General Chat

They can be kept in the fridge now - but it doesn't guarantee their freshness past their sell-by date!

I have this vague memory of Mum keeping eggs in a bucket of water. Could it have been over Christmas when the shops shut?

Went into the local Sainsbury's this morning - no Toilet paper, baked beans, tins of tomatoes, 3 single packs of kitchen towel, no pasta, and strangely, no eggs! :-S
Eggs definitely have a shelf life - how many will go to waste?

Had they had any, I would have bought 1 tin of baked beans, 1 tin of tomatoes and 1 x 4 pack of toilet paper.
Nevertheless, I bought my other 'essentials' - 1 pint of milk, 1 tub of cream, 1 pack of butter (though not my usual sort - butter was very low), 1 x 6 pack of cat food, 2 x carrots (that is, literally, two carrots), 1 x courgette 1 pack of runner beans, and 2 x bottles of plonk!

Sylvia, we shop similar to you, buying extra when items we use are on special offer.

We live just over the brow of a hill and when we come off the drive it means a sharp right/left-angled turn to major shops unless we go to the little local where some stocks often run out before late-afternoon

Several years ago we had a regular mini-bus service going past our house but the winter after the bus went sailing down the hill, straight through someone's garden wall, just missing the lounge window, because it could not take the left-angled turn, the company stopped that service. That particular winter my OH and I trudged through the snow to shop, both of us carrying two full shopping bags back. It took ages, resting our arms now and then.

It was the winter when even a Tesco delivery van failed to make a Christmas food delivery to an older friend around the corner who was confined to her home.

By the following winter, not only had we bought a four-wheel drive, we had a fridge, freezer and larder cupboard in the laundry at the back of the garage and we now stock up just before Christmas every year in case we have a bad winter. We work our way through the products so don't have to buy them again until the weather is less inclement.

We have not had such a winter again but, even so, for two days this winter, the hill could not be negotiated - we watched as a couple of 4WDs even failed to do so.

Oh for the days when our local authority used to clear the road - but that stopped when the local mini bus service gave up the ghost!

The lady buying the bread she might have a large family. I shop for 5 and we can get through 6 or more loaves a week. Time they've made sandwiches for work and lunches and snacks it soon goes.

We like pork tenderloin for our Sunday roast, and always have 3 or 4 in the freezer. Even the "normal" sized one usually in the butcher section at our Safeway is twice the size that we would eat ............. so we cut that into 2 roughly equal part of just under 1lb each. Roast one and freeze one.

However, every now and again they have a sale on family-sized tenderloin, and I will get OH to buy one of those. We'll get 3 or 4 roughly 1lb roasts out of one of those, keeps the freezer stocked up.

They had family-sized ones on sale this weekend, so there is currently a large tenderloin in the fridge. This one will give us a roast for tonight and 2 in the freezer. It cost $7.45, but we saved $12.50 on the full price. It works out to a little less than the usual cost of our Sunday roast.

He didn't buy the second of the Limit of 2 at this price, so I don't feel we were overbuying

Just doing our usual thrifty buying! :-D

‘The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed.’ (Mahatma Gandhi).

If there is one thing I am well supplied with it is soap.

We always use bar soap and, if I am given some as a gift, or, maybe, a hint, I will keep it as long as possible so that it gets well hard and lasts longer.

Lat year, a small soap company was having a sale and selling their gorgeous little heart shaped soaps at a fiver for twenty-five. They make good knicker whiffers in the drawer and are lovely soap anyway so I bought six boxes.

One of my old biddies did something very kind for me last year so I gave her a box and did a selection of them for the old biddies Christmas presents.

Most grocery deliveries I will buy a couple of bars as well, so we have soap if nothing else.

Hope she had a big freezer then or some will go mouldy before she can eat it.

Unless of course she does have 6 children, or was also buying for others or some sort of facility.

Apparently it was worse than Christmas at our smallish local Tesco this morning. And, also apparently, one woman had 8 loaves. Now, maybe she has 6 children who knows but that does seem a tad greedy.

I went out for the first ( and last probably) time in weeks, driven to the Co op , nice to see the daffs and crocus at the roadside, very cheering :-)

Still some toilet rolls there, limited amount of pasta, only spaghetti and lasagne sheets, but no shortage of everything else. A few more people shopping than is usual on a Sunday, ( that amounts to 4 people in front of us at the 2 tills) but no loaded trolleys or the like. Iceland order which we had in the week was fine also, but was a late slot as all the early ones were taken so they must have been busier than usual.

Can't speak for whether there was any shortage of meat, we don't eat it so I didn't notice :-)

Georgy Melly
had such a big belly
that he could not get near the telly
So he had to go
and listen to the radio

Son 'phoned last evening to say they had bought my "Mothers Day" gift, pack of 4 toilet rolls,did I want them gift wrapped? :-D

Just a thought - apart from toilet roll, people appear to be buying up all the kitchen towel too. Is this because there's no toilet paper left?
If people use kitchen roll as toilet paper, I can see, not only peoples toilets overflowing, but the sewerage system blocking up all over the country :-(

We have frozen juice that we make up as needed. OH is finding it hard to find the Cranberry or Cranberry mix that I prefer, so I might be going without!

