If you are new to couponing, there are going to be a lot of things that you are going to need to become comfortable with before you will truly be successful in your endeavor. One thing thtat you will do for sure is completely change the way you go shopping each week. Gone are the days that you have a list a mile long with 100 different items to find. Gone are the days you get frustrated because the store is out of half of what you need. Gone are the days you pay full price! If you have read the posts on getting started and how to get organized, you are ready to hear some more of the proven theories behind the coupon magic!
Grocery store ads typically run in 12 week cycles. Some of them are closer to 8 and some of them are closer to 16, but if you take the average of all stores, it typically averages out to 12. What I mean by this is that each of your staple items will typically be on sale for a good price every 12 weeks. Because we know this, we need to take advantage of it! We need to buy a 12 week supply of those staple items at the lowest price in the cycle every 12 weeks. Certainly there are some exeptions such as milk and other dated, perishable items, but for durable grocery and general merchandise goods, you should plan on buying a 12 week supply at the lowest possible price.
As you acummulate your items, that becomes your “stockpile”. Some people, such as a household of 1 or 2, can fit their stockpile in their normal pantry. Others, such as families with several children living at home, may need to have another designated spot for their stockpile in their garage, basement or bonus room. The types of items in your stockpile will vary from household to household, but common items that you will see in a good stockpile are: cleaners and detergent, paper towels, toilet tissue, facial tissue, pasta sauce, pasta, rice, cereal, canned soups, canned veggies, canned fruits, microwave popcorn, cake mixes, soda, bottled water, batteries, plastic storage bags and the list could go on and on. Basically, any item that will hold up for 12 weeks of storage. For some families, it makes economic sense to purchase a deep freeze. This opens up a whole new realm of possibilities!
As you begin this process, you are going to have a learning curve. You are going to buy too much of one thing and not enough of another. You are going to stock up on a stockpile quantity of an item only to watch it go on sale for another 20% less in two weeks at a different store. It’s OK. I think it’s safe to say that you will still be spending less than you were before, right? One thing that is sure is that you won’t see a huge savings in the dollars that you spend on your first few trips. What you will see is a large increase in the amount of product that you get for those dollars. As long as you are monitoring your % saved and it is at least a 65%-70% savings at the grocery stores and 80%-90% at the drug stores, you are doing fine. You will begin to see the totals drop rapidly after about the first 6-8 weeks. The reason for this is because you have not bought stockpile quantities of anything.
In the past, if you needed to go to the store, you may take a couple of coupons with you or you may not. You also may pick up an extra couple of jars or cans of something because it was “BOGO”. You had yourself convinced that you were really getting a steal! Now, you are leveraging the pricing and the coupons to get your groceries at an all time low. For this to be most effective, you need to build your stockpile. Until you have a firm base built, you will need to continue to add to it. Once you get that foundation laid, your shopping list that used to contain 100 items may only contain 7 or 8. Your cart will still be full, but you will only be looking for 7 or 8 things and “stockpiling” them.
As a result, your shopping trips will be shorter, your savings will be higher and your totals will be lower. The longer you are abiding by this lifestyle, the more magnified the results will become. For more information on stockpiling, read our posts: What is my stockpile quantitiy? and What is my stockpile price?
The post What is a Stockpile? appeared first on .