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 believe it started a few days after scenes in Australia supermarkets. Then idiots here thought loo roll is made in China. No about 98% of loo roll here is made in the UK.

Then the media took photos of bare shelves and put them on the front pages. Some supermarkets were like that, bare. Whilst others were better.

The media panicked the general public, especially older people

I never panicked buy. Always buy in bulk and took advantage of clearance bargains at my previous job. One time, they got rid of about ten lines of antiperspirants cans for 50p-80p as had a range review. I bought about 14 cans for about £8.50-£9 in the summer of 2019. So until two years later I bought these again (had about four cans at home)

Same with cleaning stuff. Some lines shrink and the ones of the older size, get reduced to 30p.

I do miss the clearance bargains. Then another time, communication from HQ said to give jars of own label coffee to colleagues for free, as many jars had the wrong back label on them. The jars were 100g but label said 200g.

I bought an extra pack of the biggest pack available on top of what I normally bought.

I think people think panic buying is buying 50 packs, but if lots of people bought an extra pack its a big impact.

Making sure my kids had food isn't something I feel ashamed of

My single neighbour living alone bought 4 lots of 18 rolls. We didn't buy extra.

Not toilet roll, apparently I had different priorities as I bought razors so I didn't get yeti legs 😂

I tried,but being disabled (unable to stand in the queues outside shops) I wasn't quick enough and everyone else had beaten me to it. At the beginning of the pandemic I was without any for a week before my DD managed to get me some.

No I didn't because Im not a selfish twat.

I don't really understand why people call it 'panic' buying if there's literally none on the shelves and you buy more when you find it so you're not left wiping your arse with old socks? Seems sensible to me!

Anyway I already had a garage full of pasta, flour, tins and toilet roll pre-pandemic so rather smugly rode it out with a clean arse, sourdough and homemade pasta. No judgment from me to those who 'panic' bought, plenty for those who snatched it all up and fucking sold it on facebook marketplace though.

We didnt as we had a corner shop that always had an insane amount stocked up.
But since the pandemic i now buy packs of 36 just so we have plenty. But before I would just buy 8 pack in my big shop .

For God's sake we all have water. When I lived in a third world country for 5 years with a hole in the floor for a toilet we just used water in bottles to wash with, we couldn't buy loo rolls. Nobody died.

Didn’t see the need, tbh. Post lockdown, a mate told me she’d panic bought it, but she’s a bit ‘anal’ about going to the loo/talks about it a lot. We used to joke that she’d scruff the dc and run the tap on them post poo! She said every cupboard had loo roll falling out of it and she had ‘hundreds’. Crazy times. I recall there frequently being no pasta/hand antiseptic in the supermarkets.

I didn't need to as I always keep loads in.

I didn't panic buy but I did stock up well before hand. I'd been following the covid threads avidly and had followed the stocking up thread (can't remember what it was called) on and off since Brexit so could see what might be coming and was prepared.

Quite a lot if they are baking for their friends/neighbours.

Yep, tins, pasta, rice, loo roll, smellies, nappies. Quite early as a colleague suggested and not stacks, just a few extra.

OK whatever. Although why you'd be baking for neighbours you weren't supposed to be in contact with is a bit confusing. You had to be there to appreciate the stress of dealing with all the grabbiness and there was a lot of selfishness.

I think the difficulty is assessing when buying a bit extra becomes “panic buying”. I’m under the impression that aside from a few very extreme examples, there wasn’t actually anyone with a trolley full of toilet roll, more than they could ever use or need.

+1

No but I work in a supermarket and started in 2019. I only got worried when the wine aisle got depleted!

Not toilet roll, but we did stuck up on long life food etc as we didn't want to go out to the shops while covid was still pretty unknown. Assuming we had a big pack of loo roll in there, but nothing excessive 🤣

I got accused of it because I got a who gives a crap delivery. But had been doing that for a few years and no one thought twice before the pandemic. My delivery driver did though - she knocked on the door and waited for me to come out instead of leaving it at the side of the house, in case it got pinched.

I did stock up on some tinned food before the lockdown though - seems like we knew about 10 days before that it was coming so I definitely got in some supplies.

No, but i had previously been stockpiling toilet rolls, hand sanitiser and cleaning products for a future apocalypse so i had plenty (and was able to share)

I bet you saw the worst sides of humanity during that time. People working in supermarkets did an amazing job over Covid and didnt get enough recognition, in my opinion. Also delivery drivers.

No panic buy, didn't buy anything differently, but I never not have extra, including loo rolls.

I was more surprised by the amount of people who claimed they had absolutely nothing to eat after 2 days.