Can we please stop all the bashing of “stockpilers”

[Notcontent]

Reading all the threads, it seems that anyone who has bought more than a week’s worth of food is being accused of being a selfish stockpiled responsible for all the food supply issues we have at the moment.

I think that’s slightly unfair. Yes, people who went out and bought 10 big packs of toilet paper in one go are probably responsible for the shortages. But many of us simply bought a few more things over a number of weeks.

I am one of those people. I have friends with families in Europe and I was closely following the progress of the situation since early January. Back in February, when lots of people I spoke to thought it was all an overblown drama, I started buying a few extra things every time I did a shop. Why? Because I don’t have any family nearby to help out and I usually rely on supermarket deliveries for most of my needs (no car). I would be really stuck now if I didn’t have some extra supplies as I am reliant on some small nearby shops.

Being a prepper isn't about camo, ammo and tin foil hats. Please stop wasting your time with that ridiculous nonsense. Spend your time doing something else. Like learning how to bake bread. Or, I dunno, kicking back with gin and tonic watching shit on TV.

We're in East of England, where are these shortages?

No shortage here, just been forced to limit what we buy because people have been idiots. Massive shelves full, but we're only allowed three of any one item because otherwise everyone decides to 'just get a little extra' and then we do have empty shelves. Just buy what you need for pity's sake.

Exactly @BrooHaHa . I rarely need to go to the shops now. Because I am a general prepper.

No flour, pasta, tinned tomatoes etc here. Literally just bare shelves. A few rolls of toilet paper. Loads of easter eggs (top tip: buy those)

If we ever get to that point, it will be dog eat god

Crikey, that does sound rather serious.

That Lincolnshire fella isn't a terribly good prepper if he broke OpSec in such a public manner. ☢ 😂

I disagree @esjee I think user1493....makes some really good points. Not everyone has the money and time to 'prepare better'. My own income has dropped 25% (relative to prices) over the last two decades - (public sector.. I buy what basics I can on payday then rely on yellow stickers, marked down bread and small batches of shopping when the weekly child benefit arrives. Millions of people are the same - so no, there was not 'plenty of opportunity' between late Feb/early March (essentially one month) for busy full-time working families to stock up and almost double their shopping budget at the drop of a hat. Not blaming anyone or the government etc - this is a world-wide crisis. Plenty of us 'noticed' but not everyone had the time and money to look out for themselves in the way that others have.

What is the ultimate fear? That you will run out of food completely?

Same as it was for Brexit - when everyone else is scrapping/queuing in the supermarket, I’m at home watching TV.

It works for me (obviously) and is better for people who do need to be in the supermarket now - one less person there.

But also, I feel like I was better prepared for this than the government and the supermarkets.

And that shouldn’t be true.

@ALittleBirdhouse , I don't know what time and money you needed (assuming £1 spare cash a month) to have bought a couple of cheap tins of veg over several months. Or, when you were more flush, to have bought, say, a tin of chicken in white sauce or something.

Or a pack of basics white rice.

Thanks to the preppers on here and vaguely dipping into the early worried about covid threads I started adding one or two small bags of pasta to my normal shop. I always buy loo roll on offer. Ocado had 20 as limit per family, I brought 6 then 6 again etc.

Each week, just a little extra.

I have a full freezer, and well stocked larder.
That's thanks to the foresight of threads on here.
In the past 2 weeks dh has been to the shops once to get milk.
I also did a full shop 2.5 weeks ago for the food bank.

I've been able to give neighbours odd items of food they are saying they need and can't get.
I feel hugely grateful to the preppers on here. It's just a shame they don't work for our government. We would be in a far better position now...

Same womanaf.

It's a wonderful feeling.

The stockpiling/ prepping has been a national disgrace, all me me me and no thought for how the weaker/poorer in society will get by

It's not prepping. It's panicking. Haven't you figured out the difference yet. How is a jar extra I bought in June last year contributing to a shortage?

I'm not even a prepper* but it is getting very tiresome that they are having so much scorn thrown at them. They are not the problem, if anything they are part of the solution as they are using their stocks.

*I generally have stuff in my cupboards and freezer, so I have pretty much just topped up. Apart from chocolate, I am getting lots of that.

