The Thrill of Resource Management

I've read a bunch of posts on resource management lately. Most have decided that 5E does a poor job of resource management, and they did it back in the day when the game was played a bit differently, and does it even matter anymore? This got me thinking of the two ways I've handled resource management in the past (well three ways but I've never bothered tracking arrows and just assumed the archer recovered the arrows and that seems to be the default out there so I won't cover that).

1. Have the adventurer party buy their resources in quantities aligned with days. Buy five days of food/water and you don't need to worry about tracking day to day, your mission is up at 5 days. Since 5E has long rests that makes a good marker for a single day even if it doesn't align to 24 hours exactly. Make sure the party eats during a long rest or they don't get the benefits and you have a nice marker for used goods. A smart party will take an extra days worth of resources with them just in case. A sneaky GM might decide to spoil the resources for some reason (torches got wet, food got covered in green slime), when that happens they should assume the same standard. Four days worth of torches were destroyed. 
2. Have the players hire a pack bearer to follow behind them carrying the Resources they need to survive in the dark. Have them pay the pack bearer  the listed rates and otherwise ignore the resources, Patsy has that covered. The pack bearer should be assumed to avoid combat and may actually have to be protected but they can cook during those long rests, hold light during combat, and trudge out the treasure in their pack that is now depleted of resources. This bypasses resource management in a playable way.

I've not only used both ideas with some success I've even blended the two. The fun thing about ignoring Resource Management most of the time is when it suddenly matters and players haven't given it any thought before. Patsy is gone and the torches are gone with him, now what? We've got an hour before the torches we've got burn out and it's going to be really, really, dark down here. Most games have fighting in darkness rules and if you're a player you probably don't want to be using them if you don't have to.