AIBU to be annoyed with SIL?

[hallomother]

I realised recently I had accumulated a lot of clubcard points. Because of all the panic buying I thought I'd share them around a bit and offer some online shops to members of the family who might need a bit extra.
I offered a shop to SIL and she accepted - I've just finalised everything and seen that she's used the shop for four bottles of champagne, some tea towels and a bedding set.
I'm a bit because everyone else has used theirs to get some tins etc in, but also feel like I can't say anything because it's up to her what she spends it on!
But now I feel guilty as I feel like I should have just ordered a load of stuff for a food bank instead!

AIBU to be irritated by this?

Oh you're being such a martyr.

Jesus exactly how many points did you have! Yabu, you offered the points, she took them. You should've just given her beans and bog roll if that's what you wanted her to buy.

Whyask people whether you’re being unreasonable to be annoyed with this woman, if you’re just going to dismiss the 52% who think YABU as “deliberately obtuse?”

This all really comes down to the fact you can't dictate what someone does with a present you give them.

You gave sil a present of some club card points. She could either reject them, use them on food or use them on whatever she wants that Tesco also offers. It's not up to you once you've given them. You could take it back now I guess if she ordered via your account, but you're in for a big argument then. If she is struggling and wants to waste points on stuff line that, you now know WHY she is struggling. It's of her own doing no doubt. A sensible person who is struggling would buy mainly food and essential stuff and maybe a couple of small treats. But just champagne and bed sheets? She's either an idiot or not struggling as much as she says.

Next time, use them yourself. Save them for Christmas, buy food for food banks with them, throw them away, whatever. But you can't dictate what people buy with them.

But do explain how saying 'i thought you could get a shop in now rather than wait til payday when panic buyers have cleared the shelves' is encouraging panic buying or paranoid behaviour.

You've literally just defined panic buying.

It obviously wasn't just for a few extra bits if it enough to but all that! How many tins of beans is the equivalent of 4 bottles of champagne!? You can get 12 tins if beans for a fiver in Tesco at the moment.

you should have bought yourself a nice watch in Goldsmiths if you had that many clubcard points

it's very poor housekeeping to just redeem them for groceries when they can be worth 3x value for other things.

I with your sil. Life's miserable enough and everybody(that I know) is skint and looking at possibly being even more skint if we end up having to take extended time off work.

I detest all of this hoarding at the moment so if someone offered me their points I'd treat myself too. At least if she catches it she'll be nice and cosy in her new bedding.

Also with the best will in the world you css as my give gifts with stipulations you either give it or you don't but grown adults are more than capable of deciding what to spend their gifted cash on.

You wanted to encourage people you know to buy items they dont need, incase panic buyers bought it all.

That's panic buying itself.

I think it would be really shitty to now say 'actually, I only gave you this to buy items that I deem acceptable'.

YABU simply for using Clubcard vouchers on shopping. Clubcard vouchers are exclusively to be used on Boost deals, or you're wasting two thirds of their value!

YABU. If she catches it, or has to self isolate or even shut down and she’s stuck in with no food... that isn’t on you. It’s on her. I wouldn’t offer her anything again.

It was kind to offer the points but you should have saved them for Christmas. I don't think you can complain that SIL spent it on champagne etc. Maybe she had no idea you expected her to spend it on tins. Some people aren't stockpiling at all.

Good for SIL. I’d have done the same

To be fair I'd have done the same . I would have taken it in the spirit of a treat , I'd get something I could never normally justify buying . I think you can assume she's okay for beans and loo roll .
I concur that's it's craziness to waste your points in Tesco , it took me ages to catch on to this as most of the offers are only available on the mainland , but we do have Goldsmiths

YABU.
You gave her an unexpected windfall and she bought herself some treats.

You would have used the money to buy 'extra bits' 'in case' which is panic buying.

You don't have to actually be in a panic to be panic buying; it's buying additional things due to anxiety that they they won't be available. When lots of people do this, the shelves empty quickly.

YABU. You can’t give a gift and then try to dictate what they spend it on.

