People who panic bought back in March, how did you get on?

CrankyHaus · 21-05-2020 10:44AM #1

Anyone who panic-bought stuff back in March when this crisis began, how did you get on with that stuff?
Did you get to avoid potentially unsafe trips to the supermarket for a few weeks?
Did you have to throw lots of stuff out as it went bad?
Were you able to use the excess to sort out elderly relatives or neighbours who may not have been able to safely shop for those items themselves?
Was your home crammed with stuff you didn't need?
Did you simply consume more to get through the excess shopping?

I'm not interested in the smug criticism sessions that these discussions can devolve into.
Panic buying was silly but nobody's perfect and I'm sure we all made mistakes in the face of this unprecedented crisis.

Church on Tuesday · 21-05-2020 10:48AM

It was a total disgrace and it's as simple as that.

Trigger Happy · 21-05-2020 10:53AM

They must be getting sick of the auld pasta dinners by now.

seamus · 21-05-2020 10:54AM

I doubt many people panic-bought perishables to be fair.

There are no doubt people right now with a year's supply of toilet roll under the stairs and an entire press in the kitchen filled with pasta and tins. I remember seeing a picture of a guy who had cooking oil stashed in every spare inch of his kitchen. We use about two bottles of cooking oil in a year. 100 bottles would outlast me. Could you imagine being stuck with several lifetime's supply of cooking oil?

Sunken costs fallacy tells us that they won't criticise themselves and admit that they overbought, they will tell themselves that they're quids in because they don't need to buy pasta or toilet roll till Christmas.

There will of course be others too who are convinced that the worst is yet to come and they'll be proven right shortly.

There are also people with thousands of euros worth of Nintendo Switches clogging up their spare bedroom because they believed others would be willing to part with any amount of money to stave away the boredom.

Mango Joe · 21-05-2020 10:58AM

Yes, its a pure joy isn't it?

There was so many small-minded, narcissistic, smug, C***s on here back in March gloating about how they'd wisely and prudently outshopped us all to stay at the pinnacle of the Darwin retail food chain.

Justifying clearing the shelves using their own selfish pseudo logic.

Now they're sitting at home anxiously checking the best before dates on 1001 different types of rank dried carbohydrates that nobody would ever choose to consume in a blind fit.

They're on course to finish the last package of Tesco macaroni and chemical cheese topping by March 2026.

Dickheads.

amadangomor · 21-05-2020 11:00AM

Was one of the ones who started stocking up gradually on non perishables about a month before we had all the panic buying. :cool: Just added a few to every shop I was doing.

Was sensible at the time as didnt know how bad it would be and a reasonable chance shopping could have been very limited for a while.

Probably have a couple of packs of pasta and a few tinned goods left. Will finish then in the next week or two.

NIMAN · 21-05-2020 11:00AM

seamus wrote: »

I doubt many people panic-bought perishables to be fair.

Did the head of one of the bin companies not say they seen a massive increase in food being thrown out just after the start of all this, and they put it down to people panic buying food then having to chuck it.

CrankyHaus · 21-05-2020 11:01AM

seamus wrote: »

There are also people with thousands of euros worth of Nintendo Switches clogging up their spare bedroom because they believed others would be willing to part with any amount of money to stave away the boredom.

What's the story here?
I occasionally see the Nintendo Switch Thread on the Front Page but pass right over it along with the obligatory 9/11 Conspiracy update and Bitcoin's going to bounce back to its peak any day now thread.

amadangomor wrote: »

Was one of the ones who started stocking up gradually on non perishables about a month before we had all the panic buying. Just added a few to every shop I was doing.

Was sensible at the time as didnt know how bad it would be and a reasonable chance shopping could have been very limited for a while.

Probably have a couple of packs of pasta and a few tinned goods left. Will finish then in the next week or two.

I did this with 2 weeks worth of stuff, just in case I got the virus and had to self-isolate. I live alone so it was just an extra 5 tins or so for each of 4 weekly shops in February.

