Save Money by Stocking Up on Products

Here's a piece from The Street that recommends saving on items (mostly grocery-related) by stocking up on them -- buying them in bulk, when on sale, etc. to get the best deals. It's fairly basic advice so I'm not going to detail it, but I thought I would share with you how we take advantage of this idea to save a good amount of money each year. Here are some miscellaneous thoughts on the issue:

1. We have a HUGE pantry in our home that allows us to store items we buy without any space-related issues coming up.

2. We bought a small freezer a few years ago to allow us to do the same with frozen foods (buying meat on sale, etc.)

3. In addition to the food savings noted in #1 and #2, stocking up also affords us fewer trips to the store.

4. When we have coupons for long-shelf-life items (deodorant, band-aids, paper products, etc.) AND find them on sale, we buy and store them. You can get stuff dirt cheap if there's no urgency to buy.

5. We often buy in bulk from places like Costco, making sure that the per unit price is a better deal than other options. Sometimes it's not.

6. Every chance we get, we pay using our credit cards -- earning cash back in addition to saving on purchases.

Comments

["Mo" Money]

Good Post. This is similar to the advice given in "Living Rich by Spending Smart".

[Pop]

"When we have coupons for long-shelf-life items (deodorant, band-aids, paper products, etc.) AND find them on sale, we buy and store them. You can get stuff dirt cheap if there's no urgency to buy."

I get most of my deodorants for free (and toothpaste almost free (50 cents)) by saving coupons and waiting until my supermarket (that doubles coupons) has a sale. I used to wait till I needed a new deodorant and would have to go out that day and pay almost $4.00 for one- now I wait till the store has a "two for $4.00" sale and I get them for free with my $1.00 off coupons. Nice. (I also now have 4-5 deodorants in my cabinet so I never have to worry about running out again).

[Curt]

I do that same thing and save a lot of money in the process.

[Allen]

I also do the same thing. I buy a lot of toilet papers when it is on sale since it is an item that needs to be used often.

[financialzip11]

I really like this article. I think with the way that oil prices are running and rice and corn going up. It just means that food prices are going to get higher. The strategy to build food storage. It insures that you will have food if there ever is an emergency. Plus I love the idea of having a freezer and storing meat and other frozen goods. I am all about being self reliant and creating financial independence for ones self.

[Outdoorgrrl]

This advice has never made sense to me. What it ignores is the fact that in order to stockpile, you have to have a bigger house (i.e. a house with sufficient storage space). The money one could potentially save by stockpiling is more likely than not offset by the extra money one must spend to afford the larger house.

You don't need a bigger house, you just need better organizational skills. I did the above just fine when living in an apartment.

[MelMoitzen]

I don't think anyone needs a larger house to effectively stockpile. First off, you probably don't need more than a year's supply of *anything*--you'll likely find just as great a buy on that product again in the course of one year.

If I took a year's supply of every non-perishable my family of four uses over the course of a year--paper towels, toilet paper, toothpaste, deodorant, feminine hygiene, soap, shampoo, etc., I can't imagine it would take up much more than a broom closet's worth of space. Hardly warrants buying a bigger house.

Stockpiling perishables doesn't always make sense if you can't use them fast enough or they take up too much refrigerator space. But I find that even if I have to throw away half of a big jar of olives or capers from Costco once they get moldy, I'm still way ahead of the game.

[Eric]

How much electricty does an additional freezer use? Would this nullify your savings from buying meat in bulk?

[Jeff]

Our two year old 10 cu ft manual defrost Kenmore is rated for about $35 a year @ 10 cents/kwh. We store meat, pizzas and breads mostly. It works well for our family of four.

[Outdoorgrrl]

MelMoitzen - You must have a bigger house than me. We have one (and only one) small closet for holding these items in our 800 sq. ft. house. (The closet in our bedroom holds our clothes and the closet in the spare bedroom serves as the coat closet.) The closet in the hallway holds not only our non-perishables but also our bed sheets, towels, spare blankets and pillows for the guest bed, hair cutting implements, first aid supplies, etc. (I'm no organizational slouch!) If I filled it up with just the non-perishables, where would I store everything else?

I challenge you all to figure out how much space you really NEED. Guaranteed, if you had less stuff, it would be much, much smaller than your current space. Now, figure the cost of that smaller house and compare it to your larger house. Are you saving tens of thousands of dollars (maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars) by stockpiling? Probably not.

[Canadian]

Yeah you can't do much if you live in a one-bedroom apartment like me. We have one closet: the bedroom one where we keep our clothes. I can see how stocking up would be good if you happened to have the space anyway. I do stock up in small amounts for certain things. For example, when toothpaste is a good deal I buy several. I usually have about 8-10 tubes of toothpaste on hand. I buy 3-4 bottles of shampoo, etc.

[karla (threadbndr)]

When I lived in less than 500 sq feet (college days), my tiny chest freezer was in the bedroom, with one of those wooden rounds and a pretty fabric cover on it - it doubled as my bedside table. And the pantry was roll out boxes under the bed hidden by the bed skirt. It worked.

My bath and kitchen were both very tiny, but I managed to stash about six to eight weeks of non perishables and canned goods and enough meat and frozen veggies for several months.