What is essential and what isn't?

[NeverYouMind123]

I'm doing another quick supermarket shop tomorrow just before it closes when it's quiet, to get me through the bank holiday and next week. As usual I feel so guilty about it and wonder if I'm putting my life and others at risk and I should be going at all. I'm getting things like bread, milk, tea bags, some ham and eggs for the fridge salad top up etc. (I admit whilst I'm in there I'll grab some bottles of wine). I can't decide whether it's "essential" though? I live on my own. If I don't buy these basic things I can't have a cup of tea, cereal, porridge, a sandwich for lunch etc). But obviously I would survive on tap water and frozen crap for a couple of weeks.

Am I being selfish as I really can't make my mind up 😕

The guidance literally says ESSENTIAL ITEMS SUCH AS FOOD. You don’t need to decide for yourself what ‘essential’ means. The government have told you you can buy food. Whatever food you want.

Essential to me, would mean absolutely crucial as in there is no food in the house and I am starving

Well you could take it to that extreme, but until the Government starts searching people's houses and only allowing them to go to a food shop once it has been proved that they do indeed have no food in the house, just go a sensible amount of times per week and stop worrying about it. There are no rules specifying how many times you are allowed to go to the shop or what you are allowed to buy.

You're not supposed to go multiple times a day, but there's no need to make it into a competition of who can go the longest without stepping into a shop. Once or twice a week is absolutely fine and a lot less than some people will be going. Even Nicola Sturgeon said 'don't go more than once a day'.

I'd expect that the queues for the shops will be a little longer in the next couple of days due to the Easter holiday, and that's enough to put anyone off going unless they actually need to.

Anyone who says x and y is not essential, does not understand the point of lockdown. We limit the number of trips to essential ones only eg once per week (or whatever we can manage with size of family, if we have a freezer etc) what we put in the trolley is irrelevant.

If it helps op think that you might need to self isolate for 7 days (or longer) if you get ill with no notice. Shopping now means you'll have the freezer stash as a backup. As pp said it's more about minimising trips not stopping all together

Just buy what you want and don't worry what other people think.