We’ve talked about a lot of things in this series, from menu-planning, to using coupons, to planning your menu based upon what you have on hand and what is on sale at the store.
Today were going to talk about one of my biggest secrets for grocery saving success: practicing the Buy Ahead Principle. What’s that, you ask?
Well, basically, other than dairy products and produce, I aim to never pay full price for anything. Instead, I try to buy enough of a product when an item is on sale at its lowest price to tide me over until the next sale.
For instance, in this shopping trip picture, you’ll see that I mainly stocked up on cereal. In fact, I bought 16 boxes of cereal–enough to last us for at least 6 weeks, likely longer. Did we only eat cereal that week? No way! We actually only ate a few boxes of cereal that week and the rest of what we ate mostly came from items I’d stocked up on during previous sales.
Because I stock up on items when they are on sale at my target price (providing I can afford it in our $40 per week grocery budget), my grocery shopping trips will usually look quite strange and will certainly not be the basis for a balanced menu. But you can check out some of our menus here to see that we do eat a fairly balanced diet. Well, at least we’re certainly not subsisting on Easy Mac and Jell-O every meal!
How do we have varied menus when I buy such an odd assortment of groceries each week? It’s because the majority of our meals are based upon what we already have in our refrigerator, pantry, and freezer–our stockpile of items which I’ve purchased in bulk at 60-100% off the retail price.
For many people who are used to buying only what groceries you’ll use in the next few days, practicing the Buy-Ahead Principle can seem mind-boggling. However, I highly recommend you at least give it a try as it can save you a great deal of money. In fact, I would estimate that we routinely save at least $30-$50 each week by doing so.
However, if this is a new concept for you, don’t go out and spend $500 tomorrow trying to build up a stockpile. Instead, just designate a small percentage of your grocery budget each week to buying extra of those heavily-discounted items which you know you will use sometime in the next few months.
For instance, if toothpaste is on sale for $1.50 and you have 5 $1 off coupons, go ahead and buy 5 at $0.50 each. It will likely take you a few months to use all that toothpaste and, by then, there will have been another sale you can take advantage of. Instead of paying $2.50 per tube of toothpaste every time you need it, you’ll pay $2.50 for five tubes of toothpaste.
These little $1 and $2 savings really start to add up. And once youve built up a good stockpile of items, you’ll find that you rarely ever will pay full price for anything again. Plus, you wont have to run to the store every time you run out of toilet paper. Instead, you can just run to your storage closet and get a package from your stockpile that you got on a great sale!
