Take a look at the beginnings of my stockpile! Yes, I’m starting a stockpile. Nothing huge for now, don’t have that kind of space. But I decided to start the process by clearing out some room in my closets over the Memorial Day weekend. It felt really good to finally tackle some space issues in our closets. Mainly the hallway closet. We don’t have much space as it is, so the misuse of the space you have is just a waste. Couponing somehow makes you wanna get more organized. A little contradictory, I know, but it does for me. Couponing in the beginning can actually cause a lot of clutter and papers piling up. Organization is key…but I digress…back to my stockpile.
Last week’s sales ads were pretty good*…especially at Walgreens. Now I’m no pro when it comes to couponing, but I learn fast. I made a rookie mistake that caused me not to get the maximum Register Rewards (RR) back on one of my purchases, but overall I did well with my purchases and the RR’s I got in return. One of the deals was on lotion. We were in need of lotion anyway and I had four coupons for Vaseline Intensive Care lotion, they were on special buy 4/$12 and get $4RR, my coupons were for $1 off each lotion. Even getting the 4/$8 with my coupons is a sweet deal, but to get $4RR back just made it too good to pass up! So now I have three lotions for future use. The only thing, or a major gripe actually, that I was gonna do a post on, is that I went to three different Walgreens and none of them had a complete selection of the lotions. It was very frustrating to say the least. The point of the story is I got a good deal on lotions and now it’s time to start having a place to put all of my “extras”.
Where you really start to see the difference in saving in coupons, at least one of the ways in my opinion, is in stockpiling. Now, I by no means say that if you have a basement or garage that it should be stocked to the brim with products. That’s a bit over the top. But having several toothbrushes, laundry detergents, soaps, deodorants, paper towels, medicines, etc on hand when you can get them for dirt cheap or free…that’s a feeling of security. It’s a good feeling. To me, adding a little here and there to my stockpile is like a form of insurance. When you have a limited amount of money to spend, you gotta make it stretch. Stockpiling does that. Stockpiling is different than buying in bulk. Buying in bulk you’re buying these large cases of product. Buying in bulk is good too. That comes in handy too, especially if it’s on sale. We are on our last two rolls of toilet paper from a large case of Quilted Northern Plush toilet paper that we got during a Target Dollar Days sale. I think it was $10 and we got it in February and here it is the end of May. That was $10 well spent for sure! But buying bulk doesn’t usually work well with coupons. Because with stockpiling the goal is to get the item for little or no cost.
Moral of the story is that I’m proud of the beginnings of my stockpile. I like that planning for organizing my extra products has forced me to do some cleaning out and some organizing. Oh and I forgot to mention…one of areas of misused closet space is the kids closet. On the top shelf I had stacks and stacks of their clothes that were too small. I wanted to sell them and give away, but decided that I would donate them to the victims of the tornadoes both locally and in Joplin, MO. So currently I’m doing some research on how to best go about that. So I’m freeing up space to stock items.
**this post was written Memorial Day weekend, just now being posted
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