Whats a stockpile? The dictionary defines a stockpile as “a large supply of some metal, chemical, food, etc., gathered and held in reserve for use during a shortage or during a period of higher prices.”
We stockpile food, health and beauty items, school supplies, toiletries etc, when they are on sale at rock bottom prices so that we have a supply of them to last us thru the cycles when the items are not on sale. Some people like to have a 12 week stockpile, some 6 months, I feel most comfortable having a years worth of many staple items in my stockpile. When it comes to how much should you have…well, I think alot of it is personal choice, do you have room for it? Will you use it before it goes bad? We also stockpile so that if an emergency happens, job loss, natural disaster, illness… we aren’t in a difficult situation, having to pay full price when we cant afford to or when the things we need aren’t available… Last year my husband lost his job, he was in a managerial position in the car industry when tons of people were losing their jobs…he was out of work for about 6 months before finally being offered a temporary position (which turned to permanent) at another dealership. During that 6 months, things were TIGHT. But it was okay, First off, God gave us wisdom and peace to get thru the hardship we faced, and we didn’t have to worry about food, or toiletries, or even birthday presents because we had our handy dandy stockpile (and gift closet) to fall back on. At the end of the 6 months Bob was out of work our stockpile was pretty bare, but it did its job well=) There was much peace in having one less thing to worry about!
When you stock up on toothpaste at $0.25 a tube and you buy 20 to last you 6 months you’ve only paid $5 ! and you can wait until they are $0.25 again before you buy more, you know you wont be stuck paying $4 for a tube because your out! The more you stockpile the greater your savings will be, because you don’t have to buy anything until you see the rock bottom price again! When you first begin to build a stockpile, plan on spending the same as you normally do if not a little more at the store for the first few weeks, because even though your paying rock bottom prices, you will be buying MORE of each item.
We have a family of 5 living at home…before I began using coupons, I spent about $1000 a month on groceries and other staples…crazy amount of money, hey!? Really we could have been spending even more… I *thought* back then that I was being careful in our purchases, I would go to Walmart every week (because they have “the lowest prices, always”, right?) and buy just what we needed, spend about $200 on some groceries, toilet paper, a roll of paper towels…and of corse the other things we ran out of, Bob would call me mid trip and need some tums, and chocolate of corse;) we cant live without ice cream, shoot, out of paper plates…. It added up so quick! But when you need something you have to buy it! Finally one day, I decided I was sick of spending so much… I was tired of having to run out to the grocery store at 4:30 because we were missing a dinner ingredient, I’d go to the store for onions and walk out with 2 bags of stuff and be $45 lighter in my wallet!
…I began to research how to save money on groceries and fell into the wonderful world of couponing…and stockpiling! When I started couponing my husband was really supportive, I told him I was going to cut our food budget in half and he said that would be great…but He told me to not get too ambitious, because going from $1000 a month to $500 would be unrealistic and probably wouldn’t happen. HA! 6 months later we had a massive stockpile and I was down to a budget of $300 a month!! We went from spending $1000 a month to only $300! There were many days I would come home from shopping and Bob would say “do we REALLY need 20 bottles of shampoo?” , “Honey, we have enough waffles”, “Lover, please don’t buy any more toilet bowl cleaner”…but I would show him the receipt that said spent $16.23, saved $88.90 and he’s say each time, “Great job honey! maybe you should pick up a few more tomorrow” On occasion I’d find him standing in front of the stockpile just admiring it, lol =)
I know I went a little off topic and ran in some circles in this post, but my point is simple, build yourself a stockpile, not only is it the key to lowering your monthly food bill but once its established and your in “cherry picking” mode, its like your own personal grocery store, when you run out of something you don’t have to leave home, just go shop out of your stockpile=) Here are a few pictures of my stockpile:
