A safe space to confess whether you panic bought toilet roll

[Peaceshout]

It’s been several years since the pandemic, lockdown, and those early months when the toilet roll disappeared from the shelves in bulk.

Yet despite it all being bought, I’ve never met anyone who panic bought toilet roll. Instead, most people are critical of the toilet roll panic buying. Someone is lying.

Given the time that’s elapsed, now is the time for the panic buyers of toilet roll to come out, admit it, and tell us whether they still have any left in the shed. No judgment, no criticism, just a safe space to unburden yourselves.

AIBU?

My bathroom was a safe place to unburden myself in 2020 because I had plenty of toilet roll.

Nope. Bought a couple of packets and was as careful with them as possible. Figured if push came to shove I'd just wash down there.

Bizarre behaviour panic buying bog roll.

Perhaps nobody is lying, perhaps most people just bought double their usual amount and supermarkets kept a stock of them in warehouses to increase price.

I always buy the giant packs of Nicky roll from home bargains. They last about 5 months. I buy a replacement pack the first time I visit H&B after we get down to the last layer. We'd just bought a pack a few days before lockdown started.

Both my late OH and I were on the shielding list and our weekly food boxes sometimes had some rolls in so with those and the fresh pack I actually didn't buy any paper at all for the full lockdown.

Not me.

It might depend on the demographic of the people involved. There were viral videos of people fighting over toilet roll in the shops back then, certain areas might have been more of a hotspot than others.

But my secret (which people might deem worse), is that I tend to use flushable toilet wipes or take a shower afterwards for full freshness. So with that in mind, I don’t actually need to hoard loo roll.

Was it really panic buying or a disruption in the supply chain?

I always buy the larger packs so didn't really think about it then managed to get what we needed once the supply was there again.

I do know people who bought all the food though. Completely unnecessary.

I have had a bulk toilet roll order with Amazon for many many years. When the pandemic hit we had a surfeit of toilet rolls so no I didn’t panic buy.

No (because i buy it on subscription!)

I did however panic buy rice and pasta in a way.

Typically we would wait till its pretty much all out before buying more, however we did start making sure we always make sure we had an extra bag. We had a few ocassions where we weren't able to buy any when we had ran out, and also because of a lack of local family support we always wanted to make sure that if/when we had to isolate that we always had enough food in the house for a few days (again because there were no online slots!). We normally have a 10kg rice bag but often had to buy whatever we got our hands on because the 10kg bags were like gold dust.

In normal times we wouldn't have been worried about the possibility of suddenly being unable to leave our house for a week or if there was a random rice shortage

I did read something though that because a lot of people (like us who) changed their buying patterns and bought diffrent products in a different cycle and earlier than usual there were short term shortages. The supply chain doesn't actually have much flex in it and is very much designed that everybody buys sporadically in a predictable pattern. It only takes a few people buying one extra packet to completely ruin the system

It became long term shortages when everyone did it because they'd panicked at the short term shortages.

Our random switch of brands, and buying earlier than normal was probably contributing to the problem. I suspect that it was very few people actually hording but a large portion of people buying a bit extra

What’s with all the toilet roll threads today? Have we been infiltrated by Cushelle’s marketing team?

I panic bought when I was down to my last roll and there wasn't any in the shops. I had to go to so many shops to find some, it was such a pain. I only bought one pack though. But i was panicking as I was buying! 6 of us in the house and no loo roll! Apart from that one time i then didn't have a problem buying it on my normal weekly shop - although i think they'd restricted how many people could buy by then.

Yes it was me, I had 3 trolleys full every week. We had to resort to eating it as I was OTT
(this may be a joke).

I didn't panic buy but then when I had been to the shop and saw there was no toilet roll I did buy 2 packs the next time I went and it was in stock instead of my usual 1 pack. I think that kind of thing is what caused more panic buying if that makes sense.

I was a bit slow on the uptake, plus I live rurally so we’re always a bit behind the zeitgeist, so by the time I was standing, bewildered and panicky, in front of empty shelves, it was too late.

I do remember being in Asda when a delivery had just arrived and feeling what I can only describe as joy as I was handed my permitted 9 roll pack.

Yes, I did.

And on that note we just used up the last can of the panic supply of sweetcorn. Now, why we ever thought sweetcorn was something we had to stock up on is still a mystery.

We didn't but I worked in a small supermarket so saved some when it was delivered. We all did it but weren't supposed to.
I figured if I was doing what felt like putting my life on the line I wasn't going to run out of anything we sold.
On a serious note it was pretty terrifying to have to work when it felt like everyone was at home and no one knew how it would work.
The attitude of some people was awful. I had one chap in his 60s buy 2 packets of plain flour and 2 packets of sf flour and I asked if he really needed all that as it seemed a bit unfair. He said one of each was for him and one for his mum, yeah right. Not a good memory.

No, but we always seemed to be able to get a shopping delivery complete with toilet paper here, so it didn’t feel like a problem.

I've always bulk bought toilet and kitchen roll, when the mad panic buy started we had plenty, it was crazy to watch the the madness on TV,

We didn't but I'm ashamed to say my eldest son went into full on toilet roll and pasta provision mode.

His DP asked him what the fuck he was doing and he said he didn't know 😳

She made him dutifully knock on every apartment on their floor and hand it out - like some sort of very disappointing Santa Claus 🤣

I just bought toilet roll normally, didn’t notice a shortage. If there had been, I had soap and water to sort out my unmentionables!

I started topping up with supplies as soon as I heard there was a possibility of a lockdown. It wasn’t panic buying at the last minute, but yes, I did buy some extra toilet roll earlier on.

I was already hoarding toilet paper as a matter of course 😳 Lockdown was when I first realised it wasn’t normal to have like 6 months’ of bog roll stashed in the cupboard under the stairs just in case.

No idea why I was doing that - I stopped after Covid! These days I’ll sometimes even let us get down to the last roll before buying more. Quite thrilling! Makes me feel like I’m living dangerously.

No we always bought in bulk before covid, if anything we bought less because of all the attention and fuss everyone was making about it and the poor stock levels in the early days of the pandemic, but we were well stocked up anyway.

No, but I was working for the NHS so could jump the Tesco queue so I never struggled to get hold of toilet paper.

Imagine saying / writing that phrase before 2020. It'd just be so weird 🤣

Panic buying sanitary products isn’t panic buying. If people had gone out and bought hedge trimmers and ponies and other irrational things… that’s panic buying. The bulk buying of loo roll made no sense. Just a bit selfish and greedy. Speaks volumes for society today.

I did buy a couple of 4 packs for the food bank, but otherwise no.

I don't understand, why wouldn't it have been, if his mum was in her 80s?