Buying trolley loads of loo roll is bonkers, but I have ensured we have food/medicine to self-isolate my family for up to 3 weeks.

Hopefully it doesn’t get bad, but my job is all about risk analysis and contingency planning.

I still have my Brexit shelf of quinoa and cassoulet. And 6 weeks of toilet roll based upon 3/week. Unless that’s a poor assessment.

A thought today in Tesco, which had literally no loo roll or tissues whatsoever, no paracetemol, and hardly any soap… If people were really worried, they wouldn’t go “oh there’s no loo roll, never mind” they’d go “oh there’s no loo roll, I’ll buy kitchen roll because I can wipe my arse with that”. But those shelves are full.

I ended up getting loo roll from a local shop, because we actually needed some. But I felt a bit bad just buying bog roll and paracetemol because I looked like a panic buyer, so I got some vodka and some creme eggs too to make it clear that I was just doing a normal shop.

Perspective. I care for a 90 year old. Of course she has underlying health conditions.

Focus: Stop the virus getting into the house ideally as my likelihood of giving this to my mother are high if I catch it. Being a carer and self isolating? Right!….

Most of my purchases/precautions were sorted a couple of weeks back but have ramped up over the last week.

Purchases:

Meds, paracetamol and ibuprofen etc. etc. bought a while back.

Litres of IPA bought just as prices began to hike up. Decanted into small spray bottles from Amazon, dotted around the house and given to friends and family. I carry one with me all the time when out.

Lots of non perishable food, powdered milk etc. purchased some time back.

Digital thermometers. One each.

Toilet roll, tissues, kitchen roll.

Various surface sanitising products etc.

Masks bought before they went totally mental price… Only FFP2 but all I could get. If I need to wear it…the battle is probably lost already anyway. See comment above about self isolating as a carer.

Precautions:

As from a week ago I carry alcohol hand cleaner with me when out and I’ve limited shop purchases after seeing numerous workers and customers coughing into their hands as usual and then using atm machines, handling products in the shops etc etc. I have heard numerous people talking about this just “going away”. That delusion doesn’t give me faith in this ending well. This is the main reason I bought most of the stuff early. Covid lives on surfaces for at least 9 hours, probably days…

Every item brought into the house now is sprayed with some form of antibac (confirmed to kill other corona viruses) be it packaged food, prescription meds etc. Even letters/junk mail put through the door gets sprayed, left to dry, then opened. Bottoms of shoes sprayed just in case. When some men get colds etc they feel the need to spit on the pavements…

Mother told not to open the door to anyone for any reason whatsoever. If there is a knock,I answer the door.

Family/friends told to be prepared for us simply to say no to them coming over at some point soon. This includes my partner that lives separately from me. She works in a pathology lab at a hospital and is totally understanding bless her.

“Cleaning station” by front door. Basically a tray with various sanitising products ready to be used. Including one to spray on the other products AFTER their use to stop cross contamination on the bottles of spray.

A finger clip type blood oxygen monitor. Long reason why that is handy but can’t be bothered to type it all.

All the above is to ensure that I need to leave the house as little as possible…I’m the way the virus is likely get into the house…I’m a carer so this isn’t even that different to normal life for me these days anyway. If supply chains do begin to buckle it also ensures I am not hunting around shops for non existent basics whilst exposing myself to the virus for no good reason.

Over the top? I really bloody hope so! I really hope that a month or two from now I’m taking loads of food to the local church food bank and glancing at my chapped/dried hands* and you lot are ripping the proverbial p*** out of me.👍

*That part won’t happen, skin moisturiser also bought.

TLDR? I’m not prepared to have my 90 year old mother pay the price for me not bothering to get ready for this situation as it worsens. It hasn’t cost that much and just takes a bit of time and relearning some old habits. So what?

If she catches this virus it’ll almost certainly have come from me and me alone.

I don’t need that kind of guilt trip on my conscience.

And 6 weeks of toilet roll based upon 3/week. Unless that’s a poor assessment.

Sh*t assessment?

Call me silly but we shop weekly and I’ve put an extra weeks shop away in the freezer and cupboards. If I’m getting the virus (which is very likely as I work in acute healthcare with people coughing on me and we’ve just had it confirmed a 100 metres from me as I type.) then I’d rather rest easy than dick around getting food in or making my asthmatic mother go for me.

