So all the 'non essential moaners' what do you class as non essential

[HoppingOnSteppingStones]

Because I've just been to tesco and brought a kettle. I've just had a bloke when I was stood in front to pay. Mumble about an 'essential kettle'

Did he know why I had to buy it. Did he plums!
It's not so I can go home and have a relaxing cuppa. Its so I can make formula for my baby. Because last night our kettle went bang!
We had to get hot water off the neighbour for this mornings bottle so I could then run to grab one.

What's essential to some isn't to others.

Yes I think there's prob a fine line but I wish people wouldn't judge

Well, he is an idiot!

I had to go out to our local shop and stock up on pads and pens for homeschooling. Is that essential.

But what if I was really just buying it to pass my time doodling

I bought a new quilt with my shopping . First lockdown guy behind me in the queue said. Priorities eh! His wife shushed him.

Seriously, why should people even care?
Most things we buy are probably not essential. Things are miserable enough as it is without having moaning idiots around us.
I’ve seen people buy alcohol, toys, books, candles, flowers, and all manner of non essential items.

Are we going to start saying cakes and crisps and biscuits etc is all non essential because really it is. Tea bags, coffee blah blah, we can all just have water, gods sake. In my eyes wine is essential so wont stop buying it.

I had a brief wondering on this. The idea is to reduce time and frequency of shops. It doesn't really matter what you put in your trolley. People can tell me my crisps aren't essential but I've been vegan for many years and I can tell you that meat dairy and fish are not essential. Really not at all. As pp said most things aren't. I'm on a short fuse and would have (Ill advisedly) said something to the kettle grumbled.

Again though, candles could be essential
If your saving electricity, books to keep occupied, toys to keep kids occupied while parents work at home. It really does depend what way you look at it

I don't have an issue with you buying a kettle but did you have no other means of heating water at all this morning? The contact with the neighbour seems unnecessary.

Btw I'm definitely not telling you to do a vegan lockdown eat what you damn well please!

I'd have checked out what he was buying and critiqued it with him. What an arse.

My neighbour goes to shop every couple of days to buy biscuits. Completely non essential

But it’s the only time they are getting out apart from the food delivery they get delivered to their door and the neighbours talking to them across the fence they have been no where and saw no one. Therefor those biscuits are essential

What a twat. Wish you would have told him why you were buying it. Although tbf if I was in your position I wouldn't have done either. People need to start minding their own! There's not one person on this planet who is perfect, it's pure hypocrisy!

That pissed me off the first time round and it still does now. Essential means different things to different people, and if you don't know the circumstances, mind your own business.

Op, a kettle is really essential.

@StillDumDeDumming

Btw I'm definitely not telling you to do a vegan lockdown eat what you damn well please!

I am so with you on that, some of what we are conditioned to eat as essential is crazy. But I keep quiet.

I would class anything you can buy in a supermarket essential actuslly. Only essential shops can open so anything they sell is fair game if you ask me. The difference is trying to minimise journeys so buy all at once etc

However, sometimes you need just one item. Be that a pint of milk or a kettle - those are essential items in their own rights.

A kit kat?? Well maybe it is if youre out (working) and youre hungry.

Pay him no heed OP, people's heads have been fried by this situation.

Just inwardly stick your two fingers up every time you have a cuppa

You're not only allowed to buy essentials. Shops have to sell essentials to be allowed to day open but they don't have to just sell essentials - so it is perfectly reasonable to buy anything sold by an open shop and Mr Judgy Pants can fuck right off.

A kettle is most definitely essential. Someone probably thought me buying a microwave was non-essential. Ours started issuing smoke, we use it daily so I replaced it.
There’s a reason there’s no “official list” of essential items, because it varies from family to family depending on resources and lifestyle.

Can’t humans go about 3 weeks without food before starving to death? And given we all have drinking water in our taps, we should only be allowed out once every 2.5 weeks to buy savers porridge oats to make a watery gruel with at home.

Don’t worry about someone like that. If you need to buy a kettle, then buy a kettle.

Be grateful that you don’t have to live in that man’s head and don’t think any further about this. With a small baby, you have more gab enough to do already

OP, I'm very disappointed in you. Your kettle is definitely non-essential. Thousands of babies and children all over the world survive without electricity and kettles and do just fine.

Presumably you have furniture in your house? A table and chairs? What you really should have done was get the axe from the shed, break it all up and start a fire in the garden. Then you could have boiled water in a pot on the outside fire for baby's bottles.

Instead, you chose to clutter the aisles of your local supermarket buying your non-essential kettle and getting in the way of all the legitimate shoppers making their essential purchases of alcohol, scented candles and home schooling supplies.

I have no words. It's high time the police cracked down on people like you.

If you're allowed to go to the supermarket, what difference does it make what you buy while you're in there? As long as you're not nipping in and out whenever you feel like it because you haven't bothered to make a list, it doesn't matter. If I want to buy nice shower gel alongside my bread and eggs, it makes no difference because I am not generating an additional exposure.

Honestly, people need to wind their necks in.

@springersrock

Entirely unrelated to the thread, and I'm sure romanticising something that's probably a bit shit for the horse (and you) but the idea of an elderly horse needing peppermint tea is so sweet!

What is essential for one person isn’t for another. But the length of a lockdown effects this to. I could say manage without something like a hoover for a few days but I would need to get one before lockdown ends. That is fine as at the moment shops are allowed to do click and collect, and there is home delivery. I’ve seen people call for all click and collect to stop as well as deliveries apart from food. This is short sighted and comes from a position of privilege in a lot of cases. Deliveries weren’t stopped in the last lockdown but many places did stop deliveries initially. Babies, toddlers and even children grow out of clothes quickly. During the first lockdown I struggled to get some bodysuits for my baby- lots of places weren’t delivering, they were out of stock in others. I managed to get the last pack in the supermarket. I got tutted it at the time but my son needed clothes, more than an someone without alcohol dependence needs alcohol.

Because I've just been to tesco and brought a kettle. I've just had a bloke when I was stood in front to pay. Mumble about an 'essential kettle

Must be an essential kettle to you alright, since you brought it with you to shop in Tesco. Tea break in aisle 7?

Expressing your opinion on other people's shopping is definitely non-essential.