Anne,
I'm thinking the same way. How much does one really need to store away?
My life now is that we moved to a smaller home with 3 young adult kids so we are 5 adults in the home. I used to always have a full storage of TP, paper towels, canned goods, etc. but now the 3 kids are all away at college or working- one who just graduated college and is a teacher but living at home with us. We used to have two freezers and two refrigerators but when we moved, we sold one freezer and left the old second refrigerator with the home. I really don't miss either one. I used to buy 6 gallons of milk at a time but now it's just one or two depending on how many people are home. All summer, when the kids were all home, we drank only two gallons of milk in about a 10 day time frame.
We realistically don't need the large quantities of anything anymore. We also moved from a large country home with a lot of space to a small city (outskirts of the city) home. My nearest grocery store is less than 2 miles away and if I need anything, it is easy to go get it. Now with only one kid home this school year, I suspect we'll need a whole lot less groceries and stockpiling isn't all that necessary for us. A filled pantry is always good for those nights we get home and put together a simple meal from the pantry without having to go out and get an item or two. What's also really nice is that my 22 YO daughter can help me put together a simple meal. She shoots out some ideas and together we put it together. It helps her learn how to put a meal together and cook instead of running out to get something so that's a plus.
Alice