Was I unreasonable to "panic buy" on Saturday?

[ahsurelookit]

I'm in Ireland there have been protests for nearly a week about the cost of fuel and how much of that cost is tax. Not the point of my post.

Where we are garages had sold out of fuel. Roads have been blocked. The ones in the bigger cities/ sites have been cleared today, Sunday.

I get the food shopping delivered every Monday. I do a weekly meal plan and basically run out of everything on a Sunday evening.

I was getting worried on Saturday about when this would end, so went into our one tiny over priced supermarket. We live rurally - on a farm- the bigger supermarkets are 20kms+ away . I did a very small shop and spent about €60 (milk, veg, fruit, flour, meat, rice, pasta few other small bits)

My relative said I shouldn't have done that. We were told not to panic buy. Yes I did panic. But I didn't go in and buy a tonne of things or stock pile. We have 2 young dc I was a little worried about it! If the roads are blocked we won't get our delivery.

Relative said it was outside my usual pattern so it was panic buying and I shouldn't have done it.

Was I wrong to do the shopping on Saturday?

Sounds like normal shopping. I thought that panic buying is when someone buys loads of each item, like 5 bags of flour or 10 bags of pasta. I assume your shop looked average?

'A small shop' is the opposite of panic-buying. You're perfectly allowed to not stick to some imagined 'pattern' when you buy food!

That is not panic buying.

As pps have said, that isn't panic buying

You did something a bit differently, in response to an unusual situation. I don't see how you did wrong.

The issue is that if everyone buys double what they would normally buy, shops will run out. Not saying you did anything wrong, just suggesting that’s how shortages are created, Covid being a prime example.

As long as the stuff you bought will get used and eaten then I don't think YABU. I remember the photos of the rotting food in lockdown because some idiots panic bought more than they needed (and left nothing for everyone else) then had to throw it away because they didn't have time to eat it all.

Of course you weren't wrong! You were very sensible. It would only count as panic buying if you'd done something like buying up all the pasta and loo rolls in the place.

I'm also in Ireland and when I realised there were queues forming at petrol stations on Thursday lunchtime, I filled up. I'm glad I did because all petrol stations between home and where I work were out of both petrol and diesel by the evening. I don't consider that panic buying either, just being sensible.

Thanks the relative made me question myself and my husband said well you did do it out of panic.

Our usual weekly shop is between €120 and €150. I spent about €60 so it wasn't even close to a full shop.

Didn't even buy one packet of loo roll 😆 lol

I’d tell your relative less if they are going to criticise!

I would panic buy a little 😬

How does your relative know the minutiae of your life?

We were over earlier having a cuppa tea. And I said I went into supervalu. She knows I normally get it delivered.

My DH is about to go to Supervalu in a hunt for bread for his sandwiches tomorrow. Wish him luck...

Your relative is a loon. Although Covid taught us how much the people who love to criticise revel in a panic buy telling off

I’m sure a lot of people are getting afew extra bits in and it’s not like you were buying 20 bags of pasta, 24 tins of beans/soup/tomatoes to create a huge stockpile was it??? That happened during Covid round here (East Midlands) and people went crazy and all our local shops were then limiting people to just buying a couple of each thing.
I really wouldn’t worry at all, sounds like a regular top up shop to me x

Your relative would rather you could not feed your DC? Panic buying g is when you buy about 200 rolls of toilet paper.

I'm in Dublin ireland and I just topped my diesel up to a full tank as most garages are running out. We couldn't get petrol for my mams car today it was sold out. I haven't panic bought anything only dog food. Once they are OK we will survive. Sure alot of the protests have stopped now

I don't really understand why you did it.

I would have waited until Monday to see what happened and if the delivery didnt arrive then I would have gone to the shop. If the shop was out of food, I'd probably call the council, MP, social services, GP, anyone really and raised a welfare concern. It would have been sorted out. Noone is going to let kids starve.

I don’t think you did anything wrong @ahsurelookit. We just spent a week in Ireland, and by chance filled up on Wednesday before we knew about the protests. (The tv in our holiday cottage only had Disney+ and Netflix!)

I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong. Just hedging your bets a bit.

Good luck going forward. If there a shortage of Tayto crisps, I’m afraid that was down to us bribging a few bags home.

After covid I will always be making sure that I have enough in for my child. In your situation I would make sure I had enough basics in for a couple of weeks.

We shopped as normally as we could of covid and it really screwed us over. I would go to the supermarket and not be able to buy pasta or tinned tomatoes. We ended up eating some crap meals.

When COVID was starting I saw people in supermarkets with multiple trolleys. I wouldn't think twice about buying that mid week. You're fine.

My relative was just telling me about this. I didn’t realise this was happening.

I think you were fine.

You’d rather contact all those people and raise a welfare concern about your own children than go to supavalue? 🤣🤣

We often do little top shops if we’ve run low or something has happened out of our control. Very normal. If you’d brought all the pasta and loo roll in sight then that would be panic buying!!