Panic buyers

[Idliketoteachtheworldtosing1]

Aibu to think that it's damn ridiculous the way people have been panic buying?
Personally I think that all the supermarkets should take a leaf out of our co ops book and allow one 6 pint per person! Yes it caused a few rows but surely that is the fair way when stocks are running low.
It's always milk and bread, some people are so selfish and buy ridiculous amounts of the stuff.
It drives me mad.

I friend brought 20..yes 20 pints of milk.. There are at least 4 shops within half a mile from hers too..i said she wasnuts.

I live a stones throw from a shop and when the snow was bad I was looking out the windows you do and people were trudging along with bags and bags full of stuff. ( more than you'd buy locally)

Me on the other hand, ran out of bread and milk, thinking oh the shops only there if I need some.. Oh was I wrong. The shop looked like it had been ransacked! Even today went to go get some extra veg save the drive to the bigger shop. And there was still no fruit, veg, milk, bread of any form. Fridges empty. Freezers empty.. Madness. The snow here started thurs afternoon and was gone by this morning lol.

I think setting a limit might be a bit difficult. For someone going shopping for a large family, six pints isn't very much.

I do agree that panic buying is a bit bizarre though.

YANBU in that panic buying is ludicrous especially when it is such a short loved thing like a few days of snow but at the same time blanket limits are not the answer - what about larger families who regularly buy more than the "limit" as part of their normal weekly shop?

One 6 pint bottle of milk and one loaf of bread would do DD and I about a week as there is only two of us in the house and we only use bread and milk for cereal/toast for breakfasts or as a snack as DD has school meals and I get lunch at work.

My friend on the other hand is married with 5 kids and can go through the best part of 6 pints of milk and a loaf of bread in a day as all her kids drink milk as well as using it for cereals. Her kids all have packed lunches so 5x sandwiches daily and that's without the odd round of toast/sandwich for her or her DH. Is she supposed to go to the supermarket every day?

It's so weird. I can't help but think there's some weird link between the supermarkets and the tabloids that stir people into a bread and milk hoarding froth.

But why buy 20 pints of milk? Milk lasts what 3 days ... so you’d be having your 20th pint by day 60 and surely it’d be out of date? How wasteful.

I think it is alarming how unprepared people were for this when we had consistent warnings.

If panic buying looks scary now, just wait for Brexit. What Sainsbury’s are saying re supply lines is frightening.

It was particularly mad for this recent bout of weather as in most places we knew it would be short lived. We had rain forecast for today that we knew would wash away the show, the shops have been getting deliveries right through, but people are still panic buying.

There's still no bread around here. Milk must be more local, most of the local shops have milk but no bread.

One small shop had bread yesterday. The manager got in his 4x4 and drove miles to a wholesaler to get some. They limited it at one loaf per person after realising they'd run out within an hour if they didn't.

The snow had started to melt yesterday and the main roads were all clear, though walking was a bit tricky.

What I don't understand is why people don't panic buy wine? If I genuinely believed I was going to be snowed in for x amount of days or weeks, I'd want wine, pepsi and pizza not bread, milk, cheese and cat litter.

What do they do with all the milk and bread? That’s what I want to know! We had a loaf here and milk in the fridge and we were fine. Baffles me of all the things to panic buy it’s milk and bread

They buy bread because it doesn’t need cooking so is handy if the power goes out.

I panic bought wine rather than milk and bread but maybe that's just me ...

I saw this sign in our local shop

'Bread and milk' as necessities baffles me too. If we get through a loaf in a month (frozen obv) it's been a bread heavy month and a pint of milk goes off before it's gets used.

Come an impending zombie apocalypse it's going to be a trolley full of wine, gin, tonic water, coffee, beer, cheese and cauliflower (I eat a LOT of cauliflower) for the avenger household.

I think people forget that they don't NEED to eat in exactly the same way in situations like this. It won't kill people to have a can of soup for breakfast but heaven forbid we can't get bread or milk.

It was madness, wan't it? The local shop had to keep the door locked because of people panic buying. Luckily, he saved the small 1 pint cans for the elderly who buy it every alternate day. He even delivered to them, to save them a walk in the snow. The big supermarkets were stripped bare. Literally, not even a piece of carrot was available.

Hats off to our milkman. He delivered the milk as per usual and we didn't have to fight the crazies. Local lady makes bread for us. My DH picked it up for us and the people in our neighbourhood. For once I am glad we buy local.

The couple in front of me bought 11 jugs. That's 44 pints. Dh said perhaps they ran a cafe. I'm more inclined to think they were greedy idiots.

I imagine half the country is going to be eating bread and butter pudding this week to use all the surplus bread and milk More likely it will go in the bin though

It is madness - I live rurally ( I am ahem over 70!) but I always keep milk and bread (one of each) in the freezer and pray I do not have a power cut.

In spite of the thaw I CANNOT get out of my gate (huge drift which is melting v. slowly) so today I will have to don wellies and coat to walk into the nearby village to catch (hopefully) a bus so I can keep my drs appointment.
No doubt the vultures will have cleaned out all the shops but I have survived before so I will make do. I hope kharma hits the greedy ones and they are left with stale bread and off milk (large families excepted as they will have used it all up)

I think people love a bit of drama and this is the closest to being in a Hollywood armageddon movie.

I didn’t subscribe to panic buying. When my son is at uni (which he currently is) we get through 2 pints of milk a week and 2 loaves of bread as OH has sandwiches for lunch.
When my son is home, I buy 3 loaves a week and 12 to 16 pints of milk. I have to limit him sometimes as it gets silly.
So the poster above saying milk last 3 days, this isn’t always true.

Yup, Tesco car park on Friday afternoon when the weather had abated slightly was like Christmas Eve. You couldn't get in the car park, very little veg available although there was milk and the bread available was mainly the bake in store stuff.

However, sometimes it isn't just bulk buying. DH works in transport, he always says you are only three days away from a famine. If the trucks can't go through there isn't any bread to buy, so it can't all be attributed to panic buying in bulk.

I'm unsure why people are so puzzled that bread and milk are being particularly hard hit. They're still daily staples for the majority of people, not everyone obviously for various reasons, but most people I know consume them in some form every day.

A pint of milk wouldn't last three days here. A day at most. It's very little milk for three days for most people I suspect. Likewise I doubt the most households in the UK make a loaf last a month.

When I had a job that sometimes involved shopping for people bread and milk were the two items I had to buy constantly. It wasn't unusual for people to have toast in the morning, a sandwich at lunch and sometimes a piece of bread in the evening if they had soup.

I considered venturing down to our village shop in the snow, but decided we'd be ok and I'd rather let others who normally rely on the shop (such as elderly) to stock up. We've got a freezer full of food and cupboards full of stuff - surely people can survive with a black tea or coffee for a couple of days!!

We get through three or four pints a day in our house. I buy them 8 pints a time anyway and always try to have a full four pint in.
I didn't go mad in the cold but I bought 12 pints instead of 8. I bought it two days ago and opened the last one for breakfast this morning.

That being said we have young children and milk is the main drink for two of them.

No snow in Swansea and people were panic buying. Surely if your power goes down tinned fish, meat and peaches would be a better option.