Tip # 13: Create and Live Off of a Stockpile
Eventually, you’ll find that there are several recipes that you enjoy making quite frequently. When you do, you’ll want to keep track of those meals and the ingredients in them so that when you find a good sale on them, you can stock-up.
Now, a good stockpile doesn’t create itself overnight. It takes quite awhile. A good way to start is to take the extra money you have leftover in your grocery budget each month and to buy up those things that you use the most that are on sale.
This is a good reason to keep that price book we talked about earlier. Knowing when the items you buy frequently are at a good sale price and when the next possible sale price might be are all vital information to stockpiling. You could be stocking up on what appears to be a good price on hamburger, only to find out that if you had waited a week, you could have saved $.50 more a pound.
If you don’t have a lot of time to focus on stockpiling, focus mainly on the items that you use the most that are the most expensive. Good examples are meat and cereal. When you see a good meat sale, stock-up! This can save you bundles! And when you see a great deal on cereal, stock-up! Cereal is one of the highest marked-up items! Normal cereal can sell for $4 a box but I rarely pay more than $1 a box because I stock up on a lot when I find a great deal.
Another way to get a decent stockpile on the cheap is to always buy the “loss leaders” for the week that you use. Loss leaders are those items that grocery stores drastically discount to get you into their store. Their hope is that they’ll reel you in with those items, stopping you from shopping elsewhere, but they hope that you’ll buy more while you are there. These items are typically labeled as “3 Day Only Sale,” etc.
Creating a good stockpile at sale prices helps you never have to pay full price for anything. And this can lead to great savings to your budget!
Tune in tomorrow at 9AM CST for Tip #14.