I bought my first handgun last year and no I didn't buy because of the panic, it just happened that the budget reached that point of the todo list at that time. Ammo went from $14.99/box to $19.99/box from January to April then by May no store had any in stock.
So while I was stopping by Cabelas and walking by the empty ammo shelf I'd walk over to the reloading section.
So I bought a tumbler kit and cleaned the little brass I had so then a press and deprimer (while die set actually) and did that and cleaned it all again.
Finally found primers in stock one day so I bought those and primed then kept watching for other components. I was able to spread the purchasing out over a couple months and buy the tools, books, scale, etc in between.
Finally scored some powder and bullets and was able to start loading.

My cost of just buying the few small quantities that come available still puts me at %50 the cost of equivalent factory rounds. It will take ~1500-2000 rounds to pay for the tools and I loaded between 500-1000 the first year so in a couple years at most the tools pay for themselves and I start to see the savings.