This is exactly how I was with guns and ammo too... and I only turned 18 fifteen years ago so it was even after most of the best deals were already gone. Yet I still was able to get things at least 2-3x cheaper than they've become in the last 5 years.It was stupid-cheap when I got into it, undervalued I’d say. I wasn’t going broke cellar-building. My cellar was built because of the recognized value. Nowadays I’m not so sure I’d go so hard, and just let the cards fall where they may.
In general over the last decade I've been spending heavily on physical assets and commodities with the theory that they were severely undervalued given the cheapening of our currency and so far I haven't been proven wrong lol.
I think many in this community can see these things easier than the average population too. Idk if piping attracts them or flips normies' switch, but either way... it's harder to stomach someone on a TV telling you inflation is going down when you're familiar with hard commodities. And when someone sees their Virginia flake having doubled since covid and not come down, not to mention having increased steadily by a buck or 2 per pound nearly every year prior... because our hobby *is* a commodity we're just more attuned to the bricks and mortar of economic reality...