At the moment I'm trusting that we will always be able to get milk and my Soy milk, but might have to rethink that!

I have a goodly supply of the no lactose and gluten-free snacks that I have to have, and several gluten-free loaves and a couple of bags of gluten-free bagels (5 per bag) in the freezer. I think OH has about 2 weeks supply of his bread.

I usually drink only cold or hot water plus a glass of the fruit juice at lunch and dinner, and a sleepy herbal tea at bedtime .......... haven't been able to buy my preferred extra strength one since before Christmas, so I have already adjusted there. OH has several bags of coffee beans in the freezer ........... daughter always gives him at least one bag in his Christmas stocking! Her son gave me a box of the extra-strength herbal tea at Christmas .... they could still get it there!

Plus I have I dunno how many boxes of tea, both real tea and herbal, in all kinds of flavours. I used to get them as gifts, but don't really like them any longer.


The thing is ............. no-one has any need to buy abnormal amounts of anything, certainly not in the amounts that we've been seeing!

We won't stave but it might be interesting making meals if the shops stay empty of food for long. My cart was full yesterday but that's for five of us and it will mostly be gone time I shop next. I always have some cans just in case etc but canned food can be so salty. I have milk powder just in case, as luck would have it I have quite a few small containers of fruit juice as it had been on sale so we can drink that if need be. I have loads of different teas as I usually drink coffee but everyone gives me tea for gifts :-) Have enough dried pasta to last maybe 2 weeks as it had been on sale. Have frozen fruit left still from last summer so that'll help for a little while.

That said.......if they're all home more than usual they tend to snack more so it could all be gone very quickly....

We almost always have at least 2 packs of either 8 or 12 toilet rolls in the basement store ....... that's because we buy when they come on sale, and 2 for the price of 1 is not an unusual offer.

We currently have 2 packs down there, but I know that we'll need to bring one up to one of the 2 bathrooms within the next 2 or 3 days. So one pack has been on the shopping list for the last 10 days ............ nada!

OH checked for the TP again about an hour ago, and came home laughing ......... no TP of course, but he said people were putting back on the shelves packs of Royale facial tissues, even though they were the only ones available ...................

they were too expensive!

If you really need paper hankies, you'll buy even the expensive ones if there are no others there


I find it absolutely disgusting that people are buying up massive supplies ot items, and then selling them on eBay at a huge profit.

But there have always been profiteers in every century


I always have plenty of soap in because, again we buy in packs of 3 or 6. Plus I bring home tablets of soap that we have used when we stay in hotels .......... I figure that is fair game. We both have at least one unopened bottle of shampoo (plus conditioner for me).

We don't have many tins in the cupboard, except for tins of wild sockeye salmon and of Campbells condensed Tomato soup ............. the salmon is a staple dish for us both winter and summer. Salmon salad in summer and fish pie in winter, and tomato soup is what I feel like if my tummy is "off". So again we buy on special.

But we have larger fridges and freezers over here, so we have a very well stocked freezer ............ I reckon I have enough roasts of around 1 lb in size for at least 2 months of Sunday roasts :-D . Would you like ham, beef, pork or lamb? :-D

Plus there's ground beef, stew beef, sausages (English bangers and Mild Italian) and pork, chicken or beef stirfry. The stew, shepherds pie and fish pie that I make will each add 3-5 single servings of frozen home-made meals.

I don't think we'll starve :-D

I checked/tidied the cupboard under the sink today and found two bars of Dettol soap which could come in handy. Also found a bar of vanish soap but think that can stay there for its intended purpose ;-)

Lol Maggie,

I can just imagine your face having bit into that.

If I delve into cupboards and drawers here, I could find at least 2 or 3 bars of soap, although I usually use liquid variety.I know I have a Wrights Coal Tar bar, 1 of Dove and one translucent Pears. The Wrights and Pears in particular are tucked in with clean bed linen and their smell always brings back childhood memories of staying with my auntie in Wales.
Mum always maintained that soap lasted longer, when it was stored for a while, so that is why we both kept it until use, in with fabrics.

We were shopping in Asda yesterday as usual. The shelves were almost bare on some aisles. There were no toilet rolls whatsoever. After going further round the shop we came across two members of staff saying that the world had gone mad and it would end up with only one toilet roll per person at some point. I piped up that there were actually none at all when we were in that aisle. One of the men said he had just left a large trolley full of them if we were quick. Hubby went back to get a pack of four which is what we usually buy but they had only put out family packs of 16 rolls so we bought one of those. We would have been quite happy with 4 rolls but what can you do. I felt guilty carrying them from the car into the house in case someone saw me.

Kath. x