If some is good more is better? NOT!

That is the dumbest phrase ever invented! Not only is it not true, sometimes it is completely wrong. If you don’t believe that try going down to your local ice cream store. (That was Dairy Queen in my era, Cold Stone now, I suppose.) Then order the most decadent thing on the menu, maybe a banana split or hot fudge sundae ( again, my era).  Eat and enjoy it. Then order another one and do the same. If some is good, more is better? No, absolutely not. If some is good, more can make you sicker than a dog.

Now I know some of you are going to ask, what about money? You can’t have too much money, right? Actually you can, because if you had all the money in the world, no one else would have any money to build anything for you to buy. Thus, what good would all that money be? Yeeesh...

This ‘more is better’ way of thinking can be very harmful not just to ourselves as with the ice cream example but to others as well.

I have a couple of reasons for bringing this up. The most important would be this pandemic situation currently confronting us. If nothing else we should have all learned a big lesson in supply and demand. And, it is true, the price of a given commodity is determined by how much people want it ( demand ) vs how much there is ( supply ). Dare I mention the most salient example, toilet paper? Ok, I can see how the ‘more is better’ notion could consume some of us into a buying frenzy in the case of this most trifle, yet if not essential, utterly convenient product.

I am not the only one that noticed the ensuing panic as our fellow residents began to horde such commodities out of the very real fear the store wouldn’t have it if we ran out at home. On a personal  physiological level one can at least understand this hording motive.

The big problem, of course, is the accompanying swell of profiteering that will inevitably occur in such a panic. A friend of mine told me about a guy he saw in Costco when this panic first started. The guy had a big flat cart with all the spaghetti sauce the store had on it and was he headed for checkout. My guess is that sauce ended up on Ebay selling for probably five times more than what he paid for it.  Free enterprise in action? No that’s profiteering where people help create the very demand that depletes the local supply. Then as the supply chain gets choked off the price goes through the roof and they sell their stockpile at a vastly inflated price.

I have no problem with people leveraging supply and demand for profit under normal circumstances. That is really the principle behind most businesses anyway. The stock market does this every day. In this pandemic situation though, it’s making money at the expense of your friends and neighbors. And probably worse yet, empty shelves in the store encourages others of us to horde. In reality, most hordes just gather dust. That helps nobody.

It is just downright predatory  to benefit from the very supply shortage you help create. Especially true, when there are a lot of people in need and in the panic mode . We should just round these profiteers up, take them out in the most remote and harshest place we can find, remove their shoes and let them walk back. Maybe then they will come to understand what it’s like to really need something basic and not be able to get it.

So instead of ‘more is better’ let’s learn from the Goldilocks principle which is truly the most accurate and helpful approach. As I’m sure you remember, Goldilocks had to endure ‘too much’ then ‘too little’ in order to find ‘just right’.

A planned working food stash is not hording. And I am hoping we just learned how it’s really a pretty prudent thing to do. If enough of us do that, it will even benefit people who don’t, by removing us from the demand side of the equation when the next panic hits. Oddly it can even help you eat healthier, save money and most importantly GO CAMPING more! How’s that? Watch the video:

There is a ton of other good information out there on the Internet to further aid you in your stash building efforts. We want to keep a few things in mind:

1. It should be a “working” food stash. That is most of it you continually use and replenish.
2. This means the stock must be appropriate to you and your eating habits..
3. It requires a good deal of planning and work to get it right.
4. It’s important to pay attention and adjust quantities over time.
5. Goldilocks was right.

At some point you might want to consider a stash for when it's so bad you have to actually leave you house. Money would probably be useless. In that case a barter stash for extended periods might not be a bad idea to have.  

The vice type stuff would probably barter well, you know tobacco, alcohol etc.. Personally, I think the currency of a true 'survival mode' barter system will be 12 gauge shotgun shells as they work well for both  putting food on the table and personal protection.

For now though, let's get our in home stash right. 

All the houses I have ever lived in have had food in the pantry and I mean more than just  a little. It’s a ‘mentality' that we grow up with out West. Lets get those cupboards filled up with stuff we will actually use. Then to make sure our working food stash really works, we know how to check it out - GO CAMPING!