This is what happened to me just the other day.
First of all, as I have stated before, I am a frugal, coupon clipper, deal getter, never pay retail, Dave Ramsey FPU graduate, especially when it comes to the grocery store.
I like to combine coupons and deals, price match, and find the best of the best price, I have NEVER, paid full price for a box of cereal.( that is just a sin....)
This way of life is not my fault, I was raised this way, my Mother was the coupon queen! I used to help her clip, and shop on double coupon day...(ahhhh...thoes were the days....). Its just our way of life.
OK, so fastworward.........
what has all this coupon clipping gotten me???
here is a visual...
~That is the Question on the table~
Just the other day, I was listening to a motovational speaker, as I often do, and this particular woman was talking about how to budget, save money, get out of debt, so I perked right up and listened intently, knowing that she was going to validate, my way of life, and say how great I was at saving and buying in bulk..."I know..I know.."
Well that is NOT what happened.
Instead she threw out a consept so absurd I just stood there speechless.
She said, ""If you are the type of person who is buying on bulk, clipping coupons, and have a room in your house dedicated to housing all of you groceries, stop it! Do not buy another thing! Eat everything you have, all of it. Empty out that pantry. When you have no food left in the house, go to the grocery store, and buy just enough food and supplies to last you one week only. Then eat all of that, every bit of it, then you can shop again for the next week. This will save you much more money than buying in bulk, or clipping coupons, because you are only buying what you need."
WHAT!?
I have never heard of such a thing!
I suppose if I think about it, I have no idea why I need 24 boxes of crackers, 54 cans of soup, 12 different pastas, 13 cakemixes, and 26 cans of veggies in my basement...what am I saving all this food for anyway??
She goes on to say, how much of this food eventually expires, and buying food and eating all of it weekly, leaves no waste, and you tend to buy more fresh fruit and veggies, instead of the boxed stuff...well ok...I guess that makes sense....
So this is what I want. All of you who read this can you please weigh in on this issue for me...leave a comment here or on my facebook. How do you grocery shop? do you stock up like its Armegeddon like I do? Do you just buy the minimum??? Does it save you money?
I really want to know, before I do anything this drastic...
I cant imagine what Id tell my kids.."sorry honey, you have to eat this for dinner because there is literally no other food in this house"....hmmm.....maybe not a bad idea after all...:)
I look forward to hearing your thoughts, until then, I will be sitting here still just baffled.
holy cow that is a lot of food! I believe in stocking up on the cheap/ almost free stuff from savings angel.. but maybe not stocking up on as much food as you have. I would imagine most of it would expire before you use it. I stocked up on stuff for a while, and pretended that food was all we had ( other than buying meat and milk etc. so every night I used what was in the pantry and got more creative with my meals and did not buy any more till it was all gone.. and saved a lot of money! then stock up a little for a while .. and repeat :)
ReplyDeleteLove the pictures of your pantry!!! Your so organized.... why should I doubt that. I stock up... buy things when they are super cheap and have found that I can give bags of food/HBA items away when people are in need. I can have 15 friends / kids over and make food for them out of the pantry... I can make dinner for friends with new babies and never have to go to the store to pick up expensive full price items. I do make a huge effort everyone couple of months to cook from my freezer and clean things out. I say... couponing is the way to go!!! :-)
ReplyDeleteWe usually do one big shopping trip a month to stock up on things that keep like soups and cereals and coffee. Then, about once a week, we pick up things like milk, apples, eggs, bread, etc. I only use coupons if they're for things I need. And when they are really good sales on things like bread, cheese, or meat, we buy a bunch extra and throw the excess in the freezer (this actually does work quite well for bread and cheese, believe it or not). That's our grocery shopping habits. We only buy what we need when we need it and only if it's on sale.
ReplyDeleteAfter several years of super-couponing and stockpiling, I am now entertaining the idea of scaling way back. I am certain that I've saved a lot- the first year I tracked carefully and found I saved over $4000. However I know that my biggest coupon savings comes from all the household & personal care stuff, not food. I am in the process of minimizing coupon time to just one store where I get my best deals and then shopping 2x a month at Aldi for non-perishables and getting fresh produce/meat as needed each week. I expect to spend about the same, get nearly as much in the way of food, but save about 2 hours a week. The only thing I'll miss is knowing I can reach in a closet to put a bag of supplies together to donate at the drop of a hat. Which is not insignificant to me and it is something that expert you listened to probably didn't address. Time will tell how this works, I can always change back.
ReplyDeleteThank you ladies for the insight! I am definatly going to scale back, say, when I have the opporotunity to buy mac and cheese for 14 cents, yeas that is a great deal. But do I really need 36 boxes?? I dont think so. I am going to work on eating out our pantry, and then just buy what I need, and a few great deals:)
ReplyDeleteIll try that for a few months and see how it goes. I will definatly save hours on couponing, and money too! Like Pam said, I can always go back:)