Stock Pile...what do I want in it?

If you watched the show Extreme Couponing on TLC you saw several huge stockpiles.  I have seen stockpiles on the internet where people bought things that they never had the intentions of using.  For example this one couponer had a huge stockpile of  diapers and she didn't even have kids!!! If my first attempt at couponing 3 years ago I did pretty much the same thing.  What did that mean for me?  I threw away a lot of food and stuff that my family never used.   So this time when I decided to try this again I decided that I was only going to purchase food items that I know that we would eat. 


Creating a stockpile takes planning.  The first thing that I would suggest is looking at how much space you have for storage. My pantry in my stockpile location for food items.  It isn't huge but it isn't really small so I knew that I could stockpile at least 15 boxes of cereal on the top, lots of boxes of pasta, etc.  I have room under my kitchen sink for my dish washing items.  Toilet paper, tissues, and laudry detergent are all in my laundry room.  All of the health and beauty items are in the bathroom.  So after I knew where I had room to store things the next step was planning what I actually wanted to stock pile. I have a deep freezer in my garage that had a ton of room in it so I knew that I could stock up on frozen foods.

Like I said earlier I only stockpile things that I know my family eats or will use.  Food wise the main things that I am stockpiling are cereal, soups, pasta, drinks, and frozen food.  Again I am only getting things that I know my family will eat.  It is important when you are stockpiling foods that you look at the expriation dates and that you check your stock pile regularly so that you rotate and use things that the closest expiration date first.

As far as my cleaning items, this is where you have to be flexible.  When you coupon and stockpile it is really hard to be brand specific.  I have been a Gain laundry detergent user for as long as I can remember.  Gain doesn't go on sale a lot or for much so to get a stockpile of it would be hard.  Not that long ago Purex was marked down at CVS to 3.99 and I had a 3.00 off coupon and I would have gotten a 3.00 ECB so 20 loads of laundry deterent would have been totally free to me.  The brand snob in me was like "Nope not going to use it" but the couponer in me said if you are going to make this work you have to try it.  So I did and I have to admit I love those 3 in 1 sheets!!  I know have about 4 bottle of detergent in my stock pile and they are all different kinds.  As long as no one in my family has a major reaction to the detergent (I do tend to buy the ones that say FREE and CLEAR if they make one because my daughter has excema and I never know what changes will do) I am good to go.  Another item that I currently have in my stockpile is dishwasher detergent.  I wasn't really brand specific with this in the past but I did know that I only wanted liquid.  Not that long ago I got some free tabs at Target...LOVE THEM!!! So remember something you need to be flexible with and try new things!!

Stockpiling healthy and beauty products is so much fun for me.  When I did couponing the first time I had such a huge stockpile of toothpaste that we didn't have to buy any for almost 2 years.  I remember the day that we ran out and my reaction was "Really it is all gone?"  Healthy and Beauty products are easy to stockpile and in most cases if you have coupons and shop at the drug store you can get them free.  Right now in my stock pile I think I have 12 toothpastes, 3 deodorants, and 3 or 4 body washes.  Now to some that doesn't seem like a stockpile but it is a good start!!  I know this week I will be adding some to it with some huge sales going on at Walgreens this week.

One of the things that I hope to do with my blog is tell you what the current sales cycle is so that will know what to watch for to stock up on each week.  Please post a comment if you have questions about stockpileing or anything mentioned on my site!!!  I want to make sure that it has the information my readers need and want!!!

Happy Stockpiling!