There is a big difference between asking someone to do a favour and get some shopping in for them, and asking someone to fund the shopping.
People approach a food bank or a charity if they need financial help. They may well ask a neighbour or Facebook group for a bit of practical help. And when someone offers practical help, that is what they are doing, rather than offering a financial contribution or donation. I think some people are getting muddled up with the 2 quite different ways of offering help.
Ideally, when providing practical help which requires spending money, the person needing help supplies the money up front. This removes all of these kind of issues which have arisen. Super armaments have a scheme now so people can buy a card to give to to their helper to spend, so all this payment and repayment issue is avoided.
The Op was asked to provide practical help and not financial support. She provided what she was asked for and offered to do. There would be nothing wrong in asking for the money to cover what she spent....the person who asked for practical help will have been expecting to pay the money - either in advance or afterwards. In likelihood, they have just forgotten and will quickly repay when asked......but if they have forgotten and the Op doesn’t ask, it will remain a hanging issue and one which causes a bit of annoyance and bitterness.
It really isn’t the case that you can or only should offer practical help if you are also willing to financially fund it. Lots of people shop for the elderly or those who need a bit of practical help. It’s actually the practical help that many people need. Financial support for food etc is a different requirement altogether and people do t usually volunteer to supply that to individuals but to a charity such as a food bank.
What a shame if people read this thread and are put off offering a bit of practical help because they conclude that they will be expected to provide far more than they were asked for or offered and that it would be considered improper to expect the money back for shopping done for neighbours....and that to ask for it would be an outrage.
Look at all the volunteering websites and the sites set up for the Covid Volunteers through the WVRNS....it is very clear that people can request a practical task such a shopping, but will pay for the shopping itself and that volunteers carry out practical tasks but are not asked to provide financial support. There is a separate section for making donations.
If I had volunteered to help someone with shopping and on on delivering it or collecting the money to pay for it, I suddenly wondered if they were financially struggling as well, I would look to see if there might be a group I could contact about it who dealt with such issues. When individual neighbours helps each other out, this is more difficult, but when charities who organise practical help are involved, they often have links to all kinds of other support networks too and can link people in, if they want to be linked in. No individual neighbour though is responsible for providing everything.