Buying in bulk / stockpiling ....is it really worth it?

Bunny200

I'm stocked up, only thing I don't really have is water or something to purify it, personally I don't think it will get that far. I also don't think that I would need to touch this stockpile in the short term, summer is coming and I think that any flu virus will reduce over the summer months (esp if we have the hot one they are forecasting) but it will be Autumn/Winter that the situation might arise. I plan to replenish my stockpile over the rest of the year and maybe add to it as I see fit 'just in case'!

mardatha

I think maybe we need to get ready for flu in the autumn yes..

shaz_mum_of__2

Hi guys great thread i stockpile in order to save money i have stuff all over the house and even contemplated buying a special shed ........

Anyhow canned food meat for the freezer and pasta supplys are running low any unmissable deals anywhere?

Shaz

elona

Look on the thread about approvedfood.c.uk. I have been very pleased with the food.

It is near best before by dates but still safe to eat and they have good deals on canned and dried food.

missm29

Other half is self employed so i think he could apply for a card and us start using one of these discount cash and carry places, is it worth it are there savings to be made? A few years ago i got to borrow a card and we went to makro and came out with huge tubs of sweets/crisps/chocolate things we didn't need or what i would have bought during a weekly shop.

Confuzzled

IF you can resist the urge to get tons of treats then i can highly recommend approved foods http://www.approvedfood.co.uk/index.asp that so many of us love here at mse.

i think it might be good to be realistic, if you know that you'll come by junk food one way or another then allow yourself a controlled spend on approved food (if you use them) at least then you're spending less on the junk than you normally would, but then you must ration yourself too.

i have been slowly using AF to stock up on items, there are plenty of great bargains to be had but you can't shop as you normally would. right now i have so much fruit& nut pastes and dried fruit (fruitabu) that i could conceivably go weeks without buying fresh fruit if it came down to that (not that i want it too but it's nice to know i'm covered if things got really bad)

they're great if you want to stock up on plate fillers like pasta, rice, couscous etc as well as getting some small luxuries that really enhance other food (i bought some tapendade recently and add half a tsp to my eggs etc for a real flavour boost).

i'm waiting on another order that has a bunch of sundried tomato pasta sauce. pasta is cheap the sauce not so much (well not the good stuff!) i'll toss in a bit of soya mince and maybe even a touch of that tapenade and have something lovely quite cheaply.

if you can get into the hang of inventory management (not as complicated as it sounds) then you could really really come out ahead using the likes of AF. i'm in the process of doing a thorough reorganisation of my food cupboards and will be doing a total food inventory after my next AF order comes , probably tomorrow.

i plan to do meal plans based on everything i have now as i'm fairly well stocked up now between AF and some big asda home delivery shops. i want to see if we can get by for at least 6-8 weeks just spending 5quid a week for fresh things and clearance meat at morrisons. mind you thats just for me and my voracious 7 year old but everyone could adjust that amount according to their family and do something similar.

bulk buying WHEN IT"S REALLY CHEAP is the key here. at first it's expensive but within 2 months if you get some good deals in you'll find you need to spend less and less on regular groceries and will find the money for the bulk buys more readily available as you'll be spending less and less on groceries overall.

as for putting it on a credit card, i don't know about that, i gave up the credit cards about 10 years ago, however if you know you can pay it off before you start paying interest on it then i would think that would be an excellent way to get into the bulk buying swing of things if you don't have any other money up front.

best of luck!

BitterAndTwisted

I really do think you can save loads but a HUGE amount of self-discipline is required to ensure you really leave the place with only what you went in there for. I'd make a list and only buy what's on it. There's absolutely no point in saving a quid on one thing only to buy a load of other stuff you don't need for two. I'd also buy a small calculator to take with you and make sure you have written down what the price per kilo is in your normal supermarket so you can compare prices as you go round. You also need a fair bit of storage space to keep it all. Corn Flakes under the divan base, anyone?

beemuzed

I'm sure there are savings to be made, but I'd have storage issues I think. Also would need to consider whether the storage life is realistic - although I don't take too much notice of use-by dates I'd need to know I had a chance to use everything up in a sensible amount of time. I'd also be tempted to buy just because things might be a bargain, rather than really needing them.
OK, it's obvious the problem lies with me!!!
Years ago I did do something like this with a couple of friends, so didn't end up with masses of stuff to store, but did have the advantage of lower prices. Maybe this is something I could look at again.

Trinny

Hi There

A lot of good stuff has been said already. I am sure that there are bargains to be had on MAKRO like places - but it depends how many of you there are - we are two adults plus a hungry cat - so it would be tricky to get through crates of the same thing.

I suggest the following

1. Go with a list of what you need, and have an idea of price per KG of the things you usually buy - then you can work out whether large sizes are really better value - the big 4 supermarkets sometimes price the small packets cheaper per KG than multipacks - any online supermarket can work this out for you

2. Obvious i know - but dont shop when hungry or with PMS if that means junk and sweet stuff is more tempting - learnt this one the hard way

3. Think about what you can store - if you cant store it you cant buy it

4. Meal plan with the purchases in mind - if you cant use it or end up throwing some away then it may not be the saving it seems.

5. Been said before - take a calculator and add up as you go along to avoid shocks at the checkout.

Good luck bargain hunting

Trin

Cashwitch

Hi all
We've (me and OH) have been economising on shopping now for a couple of months...we've manged to get the grocery shopping bill down to £40 per week :j which considering our previous spend (double that:eek:) is fab!

We're now wanting to explore the world of bulk buying but not sure where to start...with the £40 budget I'm not sure whether to just go for it from this week or start with 1 type of item at a time to begin a 'switch over' (eg toilet paper, rice...)

We can get an account with Bookers and going to make our very first visit...

Sorry if this thread sounds a bit daft but aside from buying the biggest possible quantity from the usual supermarket occasionally (and sometimes over-estimating, which has put us off) we've never done bulk buying...Thanks in advance!;)