Why I Did Not Panic Buy

There is one simple reason I didn't panic buy. I didn't need to.

I'd bet a lot of people who live through hard times on a daily basis didn't, either. We're used to resources being tight. Panic buying is a privilege of the affluent. I'd love to be in a position that I can just run out and buy a van load of shit I didn't need yesterday and probably don't need today either. But I'm not.

For the past few years I've been living in a state of not knowing what next month brings. There were weeks when I thought I was days away from bankruptcy. I'm in a position that I know that if I lost my job then I'd be screwed financially.

So you take a few little steps when you don't need to. In the supermarket and you see a few chicken fillets in the reduced section? You can either buy them and stuff yourself silly or you can buy them and stick them in the freezer. I do the latter.

For the last few years I've been squirreling stuff away whenever I've seen cheap food. If I've got leftovers it goes in the freezer. The times I throw away food are the days I feel like I've lost points in the great game of life. To the point that I now have two freezers full to the brim.

In the north there is a supermarket chain called Booths. Booths is an upmarket shop, makes Waitrose look like Lidl. There's not much I can afford to buy in there regularly. What makes them great is that they have a fantastic reduced section. Hit the right time and all the leftovers from the butchery and fishmonger counters are piled into the fridge, usually with a massive discount. I've filled the freezer with venison, pheasant, ribs of beef, loins of pork that were all going for peanuts. When I go to my local butchers I maybe buy an extra chop or a few sausages. All goes into the freezer.

A lot of financial advice sites say have three months cash in the bank. But do they ever say have three months food in the freezer? It's the same thing, saving a little something for a rainy day.

I'm not some crazy prepper. I'm not waiting for the end of the world, it's losing my job (or the ability to work) that I'm preparing for. It just so happens that when what seems like a miniature apocalypse happens like the covid-19 outbreak I can draw on that.

It's not just food. I decided to stop using disposable shit months ago. I bought a massive pack of microfibre cloths from Screwfix so I wasn't reliant on kitchen roll. I use one or two fresh every day and then they go in the wash when done. Same with teatowels. Same with lots of other stuff. I fucking hate all the shit that marketers pretend we need. Here's an example, in Lidl last night I saw a woman with about 40 tubes of Berocca. No, apart from what the fuck are you going to do with 40 tubes of Berocca, what does it actually do? If it was a viable anti-viral don't you think they would be raining it out of the fucking sky on people? But no, the marketers make you think this crap does some good.

The other reason I didn't panic buy is that I'm not a prick. There's no two ways about it. If you panic-bought, you're a prick. I get it, if you've got a baby or a sick relative or whatever, maybe there's no harm in being prepared. But if you're some arsehole filling your car with bog-rolls then you don't really have an excuse.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just trying to feel like I'm in some sort of control to make myself feel better. I don't care, I've not panic-bought anything. Cut it out, you aren't being heroic, you're just being a prick.