Earlier this year I decided to rebuild my stockpile after letting it run right down. I’d love it if we had coupons here in Australia ( I watch Extreme Couponing with much envy!) but we don’t unfortunately. But I built up our stockpile by shopping online at Woolworths and only buying the specials. I also am now using a Woolworths credit card which gives gift cards each quarter for the points I’ve accumulated. I budget $100 a month for the stockpile and this week is typical of the savings:
Total cost: $53 Total savings $43.32.
I start by checking out the half price specials. I’m getting used to the regular cycles now and that makes it easier to know how many of a product to keep on hand. I like the Woolies site because I can see the total and whats in my basket as I shop, I can search by ‘my favourite’ products to see if they are on sale – great time saver as all my stockpiling products are in my favourites.
I start by checking out the ‘half price’ items and then move on the ‘specials’ It’s rare now for us to pay full price for any groceries. I always collect mine as delivery is $13. I am totally hooked on shopping this way, and it’s even more important for me while I am still having difficulty getting about as there is no way I could stand long enough to do go shopping and it’s going to be that way for quite a while yet. I’m going to continue to stockpile in preparation for possible layoff. I’m also saving all my survey gift cards for the time being as they will come in handy to reduce the grocery budget further. Here’s a peek at my stockpile shopping basket for this week:
Sanitarium Weet-bix Original 1.2kg was $4.95 now $4.00
Heinz Baked Beans Tomato Sauce 420g x 6 was $1.88 now $0.87
Dairy Farmers Heart Active Light Milk 1litre x2 was $2.90 now $2.55
Energizer Max AA Batteries 4pk was $8.01 now $3.72
Homebrand Glass Cleaner Refill 750ml was $2.03 now $1.39
White King Multipurpose Power Cleaner Lemon 1l was $4.46 now $2.07
Quilton Classic Toilet Tissue 3ply White 190sheets 24pk was $12.90 now $10.00
Tresemme Colour Revitalising Conditioner For Colour Treated Hair 900ml x2 was $10.74 now $4.99
Tresemme Colour Revitalising Shampoo For Colour Treated Hair 900ml x 2 was $10.74 now $4.99
Those are some very good sales, especially on the shampoo! I stockpile some of my personal care items, and even though I am not always conscious of the savings, I am sure that if I had to go buy stuff like shampoo on the very last minute, I’d be very likely to overspend or not catch a good sale.
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Louise Reply:
December 14th, 2012 at 5:44 am
Yep, the shampoo was a really good bargain this week, and having the stockpile has helped us make last minute trips to the shops too.
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Great deals! I was planning on stockpiling over the month and did get a few deals, but I simply haven’t had the time to devote to it lately… i’ve been flying by the seat of my pants lately. Not good.
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I go back & forth with creating a stockpile, or just buying enough to have on hand. Right now I’m somewhere in between. I did, however, find a fantastic deal on two of our more expensive toiletry items (baby shampoo + a special mouth rinse). I stocked up several months ago & still have a couple of months worth of supplies.
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If only I had the space to store stockpiles. If only we had coupons in Canada. If only….. Well, I guess we just have to all do the best we can – what else can we do? About a month ago we started to get an organic veggie delivery right to our door for $30 a week. I know I could get more for my $ at the grocery store but it wouldn’t be LOCAL produce and it wouldn’t be ORGANIC – both of which mean a lot to me. We have been making lots of veggie stirfrys and lots of soup and while I haven’t been tracking my grocery spending I do think we are spending less overall. We don’t spend much on meat at all preferring to add beans to our soups and stews for a good cheap source of protein.
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If only we had coupons in the UK….anyway I’ve started building a stockpile too – I just need to find an extra place for storage as i don’t want it all over the house…
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