Black Friday mobs trample people at Target, AKA stupid shoppers miss the point

Here’s a video from yesterday — “Black Friday” — showing mobs of shoppers trampling people to get inside a Target store at 4 a.m. for pre-Christmas sales of, well, stupid stuff. If stuff was really important, smart people would have gotten it already and wouldn’t let themselves run out of it (stuff like food, water, etc.). This video is exactly why you need to stock up NOW. In the event of a major (or even minor) disaster, when everyone panics and runs to the store, it doesn’t take long at all for the shelves to be stripped bare of everything important. And if the event (or multiple events) has enough of a ripple effect across the country, there’s no guarantee that the shelves will be restocked anytime soon.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=2de_1290808778

http://www.google.com/search?q=empty+grocery+shelves

I don’t know about you, but there has been at least one time in my life when I’ve been hungry — VERY hungry — for several months. And it really sucked. I was much worse off financially at that time than I am at the moment, and at that time in 1998 I didn’t have the foresight, much less the financial means, to stock up on food and other things so that I’d have a comfortable cushion to hold me over during tough times. If you’re throwing your money away at 4 a.m. “door-buster” sales for junk you don’t need to survive and failing to use your money WISELY to buy things you really need to survive when the going gets tough — and I don’t think we’ve seen anywhere near tough times yet — then there’s nothing I can do to convince you of a prudent course of action. If you have money to blow at sales like in the video above, then you have PLENTY of money you could otherwise use for food and vital necessities. You’re just spending your money on the wrong things. And you’d better switch gears before it’s too late.

I’ll post an update in the next couple days on a recent multi-Walmart shopping experience that perfectly illustrates why “just-in-time” inventory procedures give you absolutely no guarantee that you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for, when you’re looking for it. If you don’t stock up on what you need now — and stock up on MONTHS worth of it at the very least — there’s absolutely no guarantee you’ll be able to get it when you need it most. Especially if you have to fight mobs at 4 a.m. to get it.

Stubborn and starving: The danger of not stocking up on food

I’m simultaneously amused and dismayed at some of the comments at the bottom of this article by people who think that those of us who are stocking up on months, even years worth of food and other necessities of life are paranoid nutjobs with no connection to the real world.

And y’know, I think they’re exactly right.

Why be prudent now when the government can provide for us later?

Why scrimp and save and buy things that are useful when buying that Chinese-made plasma-screen TV will do more to stimulate the (Chinese) economy?

Why buy extra food and build up a substantial reserve pantry when we can rest assured that, no matter what, food will ALWAYS be available at the grocery store? (except when snowstorms, strikes, food riots, crop failures or other disasters strike)

Dang that I didn’t buy food when I should’ve stocked up, because the wife and kids are hungry right now and not too happy that we bought a much bigger house than we could afford on an adjustable-rate mortgage, and now our payments have skyrocketed, we owe more than the market value of the house and my industry is laying off people like blood gushing from a trauma patient.

Each one of us has choices as to how we spend the money we earn. It’s just that some people choose to spend money on really stupid things.

I’m having a hard time understanding what’s stupid, paranoid or disconnected from the real world when it comes to having a year’s worth of food for myself and my family. Is our collective memory as a society so short that we forget that little over 100 years ago, most families had at least several months worth of food in their pantry or at least easily obtainable in their communities? But now most of us are so far removed from the source of our food that if something — it could be multiple things — interrupts the supply chain that fills our grocery stores, we could be days…maybe weeks??…without food or other items. If having several months worth of food on hand made sense 100 years ago, how has it somehow become a ridiculous idea today?

Or to look at it another way, what good is it to have a 24-hour grocery store nearby if their shelves are empty? SOMEBODY obviously bought food and emptied the shelves, so why weren’t you among them?

Because they’re open 24/7. You didn’t “need” to go to the grocery store when you should’ve gone, just in case. Now you’re hungry.

But because the store is open 24/7, I’m sure they’ll have something on the shelves.

Eventually.

Whenever.

Well, there’s always Dumpster-diving.

Or you could stock up now while you still can.

What’s your excuse?