Stocking Up
Stocking up on groceries and household supplies is a great frugal tip that perfectly meshes with my lazy attitude. If I stock up when something is on sale, not only am I saving money but I'm reducing the number of trips I have to make to the store. That's less work for me! Making less trips to the store is also a powerful frugal tool in itself. When we make frequent shopping trips we'll inevitably spend more, because it's hard not to cave in to the urge to pick up other merchandise we happen to see and think we need. Staying out of the stores is one of those frugal tips where it requires you DON'T do something as opposed to actively doing something. It's LAZY and it WORKS. My ultimate aim is to get my grocery shopping down to once a month, with maybe a quick stop in between for perishables. Right now I'm at about every 2 weeks.
A few days ago I bought 5 packages of 12 double-roll toilet paper. Each package was $4.44 or about half the regular price and well below my own personal guideline of buying when TP is 25 cents a single roll or 50 cents a double roll. This sale worked out to a price of 37 cents per double roll. So I stocked up, hopefully enough for many many months to come.
But there's a couple of important notes to remember about stocking up. One, there's a psychological effect that if you have a lot of something on hand you'll tend to use it generously, just because you have a lot of it. In other words, if you have 10 bottles of shampoo on hand the inclination will be to pour a generous amount into your palm when you use it, because in the back of your mind is the thought that you have lots so why be stingy with it. But to be frugal you'll have to make a concerted effort to use only a modest amount even when you're living with a stockpile of plenty or you'll defeat the benefits of stocking up. Two, it's never worked for me to stockpile 'goodies', because the temptation to overuse or overeat them is too powerful for me. I recognize that weakness in myself. So, while it's okay for me to stockpile toilet paper, I try to avoid stockpiling ice cream because I'll just eat it up quickly anyway so there's no benefit in stockpiling it, there's actually a disadvantage to it.
In summary, remember that:
Marie
A few days ago I bought 5 packages of 12 double-roll toilet paper. Each package was $4.44 or about half the regular price and well below my own personal guideline of buying when TP is 25 cents a single roll or 50 cents a double roll. This sale worked out to a price of 37 cents per double roll. So I stocked up, hopefully enough for many many months to come.But there's a couple of important notes to remember about stocking up. One, there's a psychological effect that if you have a lot of something on hand you'll tend to use it generously, just because you have a lot of it. In other words, if you have 10 bottles of shampoo on hand the inclination will be to pour a generous amount into your palm when you use it, because in the back of your mind is the thought that you have lots so why be stingy with it. But to be frugal you'll have to make a concerted effort to use only a modest amount even when you're living with a stockpile of plenty or you'll defeat the benefits of stocking up. Two, it's never worked for me to stockpile 'goodies', because the temptation to overuse or overeat them is too powerful for me. I recognize that weakness in myself. So, while it's okay for me to stockpile toilet paper, I try to avoid stockpiling ice cream because I'll just eat it up quickly anyway so there's no benefit in stockpiling it, there's actually a disadvantage to it.
In summary, remember that:
- stockpiling is a great lazy frugal practise because it reduces the number of trips to the store and therefore means LESS work.
- staying out of the stores as much as possible WILL reduce your overall spending
- don't stockpile goodies, recognize your human weakness and that you'll just consume the goodies at a faster pace
Marie
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