I would not have left the store in these times that's for sure. Did you reach the 12 limit? This is definitely frustrating.

And they don't even know how to write a decent English sentence! That would madden me too!

I would be upset, but one can also buy online and have stuff delivered. I bought some canned peaches and other fruit from Walmart.com as opposed to the Walmart grocery delivery, and was able to buy reasonable quantities, and I have seen on Amazon where one can buy by the case although sometimes if it is not a Prime purchase it can be a little more expensive.

I rely on shipping/delivery for most of my groceries.

Congratulations on the new puppy, they are such a joy (but so much work).

I'm sorry you had that experience but even so do not let this be too upsetting to risk your well being. We are just now,entering the weeks where the most contagious numbers of people will be circulating. Later on, most of these will have gotten better a d built immunity. They will not be passing the virus then a d your chances of getting g it will be greatly reduced.

I'm sorry. I'm frustrated for you. We are seeing overwhelming panic buying where I am. I'm in a low risk group, but worried when it's time to go out about having to spend the morning out and run to 7 different stores in an attempt to get 10 items I need. So much energy spent and so much contact had. Not use to thinking about a basic grocery list as a luxury wish list :( There's no reason it should be this way either.

Hope you have better luck today.

ETA: Around here, stores seem to be cancelling the buy online and pick up option, so I'm not even going to bother trying that.

I hear you Ken. I had to freeze my 69 year old butt off in the early morning just to get a loaf of bread. We are a so called shelter in place area. But I had to stand nose to nose with strangers in a very long line waiting for the doors to open. This after driving over sixty miles yesterday looking for bread. Any bread. most stores here who deliver are out of stock when you go to order online. Same with Amazon fresh. It's ridiculous. I understand how paper good and more exotic things can be out or low but bakeries are up and running and they bake and deliver to the stores nearly every day. Meanwhile we are told not to leave our homes and not to associate with friends or do activities that keep us in good health. It's total hypocrisy. I am exhausted. I am the sole driver in the house now. If something needs to be done I am the one who has to get it done. This burning the candle at both ends just to keep us with basic supplies is gonna make me ill, not the stupid virus.

I'm sorry you had a frustrating experience, but expect to see more of the same in the coming weeks. Exasperating as it was, I think I would have bought the limit allowed and then been done with the shopping. You are now in a position of having to go to another grocery store(s) to get what you need when you could be finished with this and able to stay at home and avoid any further contact with others.

I don't make it a habit to game the system, but maybe a way around their system that doesn't work as they advertised would to buy the 12 cans allowed, take those out to the car and go back in to the store and buy 12 more. Just be sure to leave enough so that other people can get the groceries they need. :-)

I'm sorry for the frustrations, but 12 cans of vegetables per person seems very fair to me. Everyone needs food, and people buying large amounts at once is partly why we are having this issue.

Can you maybe branch out into frozen or fresh vegetables?

Yeah, you can have my allotment of canned veggies. Let me know when you want me to go to the store with you.

I get the frustration but you chose to leave the store empty handed. Now you have to risk exposure and do it all again.

There's no shortage of canned veggies near me. But might be near you, how would I know? I agree it's good practice to leave some of whatever product for the next guy ... but if there's PLENTY on the shelves, I would think the store would appreciate the business. And I'd expect a store to be able to communicate effectively. 12 cans total, vs 12 cans of one product, = a big difference.

I would have asked to speak to the manager to address the sign, but I would have bought the 12 allowed. I eat some canned veggies but mostly frozen veggies. my local store is opening from 5-6 a.m. on Wednesday mornings, for seniors only. clean store and newly stocked. if one is awake at that time. I'm not even sure it's light out at that time here. I'll probably just try going to my local W this afternoon - it's less than 10 min. from me.

Do you have a freezer? About the only canned veggies I can tolerate is corn. Otherwise I buy frozen. I too would've taken as many as I could and have them put the rest back...some is always better than none.

Adventures in frustration! Who would have thought that just going to the grocery store would be such a daunting and stressful task. I just got home from Kroger. It was like the store was closing there were so many empty shelves. Not a single piece of chicken, one package of hamburger meat which I got. Mia only eats boneless skinless breast or she gets extremely sick. No Tp, Kleenex, lysol or wipes. Plenty of soap which I don't need. They were filling up the meat counters with hot dogs and other stuff to keep them from looking empty. The meat and seafood butcher area was completely empty and closed.

