Stockpiling

Your spouse just lost his/her job. You have a small amount of money in your savings account, but you don't know if it's enough to get you to point Z (when your spouse is employed again). What do you do? This is where stockpiles come in. It is basically being prepared in case of an emergency situation.

My husband and I graduated from BYU-I in 2011. Our son was born near the end of the summer and we were running out of funds. We sold all of our furniture. The things that we didn't sell were donated. We filled our little Honda Civic with what we could, along with a baby carseat, and drove all the way to Arizona. We stayed with parents until we were able to get back on our feet. It was there that I decided to start on the coupon journey. It's so exhilarating to spend little to no money. Once my husband got a job, we got an apartment, and started to rebuild all that we had lost in Idaho.

Being so poor has really inspired me to save money WHILE we have it. When you don't have money, it's pretty dang difficult to save it, don'tcha think? Anyway, that's why I've been stockpiling like crazy! I want to be prepared in case we're in another situation like that.

Here's how my stockpile is looking:

Year's supply: toothpaste, toothbrushes, Hefty storage bags, Hefty trash bags

6 month supply: tampons and pads, toilet paper, razors, dish soap, body wash, cereal, cake mix (which you can use to make cookies and other things with)

3 month supply: paper towels, Campbell's cream of soup, oatmeal

This isn't the whole list, but it's all I can think of right now. Stockpiling does NOT need to be hard. When something hits a super low price, you buy more than you would in a typical shopping trip. Here's an example: My grocery store had pasta on sale for 19 CENTS (without coupons!). I ended up buying about 20 packs of pasta that day. You can do so much with pasta.

I'm sure many of you have heard of the Krazy Coupon Lady. Well, she came up with an amazing stock up price list. She has it separated by 3 months and 6 months. If the price is listed under 3 months, then it means you could buy 3 month's worth of that item at the listed price. It also means that you will probably see the item listed at that price 3 months later (which is why you only need to buy 3 month's worth.) If the item is listed under the 6 month column, buy enough to last 6 months because you might not see that price for another 6 months. If the price is a lot cheaper than the 6 month price, then you can by more than 6 month's worth. (Another example: One of local grocery stores had apples on sale for 25 CENTS (the 6 month stock up price is .50 per pound) so I bought a ton of apples and one of my friends taught me how to can! I made my own applesauce and apple butter! (They was super yummy, too.)

It may take a little while to really build up your stockpile, but you can do it! By beginning to save money, you'll keep saving money. Just make sure that you're buying things that you know your family will eat/need. It's not saving money if you won't be able to use the stuff. If it's free or super cheap, though, and your family won't use it, you could always donate it (which we will talk about in a later post). Once I get my house clean enough (my 18 month old says "HAHA!" to that), I'll take a picture of my stockpile and post it for all to see. Go have fun!