Essentials list
What the household needs, by phase, with have, borrow, secondhand or buy marked and the secondhand checks recorded. Seeded from your setup; everything you type stays in this browser.
Essential on a first pass: the first-night and first-week rows, each marked have, borrow, secondhand or buy. The first-month rows and the costs can wait a week; the later rows are on the essentials reference, not here. Essentials in phases explains the phases and the checks.
Items
One row per item (Essentials in phases, Limited space, A working kitchen and Cleaning safely). A blank cost means not answered yet, and any total over a blank cost is marked incomplete; type 0 for something that costs nothing (you have it, or you are borrowing it).
How to use this sheet
- Delete first. Remove every row you already have or will not use. The seeded list is a starting list, not a target.
- Source. Have, borrow, secondhand or buy. The decision is yours; Essentials in phases lists what usually decides it.
- Cost: blank means not answered. A blank cost is shown as unknown and any total over it is marked incomplete. Type 0 for something that costs nothing because you have it or are borrowing it.
- Checks done. For a secondhand item: the recall search, and for a mattress or upholstered piece, the bed bug check. Check it only when both are done.
- Where it lives. Limited space fills this column: one place for each kept thing.
The example rows are Dani's (fictional): a shower curtain and liner bought for the first night at $18, done; and a small secondhand table for the first month at $25, with the recall search done and the table not yet picked up. Amounts are invented for the arithmetic.
The list does not say what to spend, which brands to buy or whether to borrow. The secondhand checks reduce the chance of a recalled or infested item; they do not prove an item is safe. Car seats, helmets and medical devices are outside this manual.