It was not very crowded today but they only had 2 check out lanes open which caused people to be close together.

I will have to go out tomorrow to try to find chicken.

I like that idea of giving some hours to seniors before everything goes. My pal looked at 4 markets for eggs after work and couldn't get any.

I have decided not to go grocery shopping for a while. I just looked for dog food on-line at walmart.com and chewie.com and neither have dry Pedigree available now. I still some left but don't like to get so low and then run out before I remember to order it. I do have some canned food I bought them and was going to give it to the Humane Society because it seems to upset one of my dog's stomachs. I don't know which one, though so don't want to feed it to either. I may have to now. I may just add it a little each time to what dry I have.

I also just realized yesterday that I didn't get any dish detergent and looked at wal-mart.com and Amazon. I also looked at tone bar soap...all seem to be super high priced now, especially on Amazon. I will just run in to one of the Dollar Stores for the dish detergent when I run out of what I have. ) :

I have mellowed somewhat since becoming 'elderly' ( I HATE that term, and that's all I hear on the news), but I still have a hair trigger temper, and yes I cut off my nose to spite my face and I'll still have to go shopping. To my credit I was nice to the cashier and didn't take it out on her, and yes I should have talked to a manager. Living alone my food needs are meager, I enjoy a mess of beans as much as a good steak. I can't see prepping food for myself when I can open a can. Of course fresh and made from scratch is better, but meh lol.

The President said something to the effect that people were buying like it was Christmas. If I were in the business of selling groceries and I couldn't keep product on my shelves, I'D ORDER MORE, sell more, and make more money and keep my employees working. Why is that not happening? Could it be our food infrastructure can't keep up with an increase in demand, as with our health/medical infrastructure? If so, we're in deep doodoo, god help us.

I‘m in an in-between stage. I can get the senior discount some places, but not others. So when I see that my grocery stores are offering “senior time”, I think, hey, I could do that! But then I think, oh, it’s from 8-9 am? I’m not ready do go out yet lol still drying my hair!

Anyway, I’ve been to my larger chain store, DH has gone to the mega-store, but I prefer my smaller local 4-store chain. I always prefer it anyway, but now more than ever.

But, it’s hard when you move to a new town! You have to find your new favorites, and how they all do things, and where you are comfortable shopping. If you can forge some relationships within the store, there will come a time when that is helpful.

If I were in the business of selling groceries and I couldn't keep product on my shelves, I'D ORDER MORE, sell more, and make more money and keep my employees working. Why is that not happening? Could it be our food infrastructure can't keep up with an increase in demand, as with our health/medical infrastructure?

According to comments made by local Walmart employees Walmart is buying more but as soon as the trucks are unloaded the items are bought. From articles in the NYT the supply chain seems solid, so I think as the market gets saturated this shortage situation will resolve.

I personally do not plan to leave the house to go anywhere until this is over. I planned, now if it goes over a very, very long time, then that changes things. Guess I will be putting out a bigger garden and canning.

Sue

I did an early morning run to the grocery today. Store was not crowded and there was pretty much plenty of everything......except TP :-) Somethings were a little light....not a lot of paper towels or Kleenex available, they were out of my preferred brand of dog food (but had plenty of others) and the baking goods aisle was picked over. Also not much rice but I have plenty

So I got everything I needed/wanted and even stocked up on some staples (coffee, eggs, bacon - on sale!!) that I go through rapidly. Will be fixing corned beef and cabbage - also on sale - a day late :-)

ps. store cashier said that they were waiting on the plant to fulfill the TP order. Apparently the TP run has put the entire TP industry short!!

I went to one of our local Thriftway stores last night about 10 pm. They are open until 11. It was deserted except for me and 2 clerks. I gloved and masked up, just in case, but didn't feel I really needed the mask, so it came down as I shopped. I was just going to run in for a few things but decided to go ahead a stock up on some things that will last (and some beer and wine that won't)! They had every single thing I wanted, some not my preferred brands, but fine. I forgot dishwasher soap, but can last for a while.

One thing that I was excited to buy was organic bake at home bread. French style loaves and baguettes. They are shrink wrapped in plastic, then in paper bags and have a shelf life into September. Lots of the other bread was picked over, so I didn't feel bad buying several loaves, as this didn't seem to be what people preferred. I have purchased it before and it's really delicious, so I am very happy that it's in the larder. They also had yeast and I already have a good supply of flour, so I can also bake if I need to.

