A safe space to confess whether you panic bought toilet roll

How are we defining "panic buying"?

I would say the people who were emptying wardrobes to fit their white soft treasure in would fall into the definition. Or filled rooms with stuff.

Anyone remembers the pics online where you could see box rooms full of tp and tins through the windows?

In a modest way, in that normally I wait until we are down to the last couple of rolls before buying any more, but when the shelves were rapidly emptying I bought another multipack - which was not my usual brand and was expensive (probably why it was one of the few left on the shelf).

Interestingly, I read later on that the shortage was largely caused by most people doing exactly what I had done - buying one or two multipacks more than they normally do - rather than a few people buying hundreds of toilet rolls.

Same. I was fully prepped by end of January. Not over the top, but we had enough to ride out a few weeks of disruption

I didn't panic buy... But I figured out by late January (as soon as we had the first cases in England) that lockdown would be inevitable at some point.
So I did then stock up on a decent amount of household supplies and enough of the childrens medicines etc. Including a big box of Who Gives A Crap loo roll.

I also tried to warn senior management at work at get them to agree to buy in things we would need to work effectively remotely....but they thought it would never happen....

It was a time that made me realise how little most people engaged their brains, because all so many people seemed blindsided by what happened, even though other countries were several weeks ahead of us.

I think we can conclude panic buying is what other people did; we all were either prepping or buying extra just in case.

I'm amongst those that was already a bit of a nut about toilet roll, so didn't need to buy extra as i was well stocked as standard; so the empty shelf didn't make me worry. By the time I got dangerously low (with just 6 rolls left 🤣) the whole loo roll phenomenon had past so I could just buy as normal.

It's like when Bryan Adams was No 1 for 16 weeks. Everyone now claims they hated it at the time, despite it being very clear people evidently did like it.

Not quite a panic buyer, but I’ve always bought in bulk and had issues around food scarcity. Everything I already had in bulk, toilet roll, rice, beans, pasta, I did an extra bulk shop - so ended up with double bulk. I don’t feel bad over it as nobody’s buying routines could have been predicted or preempted really by anyone other than the government. Although, obviously not great for anyone wanting to buy a regular 4 pack at their usual pace at Sainsbury’s local. I think everyone pretty much lost their minds and I don’t blame most people for what they panic did during that time. Everyone’s worst depths of their mental health were exposed, and triggers people didn’t even know they had were pulled.

No I didn't but usually buy a pack of 24 and replace when there are about 4 rolls left. I had 4 left and was very pleased when I hsppened across a four pack at the petrol station. Nowadays I never let stocks fall below 12 with all bogs fully rolled.

I didn't panic buy but on the days when there were empty shelves we had venison burgers one night and duck egg omolettes another.

I didn't panic buy according to myself. I did buy a big packet when I saw the last packet sitting in an Asda shelf. We did have two rolls left. Does that count?

I never panic bought toilet roll. I genuinely didn’t understand that. You can always use some water and soap

I did, however bulk buy pasta and rice. Though I did it when we weren’t officially having supply issues. I had a feeling things were going in that direction and with a child who only ate rice and pasta I did a great big stock up.

Not panic buying and not toilet roll but I had lots of family come back home during the pandemic to create our bubble. Several of them love baking and there was a shortage of flour and baking powder so I did buy a 10kg sack of flour and large tubs of baking soda and cream if tartar. The flour went pretty quickly but I still have some baking soda left!

i was working in the community and it was disastrous for the elderly who couldnt get hold of loo roll, very upsetting.
i did panic buy pasta and chick peas

No but there was a small celebration when we sourced sone before running out of what we already had.

We had wnough because ww uaed to buy the costco tp. We just went and did shop week or so earlier than normally because we expected the lockdown any day. My family abroad went into lockdown well before uk so knew it was coming and I was not willing to go once public started up with the crazy. Very leasurly experience.
The scenes we then watched on tv were sometimes ridiculous. My family who were in harsher lockdowns was texting me if we are ok because they saw the pics and videos of empty shops in UK on news and heard about panic buying... Then they sent me pics from their well stocked shops... 😂🙄

No but wish I had as was a nightmare when I ran out. One friend had to use newspaper for a couple of days.

I had already set up a 6 weekly subscription on Amazon 😂 threw it in the house when it got delivered so we don’t look like hoarders.

It just made no sense whatsoever, majority of toilet paper, if not all, is made in this country so no risk of imports being effected, the plants also run 24 hours a day because they have to, because it's a nightmare and time consuming process to stop and start them, there was never any risk of toilet paper running out.

I did but only on behalf of my elderly neighbour who was really worried.

I didn't because I had just had a box of 48 delivered, which is my normal way of buying it. In fact, I offered to share it out amongst my neighbours. Nobody took me up on it because our local Aldi managed supplies pretty well.

Crazy times.

How are we defining "panic buying"?

I stocked up in January 2020 in the belief that there would be pandemic related disruptions in the weeks or months ahead. It makes perfect sense to prepare before it occurs to anyone else to. It allows supply chains to adapt. I cleared no shelves, they were well stocked after I bought my supply. It doesn't go off and gets used anyway. I played no part in the supermarket scrums come March.

Not exactly, no. But there was at least one occasion when I went shopping and noticed that there was only a few battered packs left and I thought “I’ll grab one just incase there’s none another time and we’ve run out”. Not panicked just… practical innit.

What was a mind fuck for me was the people cleaning their shopping when they got home. And then discussing it after like it was something everyone fucking did. Literally. No mate, just you weirdos lot.

I wouldn’t say panic bought, but at the time Savers had 9 rolls of good 3-ply toilet paper (I think Little Duck) for £1.99 per pack, so I did buy a few packs.

It’s now double the price!

Haha I was away in Romania when my social media feed became full of ‘can’t find any toilet paper’ posts. I had a fair bit of room in my case so I filled it up with Romanian toilet roll before I came back 🤣.

As it turned out, I was never not able to buy toilet roll in the shops. Ok there may not have been many options and might have had to go for some weird coconut scented version or something, but it was always available in some form.

Sort of you see i went from weekly shopping plus top ups to fortnightly top up if needed and one bulk buy a month the reason being I had zero childcare and I mean zero! My ex husband chose the pandemic as an excuse to dump his children completely refusing to even take them for a walk so I could shop when he changed his mind by the end of the year the kids hardly wanted to know him and when I did go shopping and he had them he would ring me screaming until I collected them

I've always bought non perishables in bulk, usually from Costco. I did a big shop prior to lockdown which included a huge pack of loo rolls. Consequently, I then didn't need to leave the house for 6 weeks.

It wasn't panic bought, it was bulk bought in preparation for the lockdown.

I don’t panic buy anything and toilet roll would be very low on the list I would consider important. Water and food, perhaps.