GBexpat;
After the plumbing disaster of 2013 I really did start thinking more along the lines of "how to preserve this stuff until I retire", rather than "what new stuff am I going to buy next?!"
At some point you reach a point as a collector (dare I say hoarder) when you really kind of sit back, or rather, atop your hoard, and do some serious thinking about things.
For me this happened when I ran out of room in my safe and room to store more 'stuff'. 20 long and grueling years of buying gun stuff with any spare money I had (coupled with a brief 3 year stint as an FFL gun dealer, with the assorted leftovers when I closed shop), left me in a bit of a state of confusion over what to do next?
I have enough reloading components to get me through retirement now. I have enough ammo to get me through a small war or at least several long years of competitive shooting. I've got my bases covered with the essential firearms for competition, hunting, training students, and recreational shooting.
To prospective hoarders; don't stop hoarding, until you get to that point when you don't WANT to buy anything new, when it seems like a HASSLE to keep doing it. (Turning it in to a day job for 3 years really ruined shooting for me for a while as well, because my hobby was my work, and I lost the "fun" aspect of the sport. Zero desire to go shooting when you spend the day haggling over a few bucks on a gun or ammo, or hauling 2 tons of ammo around to gun shows every weekend...)
So yeah.. all you would be hoarders, go horde.
Seriously.
When was the last time you saw surplus ammo go DOWN in price?
I'm grinning like a cheshire cat over a few sealed crates of 7N6 ammo right now. Just a small amount to store, but my investment of $59 per 1080 round can a decade ago grew more in value than any other investment I'd ever made.
Whenever "new" types of surplus ammo hits the market .. jump on it. Even if all you do is store it, it'll gain value; once the supply runs out or the import stops, it shoots up in value.
Every. Single. Time.