Frugal Living

Many of you have asked to see my stockpile. I was organizing everything the other night and decided to snap some photos while I was doing it. Its nothing fantastic–but this is mine! I can proudly say that this is something that I have worked very hard for and I’m so happy to rely on it.

When you stockpile–you will realize that it does take time to really build one. It doesn’t happen over night and as long as you set a budget (I’ll show you how I do it) you will not overspend.

Mens, Women’s and kids body wash

Floss, Toothbrushes

Toothpaste, Kleenex and Razors (I’m sure I have about 30 tubes of toothpaste )

Cleaning items, light bulbs

Feminine Hygenie items

Baby items

Juice, Pasta Sauce, Dressings, Canned tomatoes

Cereal, Pasta, Snacks

Laundry Detergent, Softener

Travel Size items

Misc. items (I used to have about 20 bottles of contact solution! I have not purchased any for about a year and a half..so its getting pretty low)

Deodorant, bath items

Medicine items

Make up, Hair items, lotions, Q tips

How I stockpile: 

• Set a budget. I set aside $8 per week to stockpile. So obviously, the more free or cheap items I get, my $8 goes further. When I do get free items, I get just enough to last 6-8 weeks if possible. Sometimes I will pick up free items, even if I don’t need it at that time because I will use it. I’m just adding to the pile. Nothing to shop for that week? Stockpile money goes to the grocery budget or rolls over to next week. I make sure to never go over my budget.
• Any drugstore rewards or catalinas go back into my stockpile budget. I usually always take advantage of Free or moneymaker store reward items because it helps add to my stockpile and gives me more money to spend towards my pile. 

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I think this is probably the 2nd most popular question that I get! I personally just purchased a wireless printer (so I can print coupons from my iPad!) and I love it!! I print a lot of coupons (almost every one that I post) so I go through ink like crazy.  Here are a couple of tips that I use to save on printer ink:

A couple of tips that I use:

– I only purchase black ink
– Use Gray Scale (this is a setting on your printer that you can select to make sure the ink doesn’t print as dark)
– Try to purchase a printer that allows refillable ink cartridges (surprisingly–there are few printers that allow for this!)

– some have suggested InksOutlet – I personally have never used this site but a lot of you have scored great discounts on ink here.

So let us know! What do you do to save on printer ink?

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 Some of you were having issues with the first version of the spreadsheet–so it is now updated and not password protected, that way you can update in case something happens.

I know a lot of you have a hard time really seeing your savings…So we have come up with a great way to actaully SEE what you are saving with the SoCal Saver Savings Spreadsheet! This is basically a tool for you to keep track of all of your shopping trips to keep a running total for the month and even the YEAR of savings! You will need to download the spreadsheet to see the rebate tracker as well. There is a short video  to show you how to use it if you need it.

There is also an instructions tab at the very beginning to help guide you. Hope you enjoy it!

So Cal Savings Instruction video

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I think the question that I get the most as a couponer is “How much to you spend on groceries?”

For my family of 5, I spend on average $50 per week. This is just something that I started going by because it was all we could afford. This is different for everyone. My family doesn’t have a serious food aversions and we aren’t very picky with much items. So $50 per week is easy for us to achieve.  There are times that I go over. I’m not perfect, my boys are going through serious growth spurts and I am finding that I may need to up my grocery budget. But here are some tips that help me stay within my budget each month

:: Meatless meals. We try to have at least one meatless meal each week. homemade pizza with a variety of cheeses and veggies. You don’t realize how expensive it can be trying to plan a meat meal every day of the week!

:: Stick to the budget. 

:: Pick up items that you don’t find coupons for with store rewards. When I run low on items that I can’t really stockpile or are lacking of deals to stockpile, I use my store rewards. CVS allows you to purchase milk with ECBs. So I almost always use my rewards to pick up milk. (that is at least $7 saved per week) Also, bread and condiments as good items to pick up at the drugstores.

:: Use overage to your advantage. The only reason I shop at Walmart is to price match or use overage to pick up items like meat or produce. I usually take at least one trip per month to use overage to buy Chicken Breasts or bananas (my kids go through them like water!) This saves me about $10 per month. Yes, there are items that I only purchase because they were free with overage.  I donate them if I can’t use them.

:: Only buy what is on sale. I usually shoot for one meat item per week. If its Turkey that is on sale then we are eating Turkey that month. We have about 3 meats that we rotate during the month. We usually stick to Pork, Chicken and Turkey. We don’t buy Expensive Steaks at the grocery store. I purchase enough of each to freeze for at least 3 meals.

:: Eat from your stockpile. Once you have a good size Stockpile  you will notice that you will only be picking up meats or produce that work with the items in your stockpile. You will spend less on Condiments as well. Have a lot of Salad Dressing? Then find ways to marinate those in meats (if possible) . Tons of pasta in your stockpile? Then get creative with pasta! We have done this for awhile and I find myself getting more creative as a cook and finding  dishes that we really like because I decided to throw this in with that.

:: Make your weekly menu plan by what is in your stockpile and what is on sale. Many families sit down and plan a weekly menu based on what they WANT to eat each week. This is not preferable  method because you can end up purchasing items at their highest price that week. So sit down and plan your menu based on what is on sale and what you may have at home already.

If your family has special diets this may not be easy to achieve. If you really want to save money, you need to make a budget around what is reasonable for your family and most importantly, sticking to it.

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Many of you have asked to see my stockpile. I was organizing everything the other night and decided to snap some photos while I was doing it. Its nothing fantastic–but this is mine! I can proudly say that this is something that I have worked very hard for and I’m so happy to rely on it. I stopped stockpiling about 3 months ago. We just didn’t have enough room in our garage and we needed to rotate items to make room for more. our stockpile was about 2 times larger 6 months ago — and it took about 6 months to get that size.

When you stockpile–you will realize that it does take time to really build one. It doesn’t happen over night and as long as you set a budget (I’ll show you how I do it) you will not overspend.

Mens, Women’s and kids body wash

Floss, Toothbrushes

Toothpaste, Kleenex and Razors (I’m sure I have about 30 tubes of toothpaste )

Cleaning items, light bulbs

Feminine Hygenie items

Baby items

Juice, Pasta Sauce, Dressings, Canned tomatoes

Cereal, Pasta, Snacks

Laundry Detergent, Softener

Travel Size items

Misc. items (I used to have about 20 bottles of contact solution! I have not purchased any for about a year and a half..so its getting pretty low)

Deodorant, bath items

Medicine items

Make up, Hair items, lotions, Q tips

How I stockpile: 

• Set a budget. I set aside $8 per week to stockpile. So obviously, the more free or cheap items I get, my $8 goes further. When I do get free items, I get just enough to last 6-8 weeks if possible. Sometimes I will pick up free items, even if I don’t need it at that time because I will use it. I’m just adding to the pile. Nothing to shop for that week? Stockpile money goes to the grocery budget or rolls over to next week. I make sure to never go over my budget.
• Any drugstore rewards or catalinas go back into my stockpile budget. I usually always take advantage of Free or moneymaker store reward items because it helps add to my stockpile and gives me more money to spend towards my pile. 

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