With all the refunds being issued back for purchases on theater tickets and even flights, it’s almost like we’re spending money on nothing now other than food. Our grocery runs have been the biggest they’ve ever been. In the past, I was so used to making a quick stop by Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods en route home for just a handful of items whenever I needed them. Now, I’m thinking about food that we’re going to eat tonight, tomorrow, in a week, and even weeks from now, just so that we have it in stock and that I don’t have to think about it… and so that I don’t have to queue up in yet another long line for groceries the way I did last week when I waited over 40 minutes just to enter Trader Joe’s. While it was nice to shop in a nearly empty Trader Joe’s on the Upper West Side given that they are limiting the number of people entering for social distancing reasons, it was also quite eerie and surreal.

Chris is so used to having barista made coffee at work when he’s not doing work travel, so now we’re spending a lot more on fancy coffee beans than ever before. I used to rely on my office for things like bananas, morning yogurt, or even oat/cow milk for my morning tea, and now I have to buy more of all of that now. We led such frou-frou, privileged lives before in our white-tower tech companies that we never really thought much about all the “savings” we got by working at these places. And don’t even get me started on kitchen/bathroom supplies like toilet paper and paper towels. When you only use one toilet for all your bathroom runs… that toilet paper really goes much quicker than you’d think. I’ve been getting better at not using kitchen paper towels and instead relying on cloth towels, but with toilet paper, there’s really no other alternative, is there?

We’re also eating more at home, which means we are running the dishwasher more, which means more dishwasher tablets need to be purchased. And with always being home and being on high alert for the virus, we’re washing our hands even more than before, which means we need more soap. The cycle never seems to end during a pandemic of all the things you use more of that you need that you never really thought much about before.