburb. They buy shelving from Home Depot, and set up in their basement if they have one, and usually their dining room (seldom used) or spare bedroom. It's fun to watch what they buy. Most are quick to say that they are not hoarding, or taking "ALL" of an item off the shelf at the store. I try to give an encouraging word in the comments, but boy, do they have alot to buy. And some of them don't know how to cook, so that's interesting to see what they buy. It was annoying to hear "some people" comment in the spring when the stores in the cities were out of stuff, that the preppers were hoarding. Not so! I've been prepping food stuff for over 10 years. I don't need to clean out any store shelves at this point. Just add a little bit each week to replace, or try something new for a change.
 
Preppers control their purchases. Hoarders are controlled by their purchases.

@Sourdough I usually compare it to insurance rather than investments. You pay auto insurance in case you get in an accident, health insurance in case you get sick. Go pay food insurance in case of shortage. I prefer to be self insured. This is an analogy I've shared.
 
randyt said:
need help defining hoarding as compared to stocking up. Is there a difference? if so what is it?
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My wife is a hoarder. She has stuff that fills the house she has acquired because it was emotional satisfying for her to do so. Zero value during a SHTF or TEOTWAWKI. Example; dozens of empty decorative boxes.

I'm a stocker. Items that do have a SHTF or TEOTWAWKI value that will be used on a daily basis too. Example; freeze dried food that I also use for camping.
 
I liked Sheepdog's definition the best. Preppers keep what they need. Hoarders keep everything. My wife's family has a dominant Hoarding gene. Her favorite saying is "I might need it someday." and of course she will point to the one time in a thousand where she threw something out, and had to buy another one.

I have come to grips with this personality trait, and now look on it in a different light. I no longer look at it as hoarding. I look at it as items for BARTER. How many of you could open a school with the stuff in your basement? How many of you could clothe a neighborhood with what you have in one closet? It doesn't interfere with life. We have the room/space. I can keep my preps in a manageable area where I can find everything. We agree on food preps, so that is a common goal.

Rebecca: A month? Seriously? I know that you know better, but in your neck of the woods Summer is two weeks of bad skiing. How could they possibly think that a month is enough? A year would barely be enough.

Hoarders have 52 cats, and garbage stacked from floor to ceiling with narrow aisles that might get you from room to room. They haven't thrown ANYTHING away for years, including soda cans, beer cans, newspaper, and pizza boxes. I know. I had a SIL who fit that bill, God Rest her Soul.
 
The best definition is, "Stockpiling is what I do, hoarding is what others do." Seriously. The words in posts above are tripping all over themselves trying to present a stockpiler as someone smart and good, and dismissing a hoarder as some mentally inferior despicable to be shunned.

I am a bit of both. Call me a messy stockpiler or an organized hoarder. Take your pick, I've never been one to care much about how I am labeled. The more insulting the name given to me, the more merriment I get out of wearing it. 🤪
 
Too right Haertig. There is a lot of hoarding to my stockpiling. Broken stuff kept for repair parts for the item it was replaced by. I grew up where it was a couple hours to go to town to get parts. When you got there the clerk said that they'd be pleased to order it for you. All this for something you threw away a week or a month ago. You wanted the guy with the wrecking yard to be your friend.
 
randyt said:
defining hoarding as compared to stocking up. Is there a difference?
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What is interesting is that "Both" assume and imply that goods can be acquired with-in a year or two. I have a fairly large library of books written 1881 through 1940'ish by those living or attempting to live in wilderness Alaska or wilderness Africa. Goods were referred to as "Supplies". I have never seen the "word" hoarding in any of those books.

I go to town once a year for supplies. But if a city person came here they would view my minimal supplies as hoarding. When everything is available from a short car drive that is one thing. If it comes in by packhorse or sled dog or backpacked in over rough trail, it is never considered excessive.

I'll admit that when guiding hunters, and living in a tent for 90 days straight, in deep-deep wilderness Alaska, I do hoard cookies and coffee and butt'wipe.
 
hiwall said:
I think it is virtually impossible for a prepper to also be a hoarder.
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I disagree. I don't think I'm a hoarder b/c most of my stuff is pretty well organized. I also don't collect empty cans, pizza boxes, or dead cats. I can get thru my stuff without having to have a map or getting trapped in an avalanche of stuff. Still, I do keep things I probably will never use. Hubs thinks I have hoarding tendencies......he's not wrong. But, we're both OK with it b/c it has helped both of us on occasion. We also have a big barn for my stuff, so I can keep it fairly organized. When I'm dead and gone, whoever gets all this stuff can have a hell of a garage sale.

LadyLocust said:
Preppers control their purchases. Hoarders are controlled by their purchases.
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I like that.

Morgan101 said:
I liked Sheepdog's definition the best. Preppers keep what they need. Hoarders keep everything. My wife's family has a dominant Hoarding gene. Her favorite saying is "I might need it someday." and of course she will point to the one time in a thousand where she threw something out, and had to buy another one.

I have come to grips with this personality trait, and now look on it in a different light. I no longer look at it as hoarding. I look at it as items for BARTER. How many of you could open a school with the stuff in your basement? How many of you could clothe a neighborhood with what you have in one closet? It doesn't interfere with life. We have the room/space. I can keep my preps in a manageable area where I can find everything. We agree on food preps, so that is a common goal.
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I can totally relate to this post. I've never bought anything I couldn't afford. I also like to hoard Benjamins, so if I don't have them to spend, I don't spend. At this point, we're pretty much semi-retired so we have a steady income stream with not a lot to do with the cash. I feel more comfortable with assets than cash at this point. I guess I just like to be diversified. Perhaps that's just an excuse, but I have the room and it makes me feel better, so I just go with it.

Haertig said:
The best definition is, "Stockpiling is what I do, hoarding is what others do." Seriously. The words in posts above are tripping all over themselves trying to present a stockpiler as someone smart and good, and dismissing a hoarder as some mentally inferior despicable to be shunned.

I am a bit of both. Call me a messy stockpiler or an organized hoarder. Take your pick, I've never been one to care much about how I am labeled. The more insulting the name given to me, the more merriment I get out of wearing it. 🤪
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LOL! Love this post. I'm in full agreement Haertig!
 
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