Also made sure we’ve got adequate paracetamol, calpol and ibuprofen. Got 9 bog rolls and some nappies for the little man.

I’m wondering about starting a couple more panic buying threads. I don’t need one now, but you never know.

In a few weeks time you may see some guy wearing leather bondage gear, with an Australian cattle dog by his side and a sawn off shotgun at 6am in your local Asda with flies round his head desperate to wipe his arse

I generally just shop every 3 or 4 days and don’t really have a stock of canned or dried goods – I did think I should probably get a few things in ‘just in case’ but I figure I can always just loot the nearest Tesco if they close it.

“oh there’s no loo roll, I’ll buy kitchen roll because I can wipe my arse with that”

And what would you do with the wiped paper? You’d soon be in a mess if you tried to flush it. And if everyone started doing it, there could be some serious blockages everywhere in the sewerage system.

Weekly shop report:  Situation normal with the exception of no bog roll, no hand gel and Italian ham on BOGOF!

Watched two ladies in Booths yesterday with a massive conundrum…they wanted tinned chopped tomatoes, but only the obviously Italian branded Napolina ones remained. They decided it was better to do without. 🙂 I reached passed them and picked up two. I didn’t need them at all, but thought it rather amusing to see the expression on their faces.

Not happy.
Today I have a moderate hangover, the kind that will be fine after the cure all of a bottle of full fat coke, a bacon and egg sarny and 2 paracetamol.
You can see where this is going can’t you? Nowhere has any.
How am I meant to pretend to function without this?
Livid.

Just been for a bit shop as needed some chicken. Shelves full of everything but Paracetamol which is great as I ran out the other day, still I’ll put up with the neck pains so others can have stock just in case. It was also extremely busy for this time of day, I guess the media panic has got all the pensioners out buying.

Did a shop at local lidl. Shelves pretty much full aside from tinned tomatoes cheap version, ibuprofen, hand gel. Got the last bottle of Jura malt at £19

im not going to panic buy, im just waiting for the lock down when everything can be looted for free.

sailor74
Member
im not going to panic buy, im just waiting for the lock down when everything can be looted for free.

55″ tv?😁

Mrs Scape is teacher, so I decided I’d get in some more storecupboard stuff to sit out the almost inevitable self-isolation. I visited three supermarkets as I was looking for strong flour for baking. Can’t find any anywhere! I did notice one thing though. The first one I visited was an Aldi in a less affluent area. There were no apparent shortages. Plenty of pasta, soaps and hand wash, and plenty of toilet paper. No strong flour, but then no shelf with a space where I’d have expected to see it, so thought they don’t stock it. Next Also was slightly bigger, in a more affluent catchment. There there was very little bar soap, but a reasonable amount of pumped hand wash, restricted to two per customer. Both had paracetamol, the second place had less toilet paper or kitchen rolls.

Wondering g whether the nearby Morrison’s had strong bread flour I made a third visit. Stark contrast. No pasta, no rice, no bog roll, no oats, no bread four or dried yeast, no paracetamol, no liquid soaps, but I did manage to bag a couple of Dove bars which Mrs Scape likes.

Does the panic-buying urge depend on the means to stock up above the normal weekly shop? Are people in the more affluent areas better able to equip themselves for self-isolation?

No. I already have a zombie apocalypse stash of supplies in the loft. Water purifiers, dehydrated food, heating/cooking fuel, sleeping and camping equipment.
Bog roll is the least of my concerns

Litres of IPA

Bought 5 litres of it in Morrisons this evening. Well at a quid a bottle for a decent 4.5% ale I couldn’t say no.

@scapegoat – was store 1 in Milnsbridge?

I went to Morrisons in Elland tonight. Not only have all the things mentioned in panic buying above been sold out, they’ve decided to rearrange the store in the middle of all the chaos. Madness!

@ElShalimo yes it was. Then Slawit, then Meltham.

My wife’s car was broken into outside our house yesterday when we got up. They had a really good rifle through it but left mine alone.

I’m not going to conclude that it was the motive, however the only thing stolen was a small bottle of hand sanitizer which was on display in a cubby hole near the gear stick….

Are people in the more affluent areas better able to equip themselves for self-isolation?