I have always kept supplies because that's how I organise my life, with a full contingency plan for financial, health or other emergency. Someone asked what people keep. I generally buy food on offer by delivery so I stock up whatever we like that's on a deal unless it's perishable. Regularity of seasonal offers means we have tomatoes (I usually get 2 sets of 6 tins on offer), sweetcorn, baked beans, refried beans, soups, rice, pasta, chilli, nuts, crackers, spices, olive oil, olives, flour and other stuff. We have one fridge freezer, but it holds a lot and we're good at freezing fresh chopped veg, meat and fruit. We'd have to make compromises on things like butter and milk, but could eat quite healthily and well for several months. Cleaning and bathroom products would last even longer.

The things we've bought extra of than normal in the past few weeks: paracetamol and calpol, milk, mayonnaise. That's it, we're using up instead. We've eaten the last out of date tin of soup this week so everything is in date now.

BUT I got a few weeks of supplies for DP and DPIL, all of whom are in their 70s and social distancing due to age and underlying conditions. They have stores too but tend to buy a lot fresh, so if I hadn't they'd have to have gone to the shops with everyone else tussling over eggs and I didn't want them taking that risk. They thought it was all a bit much until a day before the deliveries arrived, now they can't get anything delivered and don't want to go out so they're pleased. If anyone wants to hate me for stocking up 4 elderly people and keeping them out of the shops, go ahead. Now we all patiently wait a few weeks for panic buying to calm down so we can get our deliveries or get our rations. One set of neighbours are very badly prepared with just fresh food, they still don't seem to get it and are just waiting for normal service to resume even though they can readily afford to stock up. So we know we'll have to share with them soon, but it would be nice if they'd just buy a few tins or bits of pasta to help themselves, other neighbours say the supermarkets have plenty of stock, just missing eggs and sometimes milk.

Oh, I did buy extra coffee too, but I would have bought a load anyway in the same shop because our brand was on offer through Ocado.

I’m not jealous but I am annoyed that I can’t get a single tin of tomatoes while other people have enough in their cupboard for several weeks

But I bought them in 2018?

But trying to soften it by calling stock piling prepping is silly. Because what you’re preparing for isn’t real.

Seems pretty real to me.

The stockpiling/ prepping has been a national disgrace, all me me me and no thought for how the weaker/poorer in society will get by

Still don't know the difference yet? Christ on a bike.

But trying to soften it by calling stock piling prepping is silly. Because what you’re preparing for isn’t real

I know man, crap zombie apocalypse this is.

I haven't got any tomatoes, can't find any anywhere.

I don't like them, but you know a real stockpiler would have them regardless.

The stockpiling/ prepping has been a national disgrace, all me me me and no thought for how the weaker/poorer in society will get by

Have you actually read this thread or are you busy sniffing the shite you’ve just typed?

How is someone shopping months in advance of something: aka prepping impacting you or others? I am a general prepper (although as a HCP pandemic was my biggest fear), I was stocked for 6 months of food last summer. I stopped shopping - apart from fresh fruit - weeks ago because I knew not everyone preps and they would need what is on the shelves. I also knew the just in time system would fail.

Preppers take themselves out of the equation in a crisis and leave more on the shelves for those who won’t or can’t take personal responsibility for themselves.

I can’t imagine being so thick as to not know about the supply system that brings food into an island.

People who prepper correctly and removed themselves from the scrum are not the issue.

The stockpiling/ prepping has been a national disgrace, all me me me and no thought for how the weaker/poorer in society will get by

You need to look up what prepping means and apologize. How did I contribute to the current shortages when I'm currently using loo roll and pasta bought in 2018?

The government should have warned the supermarkets that they were going to tell people to visit supermarkets as little as possible because it was inevitable that the JIT system wouldn't cope.

The stockpiling/ prepping has been a national disgrace, all me me me and no thought for how the weaker/poorer in society will get by

The prepping has not been a national disgrace. The panic buying has.

People who prepped for a disruption in the supply chain (although few could have foreseen this, imo) due to Brexit or recession or petrol strikes are able to leave the delivery slots to others. They're able to stay at home. They're able to adequately feed their children a largely balanced diet to mean they don't need to use excessive NHS resources, now or in the future. On the whole, the preppers I know are fine with eating weird or repetitive meals - baked beans with sausages, frozen minced beef and onions, tuna pasta bake - to free up resources for others.

Nothing beats Warburtons Toastie loaf as far as I'm concerned, but I'm lucky enough to have some take n bake type rolls and some cream crackers in "stock", so I'll eat them instead and keep my germs to myself. I'm not sure how that's selfish.