For most of the year, I don’t think of supply and demand much.

This economic concept, while very much alive and well in the world, is something I don’t usually lose sleep over.

If I need some bananas or milk, for instance, I simply go to the store, pick up the goods, pass by the alien cave baby covers of the tabloids, hit the check out line and call it time well spent.

On occasion, though, I do think about supply and demand, mostly when I plan a trip or would like to attend a sporting event.

Sometimes I plan well enough that I’m able to still get a pretty good deal, even if demand for a certain destination is sky high.

Other times, I simply suck it up and pay the high rate if I really want to go.

And, of course, if the price truly isn’t worth the satisfaction of going, I simply stay home.

Here are two examples over the past year where I thought long and hard about supply and demand.

The first instance happened over the Fourth of July Weekend.

I headed out on a road trip to visit some friends in South Bend, Ind., but I began my journey later in the day than I would have liked. As a result, somewhere around Wisconsin Dells, I became very tired. I stopped into the local Starbucks, fired up the old laptop and went to priceline.com to see about hotels in nearby Madison. I don’t use priceline.com very often, but for certain occasions, I do.

It just so happened that my $50 bid for a four-star hotel in Madison was accepted.

Why? Because very few people say, “July 4th is coming up, I can’t wait for that yearly vacation to Madison.”

The bottom line?

Demand was low, supply was high and I got a pretty good deal.

The second instance happened later this past summer.

My girlfriend wanted to show me Duluth, a city I had often heard about, but had never visited.

Duluth in the summertime, unlike Madison, is very, very popular.

So I did a little homework and found out that nearly every place was sold out even though the trip was still roughly a month away.

Priceline.com didn’t work this time, and the only option was a two-star dive hotel that came with a price tag of $169.

$169? This thing, a baby step up from a Motel 6, wouldn’t have been $69 in most other Minnesota cities.

But we wanted to go that bad, and so I paid it.

The bottom line?

Demand was high, supply was low and I got suckered.

On Jan. 1, I get more vacation time, and I’ve already started thinking about where I would like to go.

The bottom line?

Madison doesn’t sound all that bad.