There is something wonderful about having a stocked pantry. It’s convenient. When you stock up at a good price, you also get the added bonus that cheap food tastes better. It really does. Honest.
The items we spend the most money on are necessity items.
Directly, you just spend more. If you need shampoo this week, you need it. You aren’t going to go all week without it to see if you can save $1 the next week on your favorite brand. This is just going to happen with certain things. There are thousands of items at the grocery store, it is inevitable that you’ll pay full price for something you need.
Indirectly, there’s that $26 trip to get milk. How many times have you purposely went into a certain grocery store because you remember the ad and that store had the cheapest milk in town that week, only to come home with a few bags of other things? It happens all the time. It’s so easy to impulse shop for something for dinner, or to pick up some snacks, or even grab a magazine at the checkout. Seriously, I am cheap and I know that the true cost of running out of toilet paper is $20.
I don’t pay full price for much of anything because I can afford to wait for a spectacular sale. I currently have no less than 12 bottles of body wash in my linen pantry. I won’t buy it at full price as there’s no need. I won’t even buy it on a sale price because there’s no need. Now, if it goes on sale and there’s a coupon, and I can pick it up for .75 or less per bottle? Now we’re talking. I may add 3-4 when I find it at that price and add them to the linen closet.
One mistake people tend to make when they have a lot of something is to feel the need to find a use for it. I think this is what happened to our family when I used to shop a lot at Sam’s Club. I found a great deal on bacon there. I calculated it out to be a 6 month supply with about a 30% savings. Nice, huh?
Pre-Sam’s Club case-o-bacon purchase, I made bacon once a week with a breakfast dinner. Post-Sam’s Club case-o-bacon purchase, we were spiraling toward coronaries; bacon atop our burgers, breakfast as a dinner meal, brunch on Sunday, real bacon bits on salad night, real bacon crumbles on our home made pizza, turkey club sandwiches, bacon because tomatoes were ripe. Yum!
Before I knew it, my 6 month supply of bacon was gone in 2 months. I realized no savings because I was out the money I spent, plus I had nothing left in the freezer and if I wanted it for meals, I’d have to buy it again. Not to mention that it would take months of eating oatmeal to lower our cholesterol.
I was like a kid with a Halloween bucket who’d happily eaten candy for days, joyfully, happily, reveling in my ultimate candy abundance who all of a sudden reaches in and finds the only things left are those 3 peanut butter kisses and a peppermint.
To realize savings, you must think of your stockpile as an investment. You must be moderate. And you must be practical.
I can use myself as an example today. This week, I am not going to the grocery store. I don’t have to. There is not one thing we need this week from the store. From toilet paper to pasta sauce, we have it. I can choose to go to pick up a few deals, and maybe I’ll do this. I don’t have to, however, and that is the ultimate convenience.
