The post below made me think about this. For years we had a small hardware store in our community just 1/4 mile from my home. This store was owned and operated by a farming family and was also their farm headquarters. Back then there wasn't any need to keep much of anything on hand they had in stock. They were open during normal farmers hours and lived next door if you had to have something after hours in a emergency. They had hardware and some automotive and tractor parts that were commonly used. They had a good selection of bolts, pipe fittings, belts, batteries and much more. They kept a lot of ag bearings for farm implements for any implement they used or was common in our area for their customers. After they closed it was a 10 to 25 mile one way trip for me to get stuff like that and I begin keeping a good bit of it in stock myself. Just keeping up with what we needed on hand became part of my " job" running a farm. There is no telling the dollars I have invested in this stuff but feel over the years it pretty much paid for itself. So often we don't think about the cost and time to drive 20 or 50 miles and often didn't get exactly what we wanted or had to order and go back and get it the next day.

 As I have aged and acquired more and more stock of stuff just remembering what I have and where it is stored has become a problem. I know I have accumulated many dollars of stuff that will eventually be sold for pennies on the dollar or thrown away.