Looking at the 'stockpiling' threads..

[EinsteinaGogo]

Is there genuinely ANYONE who could afford to get a couple of weeks shopping into the house, who hasn't?

And if so, WHY?

I've got my normal shop. I do one big lot on payday with non-perishables and things like toilet paper and cleaning stuff which I buy in bigger packs to last the month. I could have added extra as a stockpile but we have enough to see us through. Milk and bread are delivered twice a week and left on the doorstep as usual and if we are isolating I won't need to top up on fresh stuff for packed lunches anyway.

The hype first time around was ridiculous but I don't think I've noticed any stock shortages this time around. I think the media feeds the hype and exaggerates.

I can afford it but I'm not because it's a shitty thing to do. We use reuseable nappies and wipes, so there's nothing essential that I really can't do without. If the shops run out of pasta we just won't eat pasta for a few weeks, if they run out of bread I'll either make bread (have strong flour and yeast in the cupboard anyway) or we won't eat bread. None of us are fussy, so we'll just eat differently to how we usually would for a bit if the shops run low on any items. I don't believe we're going to starve by not stockpiling, although we may have to change our eating habits a bit, but having shopped for an older lady during the first lockdown who was confused and upset by not being able to get her usual items, I do believe stockpiling at the expense of others is a massively twattish thing to do.

Yesthesearemymonkeys I feel your post should be pinned to the top of this discussion

I run a pantry. Not because of covid. Because I get very antsy about having too much month left at the end of the money years and years after that ceased to be a problem.

Last time we locked down it meant that I could make up a few food parcels for old ladies' a friend helps care for. They have very very routine diets with things like tinned soup and tinned meats being staples because they can prepare them themselves. Shops got emptied, everything they usually live on vanished. I had enough in to make sure they were ok for a bit.

And now I'm even more careful to keep a little extra in because the truth is if someone asks me for help I'm likely to say "yes of course" so I plan for that.

A public service there monkeys. I'd suggest it be stickied, but Group D would still find a way not to read it.

I think the people in group D, or the ones on here saying they are wealthy and could if they wanted to, but choose not to, likley already have well stocked cupboards and freezers anyway. I seriously doubt most people would be that blase in the face of potential food shortages, if their cupboards where truly empty.

We haven't. Why not? Not sure. Lack of space, lack of organisation, couldn't be arsed, not sure we'll need it, morning sickness so planning food shops is yuck, that type of thing.

I don't because it is selfish and causes other people difficulty.

Buying for two weeks does not 'mess it up for everyone else'

I shop every 2 wks for the main stuff. I don't class that as prepping or stockpiling. Is it?

A hang up from living in the middle of nowhere as a child, where we had a pantry full of food going into winter each year in case we got snowed in, means that I tend to 'get a bit in for winter' as a natural state. The stock usually drops slightly over summer, but I can always make meals for 3-4 weeks out of tins and the freezer (If you don't mind slightly unusual combinations). It was mostly a case of looking out for BOGOFs and tucking one into box in the back of a cupboard during the autumn. My sisters and parents are the same despite us all living in more urban areas now.

Because this has been the whole of my adult life (late 40s), even as a student nurse in London, the day-to-day expense is minimal now. Just need to rotate stock for dates to avoid waste. We eat a lot of fresh fruit/veg/meat so the tins need to be checked (did it last week for this winter).

Exactly what Monkeys said.
I didn’t buy any extra over lockdown and I have only been replenishing my supplies since the shops went back to normal. And by replenishing I mean an extra packet of pasta, a bag of frozen veg, extra tins of soup. Nothing that’ll cause anyone else to go without.

To my mind I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t keep a stock of dried and tinned goods anyway. Ignoring recent events anything could happen to mean that you can’t get to the shops or get a delivery.

I've always been well stocked, a mini prepper really.
During the worst of lockdown I was able to avoid the shops for 8 weeks.

I tend to do a meal plan on a Sunday, then a rough plan for the following week based on what we have in. So we generally have enough for a fortnight, bar fresh stuff, and we always keep a decent stock of tins, rice, frozen veg, pasta etc. Per pp, I would stick a bag of pasta on the list if the current one was half gone.

Things like shower gel, washing powder, dishwasher tablets etc I always buy when they are on offer - we have a massive cupboard in the hall where this stuff lives. DP calls it the apothecary. We have a very fussy cat, so keep her stocked up because not everywhere sells her preferred brand of food.

So no change to shopping habits, but we would definitely manage a fortnight as long as someone could drop off bread and milk.

The shops have never shut, they never will so why stock pile?

If I had to isolate I would get food delivered either by a supermarket or by a friend/relative.

@fishonabicycle

I don't because it is selfish and causes other people difficulty.

How do you figure that? My shopping over lockdown was about the same as my normal shop even though I could only get a delivery every other week because I knew I had a buffer. I wasn’t the one stripping the shelves. I had a delivery every other week.

@Yesthesearemymonkeys

Yes! Good explanation. No panic buying here but also no shortage of beans and bog roll in my under stairs cupboard. I grew up in a rural area in the 70s, keeping a supply of tins, dried beans and frozen veg was essential and totally normal. I've just carried it on.

I always have a mini stockpile, covid or no covid, so my buying habits haven't really changed to be honest. Whenever my tins get low, I stock the whole cupboard.

Group A are preppers. They have a stockpile. Stockpiling is not a bad thing if your stockpile has been built up gradually over a sustained period of time. These people are not part of the problem,

But I've read lots of threads & posts where preppers have said their Brexit stash came in handy & was used for the March period.
Are they still preppers when they are saying they are now rebuilding their supplies for Brexit/Covid since like Group B the period of uncertainty is here & there is a limited time frame?

Yesthesearemymonkeys
Well explained.
Within Group A there is also a range of people from those who are stocked up with months worth of food through to those who keep a small buffer.

I could afford to but haven’t because I’m not an arsehole who hoards resources at the expense of those who don’t have the luxury of driving to big supermarkets and spending £££ on a few weeks’ worth of shopping.

First response sums it up really. Only arseholes would do this as they’re not thinking about those who live on the breadline. Incredibly selfish of people to hoard. I could afford to do this but no we got our normal shop this week as I give a shit about others in general.

@Lovemusic33

The shops have never shut, they never will so why stock pile?

If I had to isolate I would get food delivered either by a supermarket or by a friend/relative.

A year ago I bet you'd have been certain schools and businesses would never shut.

Why should your friends and relatives have to inconvenience themselves because you didn't prepare when you had the chance.

Just to clarify, I'm perfectly capable of differentiating between preppers and panic buyers, and I'm specifically talking about the people going out to buy 12 packs of loo roll and all the tinned tomatoes and pasta on the shelves, not the people desperate to take offence because they've got a garage full of stuff they've been carefully adding to for the last 3 years. I'm aware that they're not the problem here.

I don't have a well-stocked freezer or cupboards, no. Mainly because DH left the freezer door open the other day and everything defrosted. We could get by with what we've got in the fridge and cupboards for about 10 days if we got inventive and ate some weird combinations. I'm fine with that. We have plenty of friends and family nearby who would shop for us if we had to isolate (as we would for them) and I just don't believe that there will be no food available at all. It might not be what we'd normally eat, but I'm pretty confident there'd be something.

I think it's an generational thing, those of us who are 40 plus are more likely to remember times when there was a need for a good stock cupboard, bad weather, not many huge supermarkets like there are today and strikes all fed into the uncertainty that fed into the need for a stock of provisions just in case.

Oh, and I always had at least a weeks worth of food in even when I was as poor as all fuck.

What happens if everyone tmw shops like they are in Group A?