Learn from the Mormons… Stock Up!
I’ve never quite “gotten” people who worry about inflation, including the current inflation going on in food prices, and sit around fretting and complaining about it, but then refuse to consider doing the logical thing.
Prices are going up. There are no major food shortages in the U.S. at the moment, but there are grumblings in the media now and then that there could be in the near future. Yet people have bought the idea that it’s shameful somehow to prepare by stockpiling.
The Mormons actually have it right. We should all be building little stockpiles of food, now, while it’s readily available. With the type of inflation that’s currently in the news, it makes sense to buy food and other essentials when it is plentiful, before the price skyrockets.
This is actually something I learned from my parents, who were homesteaders in Alaska. They lived in a little homestead house twenty miles from the nearest grocery store when I was growing up. The roads were gravel in those day, not paved, making it a pain to make grocery runs. So they’d go into town, buy a bunch of stuff, including canned food, TP, paper towel, and cleaning supplies… use it up over the next few months… then make another trip in for supplies. (They supplemented it, of course, by buying fresh food when it was available, especially when the roads got paved, but they never lost their habit of rational stockpiling.)
We weren’t rich… our family was pretty poor actually… but we were never short on food or other essentials because of their intelligent preparation. Most people in the U.S. seem to be clueless about where food comes from… they think it “comes from the grocery stores”… and they assume for some reason that endless quantities of it will always be available there.
Stocking Up Isn’t Panic Buying
Early in the pandemic, some people did panic buying… buying more than they could possibly use. (10,000 roles of toilet paper, anyone?) And, yeah, that was dumb.
But the media’s response to it, shaming people for trying to prepare for the future, was just as idiotic.
Stockpiling isn’t panic buying. Stocking up on food and other essentials in times like the present, when panic buying isn’t occurring, doesn’t strip the store shelves or deprive anyone else of anything they need. It’s actually a good way to support your local neighborhood store.
- Related article: “Stocking up to prepare for a crisis isn’t ‘panic buying’. It’s actually a pretty rational choice“
- Photo credit: Image by PublicDomainArchive from Pixabay
