Stockpiling

This picture is from someone who has been using this technique for a while. Remember, don't try to do this amount of stockpiling in a week or month. Being able to have one this big requires time and patience to get it for the lowest cost out of pocket.

Stockpiling is the idea of buying products that you need at rock bottom prices in order to keep from paying more for them. By shopping sales and matching coupons with them, you will be able to start creating a stockpile for the least amount of money.

Before you start stockpiling and buying tons of food that you will not use at all or will not use fast enough, it is a good idea to keep track of the food you eat and how frequently. This goes hand in hand with meal planning. If you eat pasta once a week, that means you will have a pasta dish about four times a month. Store sale cycles are about 6 weeks on average so if there is a good sale on pasta, you want to buy enough to get your family through at least 6 weeks, so for the example family, they'd want to buy enough for 6 meals. I like to have a little bit more than that on hand, so I'd probably buy enough for 8-10 meals.

Stockpiling takes room. I have 2 sets of shelving in my basement for all of our toiletries and dry storage food. I also have a full size freezer in my garage for all of the frozen food. You can stockpile whatever space or your budget allows you to.

Part of stockpiling is knowing enough about the pricing of the products you use most to know when they are a good deal. An easy way to start tracking this is to start a price book. It can be a little notebook you carry in your purse or a big excel spreadsheet you keep on your computer, what ever works for you. You want to put information on the items you purchase most and the lowest price you can pay for those items. For example, we eat a lot of boneless skinless chicken breast and I know that $1.99/lb is my stock up price. Anytime I see chicken breasts at or below $1.99/lb is my time to stock up as much as I can afford to either financially or room wise in my freezer. By knowing the price points at which to buy, you can save a substantial amount of money without even clipping coupons!