Is everything going to go to H@** in a hand basket this coming year? What’s going to happen to the value of the dollar? Is there some way to protect my shrinking saving account?
Thoughts like this got me to thinking about ways I could make ends meet this coming winter. One idea was actually poised by some expert I saw on a media show one afternoon. He stated that one way to protect the value of your money would be to stockpile food items now as a hedge against price increases in the future. He was referring to items with a long shelf life like canned goods, beans, pasta and such. If. For example you buy a can of corn for fifty cents now and food goes up an 20% or so by winter, then that’s the same as getting 20% interest on you savings since you will be consuming the food no matter what! By logical extension then, if you normally consume about $100 of only canned goods on any given month and then bought $600 worth of added can goods this month to be stored away to and used starting in April 2008 you will have at least broken even if prices remain stable. If, however, prices go up say 30% during the next six months then you have saved more real money than you could ever have done in any savings account. The only possible downside would be if prices in fact go down (not likely) in which case you have limited your liability by the small amount invested. On the other hand if prices continue to rise, by all means continue to purchase goods to put away for a rainy day.
For my part, after six months, I plan to do a report on my personal gain or loss. You can get a copy of this article along with the six month summary report (due in April 2009) on this site.
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