What parts will you need?

I didn’t hoard but I have used more online shopping and reduced grocery shopping in person to once a week during time reserved for seniors. I also loaded my small freezer section up but that plan backfired a bit last week when I lost power for 20 hours due to a storm and became concerned about the freezer thawing.  Oh well, guess I need to start eating canned and dry goods. 

Very interesting.  It seems like the corona virus will continue to effect our lives for a long time.  I am sure that in many ways we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.

I don't think that I have made any real changes to by buying habits, in terms to electronic parts, as a result of the pandemics.  I typically will try to prevent shortages in part for products that I build for my client, while at the same time saving money by buying more than I need.  I tend to have a core group of parts that I use in a lot of my designs.  For those parts, I typically buy 100's or 1000's of pieces.  The lesser used parts, or more expensive parts, I tend to buy them as needed.  Some parts, where in the past I have seen shortages, I will buy these with a greater reserve than normal.  One of the parts that I have seen a lot of shortages in the Atmel/Microchip ATmega328PB which is used in some of the Ardunio designs.  On at least two occasions I have seen this part totally disappear from stock, so I have started buy these in lots of at least 100, sometime more depending on what projects I see coming down the pipe.

Even in the midst of shortages for toilet paper, we did not horde.  We continue to buy the same quantity that typically last for a couple of months.  The only things that I missed out on was the hand sanitizer and Isopropyl  alcohol (used in somehand sanitizers).  Again, our online shopping has increased during these times.

We adapted.

Did not hoard as we buy in bulk anyway and had reserves to wait out the restock time lag.

We have done more ordering delivery. My wife took advantage of a discount offer for doordash, which we now use frequently.

We still eat in at some restaurants, did so on Friday. Some food is just best fresh off the grill and I like my ribeye steak and a draft beer.

Other than that, we have not changed our life style all that much. Being retired with few demands does have its advantages, though I greatly sympathize with those who must still work.

Hopefully more people are seeing the advantages to emergency planning and creating a pool of money just in case.

DAB

Regarding electronics and IT I noticed many items becoming low on stock, out of stock or on back order.

Luckily for me any shortage would only affect completely new projects; as a hobbyist I already have reasonable amounts of basic parts for unfinished projects and would just 'make do'.....e.g. using 4k3 instead of 4k7. I've enough solder and wire to be able to cobble something together - it might be more in the realm of some dystopian film, a bit of a StarWars scavaneger planet scenario or the 'battery shop' in Book of Eli? Hopefully the situation will improve in the coming months and components will be readily available again.

dougw  Before COVID, our kids used to make fun of us for hoarding.  Not so much any more.  The Mrs. and I don't actually hoard.  We buy stuff when it's on sale.  When you're up to 8 packs of toilet paper, it doesn't matter how good the sale is.  We don't buy it.  We also don't freak out when we're down to two packs.  I buy furnace air filters by the 10 pack, just like I do pounds of butter.  For most stuff, it's still "When you open the can/jar/bottle, put its replacement on the shopping list".  It's more about the convenience of having it - whatever "it" is.  Our home shopping has changed very little.

For the electronics stuff, I've been buying in larger quantities.  Smaller quantities take just as long to get here.  50 instead of 10.  Maybe even 100.  Can you really have too many 555 timers?  I have also had to go with more expensive suppliers that don't depend on transoceanic shipments.  I can no longer depend on China to get me stuff to do a project.  This increases the price or, sometimes, prices it out of the realm of doing.  Maybe this is why I've been enjoying Jan Cumpssimplified circuits so much lately.

We don't hoard and we haven't had any problems. I have been intrigued by some of the goods that have gone out of stock in the local stores - good job we never buy that!!

I'm only a hobbyist, and not very active compared with many people on here. I've only needed to buy a few odds and sods in the last few months and haven't had any difficulties.

Neil

I tend to "accumulate" stuff (when I see a bargain) on the pretense that I will find a use for it, and very seldom purge any of it. Maybe that is the definition of a hoarder, I don't know, but I do regularly use material from my stash. I haven't stocked up on essentials just because of the pandemic, although my better half did buy a freezer.

dougw  The freezer is a great addition.   I tell the Mrs. that it adds "options".  Which means, now we don't run out of stuff.  If you don't have it, it's no longer an option - of what to make for dinner or what to put on the grill.  It allows us to buy butter, bread, bags of shredded cheese, etc. when it's on sale.  And... when we opt to have those $2 frozen pizzas for dinner, I've always got a bag of mozzarella in the freezer that can get the cheese level to where I like it.

When all this started I decided that I would not hoard, or make any special purchases or even shop in any different way as I have been practicing not worrying about what I might need for tomorrow - being retired I do not much care anymore. Tomorrow is another day of fun and excitement, whatever it may bring.

I've mostly stuck with this and thinking about it the only changes I can think of (apart from distancing, mask wearing and so on) are we have started having tinned peaches (really cheap ones at 39p a tin!) which are just delicious and only going to the supermarket once a fortnight (no other shopping in between). It has worked out just fine. We now have a fortnightly cycle of food, starting the fortnight with fresh and gradually working our way towards frozen/dried/tinned as the fortnight progresses. We also have 'freezer meat' as well, which is a previously cooked joint (lamb/pork/beef) cut into meal sized lumps, wrapped in silver foil and unlabelled. Choose a lump and have the excitement of wondering what it will be! Once it turned out to be stewed rhubarb - it looked just like lamb. It was on the plate with the veg and gravy when I just decided to taste it before serving it because it just looked 'a bit odd'.

Dubbie