the commercial guys run 8 molds at a time to alleviate that issue.
i was just getting going and as such a hundred dollar mold was, as you say, a consumable.
i could replace it by selling 4 boxes of bullets.
since i closed out i still use a lot of those bullets, and currently have a 7 gallon bucket of them in the shop, plus 2 more gallons of them in the gun room.
it's a habit to make too many of the things i use the most, i guess.
i just finished up sizing and checking over 5-K rcbs silh. bullets, they won't get used for anything but making holes in paper, and shooting some rocks somewhere.