I made a similar observation – Sainsbury’s in West Hampstead stripped bare, Tesco in Uxbridge still reasonably well stocked.

I’m wondering about starting a couple more panic buying threads. I don’t need one now, but you never know.

👏👏

I think the supermarket delivery services will be put under quite a bit of pressure if a lot of people suddenly decide or get told to head home and stay there. Whether they will be able to provide a reliable service, particularly if their pickers/drivers also head home, is an interesting question.

Interestingly we did our usual delivery order last night and usually can pick any delivery slot we like across the weekend. No delivery slots available at all Friday, saturday and Sunday and also no click and collect available Friday or Saturday. usual items ordered and out of stock was toilet roll and sugar.

I knew that we were in full blown panic mode when I was in the home baking aisle – the ready-to-mix bread packets were all gone. The ones that you buy for Xmas just in case but throw away 3 years later when you realise that you’re never going to make that multi-seed tomato loaf no matter how bored you are

I went to my local (giant) Tesco last night, wtf? Firstly I figured I’d leave it until 8pm when it’s usually pretty quiet (like I normally do), nope it was rammed with people with over-flowing trolleys. And not only was the bog roll aisle empty (thankfully I didn’t need any), so was the pasta and rice aisle (apart from the flavoured microwave packets and the giant bags). Most of the tinned food staples were gone or low to.

I didn’t actually see people obviously panic-buying to hoard though, most trolleys (although full) seemed to have a usual mix of things. So I’m wondering if it’s just more that people are buying a little bit extra ‘just in case’ rather than panic-buying as those we’re entering a zombie apocalypse

I work for ASDA in Sheffield, if you want hand gel, toilet roll, paracetamol etc arrive at the store after 22.15 hours and you find most shelves full.

I’m often in our local big 24hr ASDA between around 22:00 (with the wee one in a sling) and they’ve just blocking the aisles with crates of stuff! I think I’d have to be there around 03:00 to find the shelves refilled.

dried macaroni for the kids in case we can’t get any for next weeks packed-lunches

Forget the virus, you give your kids macoroni for their packed lunch?????

Buying trolley loads of loo roll is bonkers, but I have ensured we have food/medicine to self-isolate my family for up to 3 weeks.

Yep, that is exactly what I did back in January. Calm, planned buying of non perishable human food and animal foods and not a bit of panic to any of it. Probably turn out as unnecessary but who knows how the next few months will turn out.
At the moment the hope is for people to do the right thing so good luck with that…

On Wednesday I had to go around my local supermarkets looking for strong bread flour for my daughter’s DT cookery class.

Waitrose – none.
Sainsbury’s – none but found some yeast
Tesco – got one of the last two packets on the shelf.

I am surprised that this item is obviously being panic bought – anyone see anything in the media recommending that panic-buyerists add this to their bog roll and tablets shopping list?

Forget the virus, you give your kids macoroni for their packed lunch?????

Yeah – a food flask full of pasta (we use macaroni as it is smaller and fits nicely in the flask compared to other pasta) tossed in a little bit of butter to stop it from congealing and a separate little box with either grated cheese or tuna. Makes a change from sandwiches every day for the kiddli-winks.

Going to panic buy 1,000 litres of gasoil today as the tank has run dry and we have no heating. Whoops.

I bought a pack of bog roll on the way home from work last night, the wife had already ordered some with the Tesco order. We’re putting them up on Ebay later and then paying off the mortgage.

I did also buy a pack of ibuprofen as well because my shoulder was a bit sore from sleeping funny. I could feel the dirty looks as I went to the till so I hid them in a pile of jazz mags just to be safe.

We’ve probably got enough food in for a couple of weeks – that’s normal – it would be a case of ‘freezer’ specials. The loo roll panic is crazy – there is just none anywhere. Got enough in for a week.

Yay! The wife called into Superdrug this and just as they opened a supply of paracetamol. She got a box and before she left the shop they’d sold out. 😂

I get panic buying drugs that may help alleviate some of the discomfort felt if you actually caught the virus but I am still struggling with the toilet paper thing.

I was in Aldi at the weekend and they even had toilet paper stacked up in the Isle of Dreams!

I may panic buy the drugs that make 2 weeks of daytime television bearable.