No, I don’t need all that pasta for this week and I have had way more than 8 at a time. If I used all that pasta sauce up in a week my husband would stop eating my food by the second day of pasta. Instead, I will save the pasta sauces for weeks to come and serve them as pizza sauce, soup thickening and much more.
How many should I buy?
As many as your budget permits for stockpiling.
That doesn’t mean to go to the grocery store and buy 20 things of pasta sauce for $.50 a jar because it is cheap and you can. Most likely, there will be another brand of pasta sauce on sale several weeks to come and it will be even cheaper or free. The basic principle would be to stockpile enough to cover you for a couple of weeks.
Some groceries will expire before you will be able to use all of them and then you would have wasted and not saved!
If you want to purchase more go right ahead but, think about donating to a charity, helping a neighbor, or what I love best… be the secret giver!
Also, don’t spend all your grocery money to stockpile and then get home and say, “I just went to the store but I have no idea what we are eating for supper.” You will then end up calling for take out or going through a drive through. Your budget will be blown!!!
What if I go to the store and they don’t have anymore?
There have been plenty of times when I have walked into the grocery store with a mission to stock up on an item but, I find that they are all gone.
I do not say, “ I can’t believe she just purchased all they had.” Instead, I write the item down on a small notepad and at the end of my grocery shopping I stop by the customer service desk and ask for a rain check.
I have trouble putting items together in a meal after I have stockpiled.
I can totally relate to this. I love the website www.allrecipes.com because I can enter ingredients that I have on hand and it will pull up several recipe ideas that I can use for a great meal.
Do you stockpile? How has it helped your grocery budget?
Let Us Know By Commenting
Stay tuned tomorrow for more about saving money by getting rain checks and how they can make your groceries fit your budget.
Other parts to this series click here
WOW1 You used my comment! My daughter in law took a look through my pantry last time she was here and said-'So-you could just go in your kitchen and cook anything you want at anytime.' That seemed incredible to her.
I love the all recipes website idea.
I forgot about rainchecks! Good idea!