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?

I did. but....

By the time I went to Asda for my normal shop there was hardly anything left, so I panic bought the things they had left, like literally the last 6 packs of pasta they had, and they didn't have any toilet roll.
Then I went into the local town & one shop there had loo roll so I bought 2 large packs of the Nicky stuff - It has to be pointed out my husband can use a whole toilet roll in a day. I'm not even sure how, so I was worried.

My husband then decided the way to cope with the pandemic was to start the Atkins diet, so I then spent my days off work venturing to different shops looking for effing sausages to buy.

Two of my housemates who I mentioned in my previous post had grown up in the 80s in Poland.

I remember coming back from the supermarket and they'd had fresh salad in, so I bought some (enough for me for 2-3 meals) as they'd been totally out of stock for a while. When I got home I was really excited and telling them to go and they laughed, they said it brought back memories of growing up with shortages and how rumours would go around that one shop had bread / eggs / flour and everyone would go and queue there.

I did order a big box of I don’t give a crap loo rolls off Amazon as there were no loo rolls in my Tesco order and the local Co-op didn’t have any. I think the thing is supermarkets were really good at just in time ordering to minimise warehouse storage so that actually it doesn’t take a massive deviation from the norm (I’m sure I read 10% somewhere) to cause shortages. I do think supply chains have become more resilient which has contributed to inflation as building in spare capacity costs.

No. I'd stocked up in the January as part of the potential brexit and early covid prepping threads. For once my anxiety was useful.

I'm not sneering at all. What I mean is that everyone seems to think other people were the issue, oh there are shortages because of those crazy panic buyers, but the reality is, it was mainly everyone just thinking ahead that caused the issue.

Of course, a few might have gone completely OTT (panicking or hoping to sell on for profit?). So, in terms of confession, nearly 6 years on, I don't think there are many people who would say "yes I was a panic buyer".

Were we the only people who got cash out just in case, only for it to sit unused for months as no where took cash?

We've always had a good stock of toilet rolls / kitchen rolls as alongside tins it's the one thing you can stock up on that keeps when on offer . I've even had it stored up in the attic before.
These days our preferred brand ( Cushelle quilted ) is £13.25 so we can't now afford it !

I saw the writing on the wall.
in February I bought loo roll and face masks from Amazon.
i already had loads of hand sanitiser.

I didn’t stockpile anything else, I had an agreement with an elderly neighbour that I would supply her with loo roll and food if she needed it.

No because I have bought in bulk from amazon subscribe and save for years and continued throughout the pandemic.

We did a bit. Not tons. In fairness, we had 8 people in our house, for a variety of reasons.

As usual I think the press exaggerated this and started to encourage people to mass buy, they were taking pictures of people coming out of Costco with a large pack of toilet roll in their trolly. They were the normal size packs that you get in Costco. You can’t buy any smaller and they only had one in their trolley. It was suddenly front page news and photographed on the front pages of national newspapers and encouraged or frightened people to buy more.

No as I always buy my loo roll from Costco and have done for the past 17/18yrs. I’d not long been to Costco when lockdown was announced so we were set. I did share with my neighbour though and she shared bits with me as well.

They could have shared it. How much baking does an 80 year old realistically do?

No i was worrying about the same people coming into the shop every day and emptying the shop leaving nothing for others while breathing all over me and touching every thing.

To an extent...

I definitely bought some before we needed to, only a small pack because I didn't have the choice but I was a bit concerned and would have bought a bigger one if I could have.

I think a lot of things were bought before I ran out because it was available and I didn't know if it would be again when I actually wanted it. Normally I would wait until we had actually run out but it's never usually a struggle to buy toilet roll, pasta or flour, I can just walk into any shop and buy them there and then.

No

Because I happened to have 180 rolls in the garage when it all kicked off. I had gone through a phase of having an Iceland home delivery and always just chucked a bale of toilet rolls on the till at the end to save me carrying them. It was an accidental overstock

I offered to give to a couple of friends but no one needed it

Threads about loo roll today. 🧻🧻🧻🧻
Interesting. 😁

Not sure it was panicked but I did buy a much bigger pack than usual once the shelves started to look bare.. I’ve continued to buy big packs since then tbh.

I ordered my usual big box of who gives a crap just before the news broke that there was a shortage.

The funniest example of panic buying backfiring was a few years earlier we had massive floods and all the water was out and due to a sewage overflow was going to be out for a couple of weeks. So I went to Tesco to get bottled water. The shelves had been stripped and people were coming out with literally multiple trolleys filled with it.

The cobra report that evening announced a long list of pick up points and every household got 12 big bottles of free water each per day until it was fixed. We all had bottled water for years and these people must have paid hundreds for what they got. I’m surprised the store allowed it, but it’s think rationing didn’t really happen until Covid.

Thankfully none because toilet roll had been on offer beforehand and I’d stocked up.

I’m a prepper and always have been so no need for us. I generally keep six of everything in to be used on rotation. Loo rolls were shared with family though as they found there were none in the shop a few times.

No but did get dirty looks in supermarket doing a whole week’s shopping for 7 of us 3 teens 2 under 5 lots of nappies loo rolls generally 2 or 3 of everything. Partner had to go into about 3 shops for paracetamol and calpol so we had some in incase we caught it to get enough for a week for all of us.

The 80 year olds i know do a lot more than most batch cooking cakes etc to last the week making pie lids and pastys they are always doing it

No because l was a crazy brexit woman who stocked up loads of stuff just in case, my DP laughted at my brexit cupboard, but was very useful in pandemic. Although she worked in a supermarket, so we were never in danger of running out of anything l suppose as staff got to shop before store opened. It was basically a supply issue with no drivers anyway, tbere was loads in the main warehouse.

I didn't...but I do have a lot stashed away anyway because I use the subscribe and save on Amazon. 45 rolls turn up every however often, and when the allotted storage spot starts overflowing I skip a delivery. But it does mean we currently have 178 toilet rolls in storage. Covid may well have influenced my mind though cause I find the store a comfort! Which is weird, I'll admit that!
But we didn't start the subscribe and save thing to build up a store...it was just the most cost effective way to buy them and I'm not great at keeping track of when I need to skip a delivery!