March Retail Sales Plunged 8.7% as Coronavirus Shutdowns Took Hold | Hacker News Reader

March Retail Sales Plunged 8.7% as Coronavirus Shutdowns Took Hold

wsj.com

Given the reticence of states to encourage social isolation it'll probably be more enlightening to see April's numbers. I'm honestly surprised it's only down that little - in terms of spending, I've only been to the grocery store twice in the last month.

Same, I've gone from grocery shopping every week to focusing my meals around non-perishable ingredients so I only have to go every other week. On the other hand, Wal-Mart grocery deliveries have started to become available again, and they added an option to let them leave it on your doorstep the way Amazon does.

Any suggestions for non-perishable sources of protein?

As for deliveries - Safeway tends to have more availability and also leaves groceries at the doorstep

Soylent

https://soylent.com/

Beans. Peanut butter.

Buying meat and freeze it isn't non-perishable but will last over a year.

Admittedly not everyone has the freezer space, but there's really no good reason not to buy frozen or freezable food like meat, fish, vegetables, etc. if that's what one normally eats. You don't need to subsist on beans if you don't want to just because you're only getting groceries every couple of weeks.

That's really important to keep in mind for all this - while we should probably have a couple of cans of things kicking around, we can eat normally. At least where I was stores have returned to normal stock levels. If the power goes out for long enough that the meat goes bad in the freezer, we're now in Mad Max territory, and you can then break into your can supply and start to develop plans on rebuilding civilization.

Even milk/cream last for 2 or 3 weeks unopened and butter/eggs even longer. I do have more or less my usual amount of beans, noodles, and rice in the house as well as canned goods. I'm not going to starve if my power goes out for a day or two--as happened to many people in the last bout of violent weather that swept through the eastern part of the US.

But prepping for a month or more of no utilities--as some people were doing early on--and planting large gardens to ensure a food supply didn't make sense to me. If it makes them feel better, it's mostly harmless. But it's hard to see it being a rational response.

I wouldn't really describe my local groceries as back to normal. I can't get everything on my shopping list. But there is absolutely no shortage of food, including fresh and frozen.

Lentils, green peas (frozen/dried), chickpeas, beans,....

I've mainly been eating a lot of meals with beans as an ingredient, like chili and burritos, then eating stuff like hummus for snacks. Almost all of the ingredients for chili and burritos are canned or jarred and have a shelf life of at least a year. I've also found that vegan meat substitues are usually in stock, and while they aren't non-perishable, they aren't hard to find.

I think there are many non perishable sources of protein as commented below by others. What I am not able to find is non perishable sources of fibre, to be able to eat less fresh vegetables.

Metamucil should still be in stock.

Oats, frozen vegetables, frozen rye bread (tastes awesome toasted and buttered), whole wheat, brown rice, beans and legumes.

Also, canned vegetables. Not as tasty as fresh or frozen (because they're usually overcooked), but they'd have the same fiber content.

Eggs are good for at least 2 weeks past their printed expiration/best before date if you refrigerate them, but probably longer than that. And it's trivially easy to to get eggs with an expiration date 3 weeks out. It's not non-perishable, but 5 weeks is longer than any fresh meat or fish will last.

There's also textured vegetable protein: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Textured_vegetable_protein. Makes great chili dishes, burritos, enchiladas, soups.

Canned fish are good non-perishable sources of protein. Tuna has to be eaten in moderation due to the high mercury content in large fish, but small fish like sardines and mackerel are safe. Canned wild salmon is also available.

I was also able to get some canned chicken. Certainly not gourmet food, but you can warm it up with some seasonings and serve it over rice or pasta.

Worthington or Morningstar Farms ‘vege-meats’

We started a menu board, to write down the days we absolutely need to eat things by. Tomorrow for example is pancake day because we have a ton of fresh berries that won't last much longer, and for dinner, fish soup since we still have uneaten stock from a big haul of fish purchased over the last weekend. It's fun for us also to see what we're going to be preparing, something of a restaurant vibe happens in the kitchen.

But you are probably buying more each time you go, for stockpiling

While that's true, and I have been spending a bit more, I got most of my stockpiling out of the way early, and I've not been buying books, electronics, digital media, video games, home improvement supplies, or clothing. I'm 100% focused on just surviving the next few weeks, and my credit card statement reflects that.

OTOH, stock levels at Amazon at any rate suggest that a lot of people are buying more things for working at home or home entertainment than they normally do.

That's true. I was trying to buy a webcam a couple of weeks ago. Not a lot of options.

Wouldn't that be canceled out later because people won't need to buy food in the future?

One of the things to keep in mind with economic numbers is the exact timeframe they cover. This crisis has a very unusual and extremely steep onset starting around mid-March. If you look at daily indices, everything appears to be normal until about March 14 and then collapses by 50%+ over the next week.

Yes, all the previous week, I was getting increasingly agitated about why my employer wasn't taking action, and on Friday the 13th, they finally did.

I am surprised it’s only 8.7%, shouldn’t it be atleast 50% or more? The only businesses making money are grocery stores.

These are from March. I would expect April's numbers to be between 8.5% and 50%.

April will probably be worse because we only really lost half of March, and panic-buying was at peak. At least in my area, things have seriously calmed down with the panic buying, people have adapted to the new normal. But nobody is out there clothes shopping.

I imagine there are a lot of people buying clothes online with their spare time. A lot of brands are pushing big discounts too.

Easy returns, a big reason for online shopping being a thing, are not so easy anymore (need to go to the Post office).

I would’ve expected a bigger drop. But these numbers include online sales.

I suppose some of the drop is countered by people being less price-conscious: e.g. going to 1 grocery store instead of 3 to capture all the sales. Or buying more expensive TP because that’s all thats available.

Rents have killed many small businesses. The next step in this progression is chain stores. Hopefully, Covid-19 can rein the leveraged real estate.

Are we even supposed to be buying stuff right now?

Support local businesses if you can. Buy stamps if you can.

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