I also bought some egg beaters, in case I run out of eggs, mostly for making/baking things for my grandson. They have a long shelf life and can be frozen.

One of my friends told me that zinc is good for your immune system and that oysters are a good source. I live next to commercial oyster farms and they have a retail store not too far from me, so I'll make that a future outing when I'm going stir crazy. I could probably go pick my own in front of my house (with their permission) but am not an adept oyster shucker. I would if the food ran out.

I went to Winn Dixie yesterday on my way to work. I am only off work for 2 days this week and SO asked me to get whatever it would take so that I would not have to leave the house for those 2 days. They were out of the expected things. No toilet paper or paper towels,no lysol,no sanitizing wipes,and a lot of cleaning supplies were gone. No bread. All the hot dogs and lunchmeat were picked over. Almost all the frozen pizzas and boxed mac and cheese mixes were gone. The chip aisle looked pitiful.

I got some meat. To my delight, in an attempt to ration their supply i assume, they packed it in much smaller amounts. I only need 2 porkchops at a time, and only half a pound of ground beef,or one large chicken breast for the 2 of us. Usually that is next to impossible to find. Not yesterday. I got one small pack of ground chuck,the last pack of 2 porkchops and a chicken breast. I also got some bacon. We eat it for breakfast a lot and I also use it to season my veggies.

I got some of my diet soda to have on hand,and went to the canned veggie aisle to get some green beans. Alas, the only ones they had left were the "french style" which SO likens to worms and cannot choke them down. Fine, skip those. I went to produce to get some potatoes. Nope. No potatoes. Not a single one anywhere. Okay, I got 2 packs of four cheese instant mashed potatoes instead. (I dont care WHO you are those are delicious,too bad they are not on my diet.) The produce aisle was also kinda sad. There were a lot of apples and bananas, not much else. I left them for someone else. Finished up by grabbing a box of jiffy cornbread mix,a block of medium cheddar, and a taco bell brand crunchy taco kit. I have everything else I will need to make some meals on hand at home. Hopefully the panic buying will calm down soon. I thought that by now everyone who was going to stock up for a year would be hunkered down at home and the shelves would start to be somewhat normal again. Guess I was wrong. The store was very busy but it seemed like it was just normal shoppers in there,no one that I saw was getting huge amounts of anything. I passed a young woman in the laundry aisle and she exclaimed " I JUST want to wash my friggin clothes!!!!" The detergent was pretty well pillaged too.

I had to go to Tractor Supply to buy shavings for Primo's stall, so I went across the parking lot to Walmart, thinking maybe the doomsday preppers had finally stocked up to their satisfaction. Nope. No tp and pretty much like Amy said she found in her store. I did get another bag of Purina One cat food. I saw one woman trying to load 18 gallons of water in her car.

Good luck on the plan to stay home until this is over. Current projections are 18 months or more. I have one more outing to take one of my cats to the vet for an ear infection then I am in until whenever. I know I will eventually get the virus along with everyone else but hope to put it off for a couple of months. I have enough dry catfood for about two months but like gardengal with furkid food not the preferred food.

I had to go to Publix today for a prescription. They were very much out of so much. There was still stuff left but it wasn't anything like the day before yesterday. Of course there was no TP and no bread on the regular bread aisle but there was lots in the bakery. The dairy case was pretty bare, too. All the regular milk was gone. I noticed that there was plenty of almond milk. People should try it, it's pretty good. And it keeps for a long time, too.

I'm going to attempt a food run tomorrow, I'll try Walmart. They've gone to 6A-11P from 24/7. I'll get there when they open. Luckily I don't need TP lol. I'll report back...

Went to 3 stores today looking for chicken and I would like lysol and wipes but the main search was for chicken. Absolutely no chicken anywhere. They have like breaded nuggets but I need just raw chicken. I did find TP at the family dollar. I bought one small 4 pack.

Chicken has been a scarce commodity in Maryland too. At least it was over the weekend. Marylanders seem to like two things besides toilet paper - chicken and pork.

Good luck, Kenns!

I wonder why chicken is another hot item? That's something else we noticed at Costco last week - the chicken was nearly wiped out. Raven, I hope you are able to find some chicken for poor Mia.

