Planning ahead - that's the key

REGULAR readers will know about my love-hate relationship with panic buying and food hoarding.

- CLARE AINSWORTH

While I'm a big advocate of bulk buying and food preparation for the sake of economy, I have often complained about panic buyers who deprive everyone else of essential items.

My determination not to give in to pre-lockdown panic left me short of several basic cooking items for most of 2020, all of which I found ways to do without.

Other things proved more tricky. I do wish I had stocked up on hand soap and I definitely regretted not panic-buying toilet paper.

It's a situation I don't want to repeat but, dear readers, there are many advantages to still buying your daily newspaper!

My brother-in-law is a self-confessed panic buyer and a hoarder. In fact a visit to his house is like a tour of a well-stocked village shop.

He began panic buying before Brexit and sat back laughing at the chaos others faced when lockdown loomed. A quick restock of the cupboards post-pandemic has left him riding out the cost-of-living crisis on cheap beans and inflation-busting bog rolls.

Yet he is not quite so clever or serious as a window cleaner from County Durham, who predicted the pandemic and began stashing food in various places around Great Britain back in 2016.