Blueshoe · 21-05-2020 11:01AM

I bought a second hand chest freezer for 40 euro before the lockdown and plugged it in the shed of my now cocooning parents house. I filled it with food for them and they have made great use of it.

colm_mcm · 21-05-2020 11:03AM

I bought a few frozen pizzas, they’re still in there. Bought 2 tins of Lidl spam type meat as well.
Have a good few bottles of water from March too.

Didn’t go too mad.

Grab All Association · 21-05-2020 11:03AM

I sat back and watched them fight over toilet paper, Tayto and bread whilst ignoring the fresh packaged meats that could be frozen. No wonder we have a diabetes crisis in this country

Same thing at Christmas ffs women fighting in Lidl over boxes of Tayto

John_Rambo · 21-05-2020 11:09AM

I stocked up in January for my elderly folks after one of my bio-science clients warned me to.
My mother is ill and C-19 would hit her hard and she was very anxious at the start. Got them a chest freezer and lots of healthy freezable stuff. They didn't need to leave the house and I just had to get them the bare essentials.

the beer revolu · 21-05-2020 11:18AM

I'm slightly over stocked with black turtle beans, pinto beans and lentils!
The 20kg bag of Thai rice is being worked through fine (they were out of 10kg bags).

Don't think I stocked up with anything else.
Needed toilet paper at the time of the crazyness. We'd generally buy 10 or 12 rolls at a time, anyway. Might stock up again one of these days.

At the best of times, we'd tend to buy certain food items in bulk and always have plenty of food in stock, so nothing really changed.

Rockbeast2 · 21-05-2020 11:26AM

It is unlikely that my mother will require any tinned goods for at least six years.

She is in possession of at least 300 tins of beans/peas/sweetcorn/pears/peaches, etc., all bought over about 2 weeks as this thing kicked off.

Most is very edible, save for tinned "meatballs" purchased from either Tesco or Lidl. I would honestly rather eat dog food.

Feisar · 21-05-2020 11:28AM

There was no panic buying, everyone only went out and got a few bits. It's a bit like the people astonished at the ques while in the que, people never seem to think they are part of the problem.

the beer revolu · 21-05-2020 11:30AM

My mother-in-law would routinely have huge stocks of toilet paper and kitchen roll, stashed allover the house.
I think I estimated over 50 rolls of kitchen roll, some years ago. Similar with toilet paper.

I'm not sure if she increased her stockpiling recently.

the beer revolu · 21-05-2020 11:31AM

Feisar wrote: »

There was no panic buying, everyone only went out and got a few bits. It's a bit like the people astonished at the ques while in the que, people never seem to think they are part of the problem.

Not my observations at the time.

Mr. CooL ICE · 21-05-2020 11:31AM

Probably doesn't count, but i did buy 3kg of natural peanut butter that was on special offer. No regrets as I'm 2/3 of the way through, but one opened pot is sitting at my desk in work and that could be in any state when I get back

Steven81 · 21-05-2020 11:34AM

I was stocking up more in back end of feb, we eat a lot of pasta and as it was on offer stocked up well, had to purchase again last week at full price.

As the cupboards were well full shopping went from weekly to 10-11 days so less visits apart from the likes of milk/ bread. Did I purchase anything I won’t use no, shopping should be about planning and daily meals until the next shop. If there is something on offer though that won’t go off and is constantly used I would purchase it.

When there was the initial day or two panic I had no issues, didn’t need to go and would have managed just fine.

El_Duderino 09 · 21-05-2020 12:26PM

I bought some extra stuff with each shop. Dried goods and things we would use anyway. They're up in the attic still and we're going to start rotating them to make sure nothing goes off. I wouldn't be so quick to criticise until after this year's harvest. If they don't manage to harvest things ot if they missed the opportunity to plant crops because of lockdown, then I'd expect some shortages next year. But it's probably not going to be bad or we can at least mix things up. So it will be fine.

But in general it seems that the initial fear of immediate shortages due to broken supply lines, didn't happen. So that's good.