If you only wanted it spent on things you approved of you should have either made that clear or not given the points away in the first place.

oh and I'm not boosting vouchers for holiday or cinema because of the virus - seems stupid to book a holiday now.

They were due to expire hence the generosity.

I still don't understand how picking up a few extra tins over months (which is what I've been doing) is encouraging panic buying. In the same way offering the points so SIL could do her monthly shop now - ie have extras in because the shelves in our area are pretty much bare and she has children - is encouraging panic buying either. We aren't panicking, we aren't buying up stocks of everything, we're just timing our shop a little earlier than usual?

SIL has been worrying about money, and being without (what with the empty shelves) which is why I thought I'd try to help.

And as for mumsnet being obtuse I meant in regards to loving to pick apart a post and ignore the actual point of it. Ie, 'you are being unreasonable for giving away your points'. Not what I asked, is it?

Do really not get that if everybody buys 1 extra item (or 1 item earlier than they normally wouldn’t, so effectively still 1 item more) that that can completely wipe out a shelf?
You must have seen supermarket employees stacking shelves every single day. They simply don’t have a week’s stock out, and a Sunday morning delivery. They have trucks replenishing throughout the day.
Gone are the days even, of only shelf stacking a night.
When a large number of people buy 1 extra item: the shelves are empty.

so basically when we shop, we always have to buy the EXACT SAME AMOUNT each time or it's classed as panic buying?
If I think oh I'm making a recipe with tinned tomatoes so I need to get two extra I'm basically contributing to the downfall of society?

You did a nice thing but YABU to give a gift and then want to dictate what its spent on.

I get why your miffed though. Especially after she was complaining about being worried about money. Shes clearly not as broke as she makes herself out to be.

To explain a bit more... supermarkets want selling space, not storage space. Every packet of loo rolls “out the back” is costing them money. So these days, there’s really not much of a warehouse. The supermarkets expect the manufacturers to keep the “safety stock” for them - so all the cost of storing it (land is expensive) is on the manufacturer.
However, the manufacturers need to keep cost low too - so they work “just in time”, trying to produce only what is needed.
It’s not unusual on a usually stable product to hold over a week of stock.
If your factory line is full (and nobody plans factories that are only going to be half full!!) you simply can’t just go and make more. Even if you had the raw ingredients, the packaging...
So you see, everybody buying a few extra tins does make a really big difference.

I still don't understand how picking up a few extra tins over months (which is what I've been doing) is encouraging panic buying.

You gave your points to several family members so they could buy extras. Even if they dont need them.

How many people do you think it takes, to empty a store when they are buying 2 or 3 packs of loo rolls instead of one?

Not a chance did you give her enough point for a few extra tins or this or that and it added up to the same amount as bedding and 4 bottles of champagne.

So neither you gave her loads of points to stock up loads or she hasnr used them to get champagne and bedding.

@hallomother there are always variations in demand. Person A wants to try a recipe they never had before and buys tinned tomatoes for the first time ever. Person B is having guests. But at the same time, Person C I’d on holiday, and Person D is going to that party that Person B is holding... so it balances out.

Sure, you get an unexpected spike in demand. A popular TV chef uses something and loads more people than usual but it that week. And that’s what “safety stock” is for.

But at the moment, so many people are buying extra, it’s not the normal fluctuations. You can see that, surely? That it all adds up?

If you work in this area (and I used to!) you know just how few days of stock are held, fully ready to go, at any given time. Like I explained above, no-one wants to sit on weeks of stock:

• it costs money to store it
• it is going lower in shelf life the whole time it is sat there (some UK supermarkets won’t accept something with less than 70% of its shelf life left)
• it all counts, in complex financial calculations, as ‘working capital’ - basically, your company has money tied up in stock, instead of available cash - shareholders don’t like that

So yeah - millions of people x “a few tins” disrupts the supply chain.

You gifted them the points, and from that point onwards it's their choice to spend it on as they please. You never know, she might be feeling stressed and that bottle of champagne may have made her entire week!