Stockpiling Saturday - Guest Post from living well, spending less

Thanks to Ruth at living well, spending less for sharing her stockpile with us!

There is no element more key to successful grocery savings than a good stockpile. I’ll say it again: a stockpile is absolutely essential for maximizing coupon savings. The idea is to replenish items in your stockpile only when they are at their rock-bottom prices, thereby avoiding ever having to pay full-price for an item. In essence, it is like having a little mini store right in your house that you can “shop” from when you need something.

It is a wonderfully simple idea. In theory.

In practice, of course, in order to build up a stockpile, you need to have some place to put it! For some, myself included, that can get tricky. But a stockpile doesn’t need to be a giant warehouse. It doesn’t even need to be all in one place. But it does need to be accessible and organized enough to access things when you need them, and it does need to work for you. For those who are new to couponing, even just the term “stockpile” is somewhat overwhelming. But trust me, it only takes about 6-8 weeks to build a very substantial stockpile with a nice variety of products to choose from.

If you need an example, this is what my stockpile looks like:

My stockpile takes up two pantries in my kitchen, as well as a walk-in closet in my guest bedroom. For cold storage, I have a fridge in my kitchen, along with a second fridge in the garage. I am a very visual person, so I need to easily be able to see what I have. (I actually despise my new bottom drawer freezer for that very reason–I can’t see where anything is!) However, depending on how your brain works, your stockpile could be set up almost any way that works for you–perhaps bins or large boxes of like items, or an inventory list kept on your computer or on paper.

The main point is that without a stockpile, you won’t get very far in this coupon game. It may seem bizarre to buy 20 boxes of pasta and no sauce one week, but if that pasta is only $0.25 a box, then it makes sense. Rest assured that within a week or two you will be able to score some sauce for pennies too!

And maybe it’s just me, but I think that free (or close-to-free) food just tastes better.