Snow Garden · 21-05-2020 12:42PM

Did we ever figure out why the panic buying idiots bought so much loo roll?

Snow Garden · 21-05-2020 12:44PM

Feisar wrote: »

There was no panic buying, everyone only went out and got a few bits. It's a bit like the people astonished at the ques while in the que, people never seem to think they are part of the problem.

That's nonsense. People bought like Christmas and a Nuclear winter was coming. And then they went back for more. They were the original Covidiots.
They did not care about anyone else especially the poor supermarket staff.

El_Duderino 09 · 21-05-2020 12:45PM

Snow Garden wrote: »

Did we ever figure out why the panic buying idiots bought so much loo roll?

It was the urge to panic but and stock up but without any clue about what was sensible to stock up with.

I also saw lots of people who stocked up on things and used those things straight away. The principle of stocking up,is to have additional stuff stashed away for the future when there isn't stuff available at that time. Bog roll was always nonsense. Just showed people weren't thinking it through.

colm_mcm · 21-05-2020 12:46PM

Snow Garden wrote: »

Did we ever figure out why the panic buying idiots bought so much loo roll?

Because they were afraid they would run out and have to wipe their arses with their bare hands.

At a guess.

El_Duderino 09 · 21-05-2020 12:49PM

colm_mcm wrote: »

Because they were afraid they would run out and have to wipe their arses with their bare hands.

At a guess.

But if you're at home under lockdown, you could just hop in the shower to clean up. It would have been fine. If people thought about it, it would have been fine.

21-05-2020 12:49PM

I do a big shop around payday every month. Added in a few extra items but didn't go mad. Was glad to have it as home delivery options became very scarce in March and April.

Away With The Fairies · 21-05-2020 12:50PM

Only really stocked up on food for when I'm sick. I always eat cornflakes when I'm sick, so plenty of boxes of cornflakes and powdered milk. And tea bags. Should get me through a few weeks if I was to get sick and stay at home.

21-05-2020 12:51PM

Snow Garden wrote: »

Did we ever figure out why the panic buying idiots bought so much loo roll?

Because some people wanted to feel like Will Smith in I am Legend, or Charleton Heston in The Omega Man.

21-05-2020 12:52PM

I've worked from home since 2017, so no real change for me in that, but the other half does have a public facing role and while the majority of that aspect has been reduced, she is still working six days a week with some public interaction. So we decided to do a two week stock of non perishable goods just in case we had to self isolate, but have been using and replacing stuff from it as part of the regular shop.

Apart from milk and bread, I normally do a two week shop and have continued to do so. Had just done our regular shop before the restrictions were first announced and so wasn't affected by any empty shelves of toilet paper etc as they were all back in stock by the time I was back for the regular shop. Helps that we have our own chickens so no problem getting eggs and were able to give some of the excess to some of our neighbours when they couldn't get any at the time. Would love to grow some of our own veg, and planning on setting this up if I get some time.

Don't really blame anyone for panicking, given that it was an unknown situation and what was happening in other countries. Another factor and another reason I don't bother with it, was the amount of bs that was being posted on social media and from some of the posters on here, claiming that the supply chain was about to break down and the army was going to be on the streets in March based on the retailer whatsapp group that they are part of or from their cousin who is in the FCA, were imo regularly posting bullsh1t even before covid and are now doing the same and moaning away in the relaxation of restrictions thread or claiming that it's so that we can be tracked by an eventful vaccine or 5g etc.

RobbingBandit · 21-05-2020 12:53PM

Only panic but I did was buy a Nintendo Switch on March 16 in Newry which unfortunately malfunctioned in early April looks like it'll be a month or so before I can return it.

Snow Garden · 21-05-2020 12:53PM

Away With The Fairies wrote: »

Only really stocked up on food for when I'm sick. I always eat cornflakes when I'm sick, so plenty of boxes of cornflakes and powdered milk. And tea bags. Should get me through a few weeks if I was to get sick and stay at home.

You should inform Trump of this on Twitter!

People who panic bought back in March, how did you get on?

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