I appreciate it's four weeks away and you will have to go shopping in the meantime but then you keep booking each week a month ahead until things calm down.
But that's just it. There is NO FOOD in the supermarkets.
I can go shopping but the shelves are almost bare so I cannot get the foods I need.
I went out again today at about 2pm. I went to my bank to transfer £7000 from my savings account which is a passbook to my current account. In case there is a lockdown and the banks have to close.
I had to do this because I pay my rent myself which is £616 a month to my Housing Association. I don't get any housing benefit because when my mum died she left her house to me and my 2 sisters.
My sisters sold the house and we each got a third of the money so I can't get any benefits because my savings are over £16000 (although I used to before I got my money from mums house) but now I cannot because of my savings.
So I now have to pay my rent myself and I don't want to end up in arrears and be kicked so I have made sure to have enough money in the currant account so if we do get put on lockdown and the banks have to close my rent will still get paid.
We may be locked in or the banks will close but my HA are still going to take the rent which is paid to them by direct Debit. So I have to make sure enough money is in there if I am no longer going to be able to go to the bank if they close.
After I came out of the bank I went to Marks and Spencer(M&S) and they did have more food than Teso and Sainsbuys but they never had any potatoes or rice and no toilet paper or tissues either.
The only potatoes they had was the frozen oven chips but my freezer is full with the fish fingers and frozen green veg so I have no room for them. If I had bought the frozen chips I would have to throw out some of the fish fingers and frozen chicken breast to make room for the chips as they won't go in. But I don't want to do that because I know if I throw the fish fingers away I won't be able to get anymore because Sainsburys and Tesco have not got them.
M&S have them and they have got other frozen stuff like Frozen Chicken breasts and they do the jumbo Fish Fingers which are nice as you only need 2 to fill you up.
But the problem is M&S have now restricted everything same as Tesco and the other big supermarkets have. So you can only buy 2 of the same item.
I am very upset by this as they had plenty of can of sardines and makeral. And I wanted to buy 4 tins of each but I was told I could not as you can only buy 2 of the same things, so I had to put the rest back.
I bought some tinned ham and corned beef, I would not normally as I don't eat tinned ham or beef I like the fresh ones from the fridge.
But as you know fresh ham only has a short shelf life but tinned ham keeps for many months unopened.
So I bought the tinned so I would not get caught without any ham or corned beef. But again they would only allow me to buy 2 tins and it's the same with baked beans.
I normally would buy 5 tins of baked beans to last me for the week, but I can't now, I can only buy too. Which is no enough as 2 tins is not going to last me a whole week so now if I want more I have to go out again the next day just to get 2 more tins. It so stupid and I find it's humiliating that when I go into a shop I now have to ask the shop assistant" how many items am I allowed to have" where as I did not have to before this crisis.
Only last week I could just go into the supermarkets and just buy as many tins of beans and frozen food as I wanted and there were toilet rolls and everything and all the food I wanted. you were spoiled for choice no one told me I could not have this or not have that. I could just pick them up put in my basket and buy them.And if I ran out I could go and buy more.
Now there is no food at all in most of the shops and if there is }I cannot buy what I want or need as they are all restricted to 2 or 3 items. Most shops now have rules they won't let you buy more than 2 or 3 items of the same thing and I HATE it.
It is becoming a battle to find food and it's not just having to keep going out every day to the shop to try to find it, it if or not there will be any food on the shelves when you get there, which there isn't.
M&S had more stuff and I was able to get my tins of sardines, cling film freezser bags for storing food in the freezer, tins of soup and ham but I could only buy 2 of each , they have this on everything now. But they did not a few days ago so they must have just changed their rules. And more shops are doing this so it's not only the big supermarkets.
One happier note was that I did find a shop called Poundland that also does food, such as tinned stuff and everything for the food cupboard but they don't do chilled or frozen food.
They had quite a number of tinned meats tinned spaghetti,tinned mac and cheese, cereals and other things including essentials.
But again no toilet rolls or boxes of tissues, I can't get those anywhere.
But the good news is that Poundland do not rationed the food like many other stores are doing the only thing they rationed is toilet rolls and tissues to 3 of each, but everything else you can just buy as many as you want.
So I bought 10 packs of microwave in the bag rice 8 tins of sardines as I know it may be a long time before i see those again in the shops.
And some tinned hamburgers in gravy. I don't eat those either but I may need to if I can't get frozen meat and as I said tinned food keeps for a very long time but fresh meats don't.
There was no tinned potatoes they don't have those anyway either though you could get them before the crisis but not now.And no baked beans. But I managed to get what I wanted even if it was not everything I would have liked.
Then I went home by taxi then walked down to Tesco but they had next to nothing. No frozen food(glad I got the fish fingers before the crisis started) as they have none now.
No frozen veg, no potates ot fresh veg, no chilled ham or cold meats.
So all I was able to get was 2 tins of soup as they too only allow you 3 of the same items,not more.
But Tescos have got nothing and neither have Sainsburys of ASDA.
It's not even worth going in there as they have no food and of course no violet,rolls or boxes of tissue and no no kitcken rolls either.
Every day I do down there to the supermarkets it gets worse and worse they have less and less and now nothing.
How are we supposed to manage without food.
We cannot get pasta and rice now and potaotes are no none exitent.
Even the corner shops have not got them.
My potatoes at home are going a bit brown and soft now as they only keep for a week.Though I do keep them in the fridge as I always have done to make them last a bit longer.They don't last that long,under normal circumstances I would just buy more but now I can't because the shops have no potatoes.
But My corner shop did have big bags of dried rice that you boil up on the stove. I don't have a stove as I have a halogen oven but I do have a microwave and you can biol them in that in a boil of water the same as you can with potatoes and pasta it still cooks the same and less mess than on a stove.
The corner shop was the only shop to have the dried rice which I bought because a bag of rice lasts for months and you get many servings as with potatoes. Where as the Microwave rice in a bag only gives you one serving, so you have to buy many bags.
Both Tesco and M&S had the Microwave rice in a bag but you can only buy 2 so it would not have been enough to last me a long time should we have a lockdown or not be able to get any more rice.
But Poundland let you buy as many as you want which I did but I still need the bad of dried rice as I know my potatoes are going to run out soon and I cannot eat just fish finger or burgers on their own. It won't fill me up, you need something else with it such as chips,mash, pasta or rice. But at least if I cannot get potatoes I now have the rice so I am pleased about that.
Oh and I bought some golden syrup to sweeten my tea in case my sugar runs out as the shops don't have that either. I bought that in Poundland as I did the coffee they also have tea bags as many packs as you want. Which Tesco have not got.