Made a run to Winn Dixie this AM, most of the groceries here are playing musical chairs with their hours so skipped Walmart as that store is always busy and now opening later. Anyway got to Winn about 3/4 hour after opening, I thought the were closed because there where few cars in the lot. I got everything I set out to except a couple things I forgot, no biggy. It took me a while as that is the first time in that store and I have no food in my house. Now my pup and me are set for 2-3 months of non perishables. No limits on anything that I saw, in fact there was multiple pricing on some house brands. Of course no paper goods, hand wash, and surprisingly boxed pasta type stuff. Didn't check on fresh chicken, but plenty of red meat. Lots of dairy also. I can rest easy, we won't starve lol.

This email from Winn Dixie was received today (3/19). Note the first hour-maybe the reason there were few cars in the lot?

I wonder if the stores implementing senior hours are going to enforce their own schedules when people who are not seniors show up to shop during senior hour. You know, those people who either didn't read the memo or who think that the rules don't apply to them.

A friend of mine who is a senior went to a grocery store participating in the seniors hour. She said there was a man at the door making sure only seniors entered. But she was disappointed because nothing had been restocked the shelves were still bare. She was looking for chicken too and there was none.

I think probably not. They are retail establishments after all, and unlikely to turn away paying customers :-) I just made a run to my local Safeway to pick up a few things I had forgotten yesterday and stopped by during the Thursday 7-9 am senior hour slot. The store manager was there greeting us with a hello, a smile and disinfected carts.....and was doing exactly the same for those non-seniors who hadn't gotten the message (notice posted on front doors and a flyer in each cart). Not huge numbers but it was by no means "seniors only".

In fact, the store was busier today during the senior time slot than it was yesterday during more standard business hours! But it was also fully stocked. Apparently there had been a TP delivery but only 30 packages and those went fast!!

One of my stores has set the senior age at 60. Woo hoo ! Now do I hope to get carded to go into the grocery store?

I went in this morning about 9:30 to drop off income tax papers. Stopped at Meijer to get my vitamins , didn't go anywhere else in the store. A few people in that end of the store so that was good. Went to another grocery store to get what I wanted and maybe 5 or 6 people shopping . The cashier said earlier it was quite busy so glad I missed that. I bought more than I usually would have but now I don't have to shop for another 3 weeks if I don't want to. They didn't have one roll of TP ! I didn't need any but it was such an eerie feeling to see empty shelves. Also there wasn't any paper towels or large packages of table napkins. Only two small packages of napkins left which I bought as I needed some. I was trying to get my freezer emptied out from over the winter but now it's packed full again!! :(

Just to be precise, Safeway's policy is not "seniors only".....it is for any "at risk shoppers" and includes "seniors, pregnant woman, those with compromised immune systems or people who have been advised to avoid leaving home".

I did not know that oysters are a source of zinc. This is more incentive to use the curbside pick up. Oystermen work on the river right outside my door and sell them to the restaurants nearby. Last weekend there was plenty, but I will call ahead.

Thank God I finally found chicken! Whew that's a weight off my shoulders. Poor Mia I had to feed her some canned food and I know it's going to make her sick but now I have chicken! I hope this crazy hoarding thing ends soon. There's no reason for it. If everyone went back to their normal weekly shopping it would balance out. Less crowded and more products.

I shopped Smart and Final last night near closing. Huge change from last week. They are limiting all sorts of things but it is allowing more people to be able to purchase things. I got two chubs of ground beef, a family pack of pork chops and some cube steaks. I was also able to get eggs ,milk and water. Shelves were well stocked except for bread. We are eating well tonight.

I did my shopping yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the grocery store was fully stocked with fresh produce; I was able to get all of the fruit and veggies that were on my shopping list. Meat was pretty much wiped out, but they had the one thing I wanted - smoked ham hocks. No eggs, very little dairy, no bread except for some hamburger buns (which were on my list) and no dry goods such as beans, pasta or rice. All of the Stovetop Stuffing and Rice-a-Roni type items were gone along with the canned and frozen veggies. There were no paper goods to be found.

What they did have was plenty of chips, cookies, crackers, ice cream (bought four boxes - guess that makes me a hoarder!), frozen dinners/pizzas, booze and soda.

I was able to get everything on my grocery list and we're all set for a week or so when we'll need to re-stock our supply of fresh produce.