Buying in Bulk / Importing

kriss_boy

Every day Im noticing groceries going up and up and it got me thinking.

What if you said to yourself- right- toilet roll at £x.xx, Im going to buy 6 months worth!!! Then you'd have 6 months to find a similar cheap deal. Thats extreme but we all do it buying in pairs or three's when some things are on offer. Is anyone considering extreme bulk buying to save a few quid?

Surely some items could be imported cheaper too?

StumpyPumpy

kriss_boy wrote: »

Every day Im noticing groceries going up and up and it got me thinking.

What if you said to yourself- right- toilet roll at £x.xx, Im going to buy 6 months worth!!! Then you'd have 6 months to find a similar cheap deal. Thats extreme but we all do it buying in pairs or three's when some things are on offer. Is anyone considering extreme bulk buying to save a few quid?

Surely some items could be imported cheaper too?

Doesn't this depend on a) having enough money available to purchase so much in bulk and b) having enough storage space for the items you buy.

The middle ground is, of course, warehouse clubs like Costco which essentially work on this philosophy.

pennymakespounds

strongly advise you Not to do that !!.

There's no need these days ... the market is so competitive that for most products , one of the big supermarkets and/or discounters will have it on crazy offer .. if not this week / month .. then next.

Indeed in lots of areas the offers are getting more aggressive .. first bogofs .. now bog2f !!

Sainsbury press ads this week bragging "874 half price offers instore" .

Toiletries .. lots of thing promoted at £1 over last year or so ... .. then asda started a few months ago doing "4 for £3 " = 75p .. you now see tesco / sains etc doing toiletry lines at around 80p to compete.

and we know from the economic situation .. and the fierce competition between the supermarkets .. offfers will just get better .

I am a very regular bulk buyer ... used to buy about 6 months stock on an offer .. now no more than 3 months , mainly 2 ..even less .

Not only do the offers get better... but sometimes there's revamped / improved qualities which you might miss out on .

We've got people like aldi/lidl .. savers .. who specialise in maintaining long term constant pricing .. ( eg 750ml thick bleach .. Home bargains have been selling at 39p for over a year . This is same products that multiples have as own label at about 70p or 2 for £1. )

Was going to say Savers always 39p but notice this morning they are now 49p !!

trust me ! .. supermarket pricing is my job ! .. i'd be very sure there's no product in my cupboards today where i wasn't buying at the same price ..even more .. six months ago.

look at nescafe sachet cappucino etc .. used to be on offer at around 2 for £3 .. now regularly at £1.

Have always been a believer that saving around 50% on an offer .....is far better than 2% or 3 % interest on money in the bank .. but un-necessary now tie-ing money up in stock .

The art now is .. finding as many of your "normal" grocery / household/ frozen products as possible ......to be regularly buying at the lowest price . .. not just buying big lumps of stock of certain products .

My last example to convince you .. soap powders / liquids etc .... lots of us look at "cost per wash" ariel & bold used to have a "normal price " of up to 30p a wash .
... offers started mainly on the "middle brands ".. 18p .. then 15p .. then 12p then your persils , ariels , even bolds were dragged down to those sorts of levels ... then 10p looked brilliant ... last 3 months we're seeing 8p and below .
Just been in asda .. persil liquid is about 9p ... daz & surf powder is 10p or less .

Anyone with soap powder/liquid stock in the cupboard a few months old ... it's cheaper today !!.

Hope i've made my point !

shammyjack

I totally agree . The stores I use regularly have repeating offers so often that I can predict within a week when they will start, most run on an 8 week cycle so I just stock up with 2 months worth, saves a fortune !


shammy

pennymakespounds

spot on shammyjack . !

kriss_boy

Youre probably right when it comes to groceries but one of my greatest money saving tips which Im sure a lot of people adopt around here is to buy things 'out of season', ie buy your winter jacket in Feb or your shorts in winter!

In the last few days I've shrewdly spend around £25 on lots stocking fillers that are in the sale!

I actually bought a g-star jacket in November for £250 but returned it because I felt it was too dear. I've now bought it for £72 on asos.com!!

shammyjack

Nice one ! I have been buying my clothes out of season at mega reductions for over 30 years

savemoney

I often buy toilet tolls on offer in fact last month I had 6 large packs of them by time yoiu got much used another offer comes up, I do this a lot with other thinsg that dont perish so much. You need the room though, I got a garage to fill and out shelving up. Just before xmas I got around 30 bottles of Pepsi bog2free at Morrisons we go through loads which daughter and her b/f

I also bought load of branton beans on offer £1 for 4 and every couple of weeks they are back on offer.

alanobrien

If you really want to buy in bulk a much easier way is to join an organisation such as Costco and the like.

You still have the issue of where to store bulk bought items though.

markalfred1

it really depends, i think doing that is more of a gamble... coz nothing is ever certain.