Open question - Financial

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From a purely financial perspective I wonder if buying some extra food now would be a sensible investment this year?

A large percentage of the worlds fertilizer usually transits through the Strait of Hormuz which has now been halted. Even if it were to open again soon much of this years fertilizer is not going to reach farmers in time for this years crops causing lower yields than normal. This means that we are likely to see highly inflated food prices sometime towards the end of the year.

Rather than paying the inflated food prices in a few months time could investing in a few extra tins of food today then steadily eating my way through them over next winter/spring period to save money be a savvy investment? In terms of a percentage of gain I think that the increases in food prices next winter might even have the potential to outperform oil, silver, or any of the other financial investment during the next 12 month period.

Maybe? I'm not sure. I think the potential is there but I don't know anywhere near enough about farming to attempt any price predictions which is frustrating.
The challenge is, like any investment, when to cash it in or this case eat it.
 
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Without taking the thread or forum off into other lands

Yes - I think 'reasonable' contingency pantry is a great idea - but for all times. If one can find the space in your home ( Modern houses I think lack adequate storage - even fitting in an Ironing board can be an issue )

Whatever the event - if the normal day to day JITOS global operating system has a glitch or bottleneck its going to be felt somewhere in some extent I think. Not saying that will lead to empty shelves or delivery services and transport being shut down but I think having a small contingency of food to carry one over for those times is a sound pragmatic idea.

Not advocating going mad and doing it all now
Not saying to make the whole of the box room a full loaded pantry

I think it would be difficult to store enough food to make this justifiable " From a purely financial perspective I wonder if buying some extra food now would be a sensible investment this year?"


But between choosing to invest in other things or Food if I didn't already have a small contingency set aside I would feel somewhat vulnerable in some ways.
I wasn't thinking about it from a prepper point of view (I already have about an extra month or so worth of food to tide me over any short emergencies). I was thinking about it more financially.

Would it be beneficial to invest a few hundred pounds now and temporary triple the amount of extra food stored then eat it all over the next winter/spring seasons rather than investing that same amount of cash elsewhere in some other financial asset? In percentage terms which is likely to return the highest monetary gain in the current situation?
 
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I wasn't thinking about it from a prepper point of view (I already have about an extra month or so worth of food to tide me over any short emergencies). I was thinking about it more financially.

Would it be beneficial to invest a few hundred pounds now and temporary triple the amount of extra food stored then eat it all over the next winter/spring seasons rather than investing that same amount of cash elsewhere in some other financial asset? In percentage terms which is likely to return the highest monetary gain in the current situation?
I think it would really benefit us to continually think from a prepper point of view from now on (if you don't already) Food is very important. My advice would be stock up as much as you can. A year is sensible and a supply of seeds. Then learn about wild foods and fishing, hunting and every other possible source of food (including insects) . For me, now is to the time to stop thinking in terms of money and start to think in terms of knowledge and resources. Most importantly I enjoy the learning process and empowering myself. I hope I have picked this thread up in context. Regardless, that was good and sound advice. DD x
 
I decided to bring forward my purchase of fertilizer (mainly organic but also some inorganic) to this week. Prices of these are going only one way, and once the current stock is bought up, the next lot will be higher prices. I will use it anyway, but by buying now I pay less. (Seeds (open pollinated) I had already, plus a friend gifted me with a box of veg seeds recently.)

That will enable me to sustain my veg growing for a while, and during that time improve my home-made compost and similar. The current challenge has been that on a rocky soggy hillside, a veg bed needs a level of input to get it going and into a self-sustaining cycle.

GC
 
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I was talking to the manager of the riding school where I learnt. He tells me that he needs to pay a company to take away the mix of straw bedding and manure from mucking out.

When I got our first compost bin at this house, I was introduced to a woman who runs a livery yard who was very happy to let me take about a hundred litre bin filled with straw and manure, rather than pay by the kilo to have it carted away.
 
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I was talking to the manager of the riding school where I learnt. He tells me that he needs to pay a company to take away the mix of straw bedding and manure from mucking out.

When I got our first compost bin at this house, I was introduced to a woman who runs a livery yard who was very happy to let me take about a hundred litre bin filled with straw and manure, rather than pay by the kilo to have it carted away.

We get people around here leaving free bags of horse manure to take away at their front gates. Brilliant stuff for the compost bin.
 
I decided to bring forward my purchase of fertilizer (mainly organic but also some inorganic) to this week. Prices of these are going only one way
That's the handy thing with having horses. You're never going to run out of fertilizer. :D

A couple of years a go I filled a bucket with manure and old leaves and left it for twelve months. The following year I put a pumpkin seed in there and it grew really well all on its own without any extra input from me.
 
The problem with using horse and other manure these days is that it may be contaminated with long to lasting weed killers that can last for years in the garden and are not broken down by composting. https://www.rhs.org.uk/soil-composts-mulches/weedkiller-in-manure
Other than the occasional wormer mine are all organic and have been that way for at least fifteen years. On the occasions when they have their wormer I make a deliberate point of separating any poo produced over the next few days and throwing it as far down hill as possible well away from the rest of the field where it might contaminate it.
 
Great news if you know what they've been fed, and the grass/hay is organic. Sadly round here they've increasingly moving towards spraying weedkiller for fun.
All too common unfortunately. The farm above one of my fields uses chemical pesticides and I guess it probably drains via water down into that field. :(

The other meadows are all good and organic though. :)
 
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One problem that I find when using horse manure as fertilizer is that it tends to have a lot of grass seed in it which can be a real PITA. For this reason I prefer rabbit droppings (no shortage of that here either).
 
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Golds worst week since 1983.

This is mostly caused by stock market traders getting margin calls on their shorts and scrambling for liquidity. They're being forced to sell whatever they can and as silver and gold were the best performers last year it's those ETFs (together with other metal ETFs and government bonds) which are at the top of many of their sell lists. There are probably a few traders rotating out of metals into oil and gas stocks at the moment too.

It's nothing to worry about in my opinion though. Very likely just a large but temporary blip that will be followed by a big bounce back. I just wish I has some spare cash to buy some but my budget is all spoken for right now.
 
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Is it not just a sign of another poorly run government department? Coupled with poor regulation and no accountability?
It could well be yes. The symptoms we're seeing fit both possibilities equally well.
Although both possibilities are not mutually exclusive either. It might be both.
 
I'm going to make a big financial prediction now. The biggest of my life.
Within the the next two months (probably less) silver is going to go crazy. I mean REALLY crazy!

If you think the rise in silver during the second half of 2025 was big then you have no idea what's coming next. When the metal exchanges run out of silver the price will take off like a rocket! By the end of this next run the gains that silver made during 2025 will look like a tiny insignificant blip on the chart. I think silver is going to 10x by the end of this year and the most significant portion of that move is about to happen in the the next few weeks and months. Silver is about to make front page news all over the world. This move is going to be biblical!

Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock. :)

Getting closer.
 
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Tick-Tock-Tick-Tock. :)

Getting closer.
LOL. Yeah right. :D

My forecast outlook has not changed at all but the time frame for it most certainly has (my predictions often have a habit of being way too premature but ultimately still correct). It's looking far more likely that we'll have to wait for another two or three months longer now.

Patience isn't just what you need when there are too many witnesses present. It's also a virtue required when waiting for silver to move (again).
 
If you keep predicting something with shifting goalposts you’re bound to be correct eventually, seems a bit unfair to just keep extending the timeframe. You have to account for unexpected circumstances in predictions because unexpected circumstances always crop up. As Sir Terry Pratchett pointed out, million-to-one chances happen nine times out of ten.
 

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