Irrational fear of empty cupboards

Ches

In an effort to be more organised I have made a list of favourite meals (turned out to be about 28) I then made a list of all the ingredients I need to make these meals plus the usual bread/eggs/cheese/butter etc. This list is broken down into store cupboard, freezer etc for clarity when making shopping lists. I have now bought everything on the list (stuff like peppers/veg etc I have frozen as well as the fresh for the current weeks meals). As I now have enough to make mail meals for nearly a month I don't need to stock anything else on a regular basis. (I shop weekly to top up) Its surprising how little cupboard room this lot has actually taken up proving surely that stock piling any more than this was tying up money that can be better used elsewhere. BTW the rest of the original stock cupboard contents are in a seperate cupboard to be used up when all the GC turn up unexpectedly (which they do often) and want to raid the cupboards.

pigpen

rosieben wrote: »

This is so true, I've never ever used a credit card to pay for food, just cash or a debit card. It can never make sense to buy food on credit!

Ah.. well shopping online with mr t's I have no choice the ONLY card it will take is my sony credit card.. so I pay with my credit card then immediately pay my credit card with the equal amount from my bank account.. with my debit card that mr t doesn't like.. I don't know why everywhere else takes it no problem!!

This ensures the food does not add to the credit card debt in the first place and also I can have my shopping delivered and I also am not tempted byt he millions of BOGOF's instore.. I do confess to once having no less than 38 bottles of fabric conditioner ebcause comfort, lenor and fairy were on offer.. and all too goo dto miss.. so I 'stocked up' and I once had 38 tubes of colgate total because it was on offer.. I've just about used all of them both now though and will soon have to buy more!!

I buy 21 tins of beans and 15 tins of spaghetti each month!!!, but I do use 3 at a time!!

I don't stock pile food.. though I occasionally buy things and wonde why because I cannot think of anything to cook with them.. lentils for example.. what onearth do you do with lentils?? other than make pretty pictures with glue and paper plates???

rosieben

pigpen wrote: »

Ah.. well shopping online with mr t's I have no choice the ONLY card it will take is my sony credit card.. so I pay with my credit card then immediately pay my credit card with the equal amount from my bank account.. with my debit card that mr t doesn't like.. I don't know why everywhere else takes it no problem!! ...

yes sorry, didnt phrase that very well did I? I know that its often necessary to use cc for online purchases, but I was thinking of people who dont pay up the cc bills each month, thats when it gets costly. My dd has problems with a debit card too, cant use it some places online so she does the same as you, uses the cc and then transfers the cash over with online banking. bit of a pain isnt it?

recovering_spendaholic

Thanks to this post I decided that the family Birthday tea which I was giving for DD2's 10th birthday today should be made only from stuff from my freezer and cupboards and fridge. I had been planning to go the Supermarket and get all the stuff this morning and expected to spend about £50 - £60, but instead I went through the freezer and cupboards last night and produced this lot:

Huge bowl of pasta salad
Huge bowl of curried rice salad
Green salad
coleslaw
Cold Roast Pork cooked with sage
Cold Roast chicken mini fillets done with butter and paprika and other spices
chipolata sausages
hm bacon and mushroom quiche
hm ham and pineapple pizza
pork ribs with hm barbecue sauce
tinned red salmon and cucumber sandwiches
sliced frikadella and coleslaw sandwiches
chocolate fudge cake
ice cream
lemon drizzle cake

There was lots of food left over and one of my sisters took home the leftover pasta and rice salads and the butties and the other one took the cake (I'm doing Frogga's weight loss challenge and didn't want to be tempted). I have now decided that I am going to see how long I can go without doing a supermarket shop as my freezer and cupboards are still bulging even after producing all that lot! I am only going to buy milk, bread, fresh fruit and veg and toilet rolls. I will also document how much I save as I currently spend about £85+ a week on supermarket shops:eek:

beetrootjuicer

lynzpower wrote: »

but its not really moneysaving to buy things you dont need tho is it?

The money would be earning for you in the bank - or not costing you money on your credit cards. Many many people on this site buy food they dont need on tiher credit cards, Ive seen it time and again.

It makes no sense to me to feel secure in having food in the cupbaords & overflowing freezers, yet making yourself more FINANCIALLY insecure by going into debt to do it :eek:

I agree with Lynzpower that going into debt to stockpile food is just plain daft but I see my BOGOFs as an investment. If I get 2 items for say, £1, instead of paying a pound each for them, I consider I've made myself £1. It's like getting 100% interest! :T and I don't know of any bank that offers that! BUT the only way you win with BOGOFs is to only buy if you'd have bought the product anyway otherwise you're just falling for the supermarkets selling tactics. By the way, anyone else noticed how BOGOFs are usually the highly processed foods - things I don't buy anyway? And you almost never see anything organic on BOGOF. Suppose the offers are on whatever has the highest profit margin for the supermarkets.

lynzpower

By the way, anyone else noticed how BOGOFs are usually the highly processed foods - things I don't buy anyway? And you almost never see anything organic on BOGOF. Suppose the offers are on whatever has the highest profit margin for the supermarkets.

SO true!! Morrissons is the worst culprit for this the only bogofs they ever seem to have is jarred sauces, HUGE multibags of crisps, frozen *meals* and synthetic fizzy drinks.

I agree with the likes of soap powder, loo roll etc, a bargains a bargain. Cheese is another thing on bogof I buy- tescos usually have one of them on and it saves ok so we will.

But Id never buyt 10 lots of bogof cheese- the money earns for me in the bank, Id rather that than earn for Mr T or similar.

beetrootjuicer

lynzpower wrote: »

SO true!! Morrissons is the worst culprit for this the only bogofs they ever seem to have is jarred sauces, HUGE multibags of crisps, frozen *meals* and synthetic fizzy drinks.

I agree with the likes of soap powder, loo roll etc, a bargains a bargain. Cheese is another thing on bogof I buy- tescos usually have one of them on and it saves ok so we will.

But Id never buyt 10 lots of bogof cheese- the money earns for me in the bank, Id rather that than earn for Mr T or similar.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's Morrison's running the current press ad - a trolley full at Tesco's for £xx amount but 2 trolleys at Morrison's for the same amount. It looks good til you actually read what's on offer and most of it's highly processed. Wouldn't it be nice if they encouraged us all to eat better with those sort of offers on unprocessed and fresh produce? I'm not knocking processed here, I just don't think we need encouraging to eat more junk!

Lynzpower - got to confess, yes, have bought huge quantities of BOGOF cheese in the past, some for immediate consumption and then frozen the rest and used as cooking cheese. And big stock of loo rolls, soap powder - well, goes without saying!

Apologies to Vij - thread's veering a bit off course. Let us know how you're getting on with the store cupboard.

beetrootjuicer

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

I went through the freezer and cupboards last night and produced this lot:

Huge bowl of pasta salad
Huge bowl of curried rice salad
Green salad
coleslaw
Cold Roast Pork cooked with sage
Cold Roast chicken mini fillets done with butter and paprika and other spices
chipolata sausages
hm bacon and mushroom quiche
hm ham and pineapple pizza
pork ribs with hm barbecue sauce
tinned red salmon and cucumber sandwiches
sliced frikadella and coleslaw sandwiches
chocolate fudge cake
ice cream
lemon drizzle cake

Wow!!! That IS impressive. Well done!:A

newlywed

I was like this and spending a fortune on food - stocking up so there was always 10 tins of chopped tomatoes etc in the cupboards.

Then with meal planning I forced myself to only buy what I needed for the week (and didn't already have). Every time I panicked about the cupboard I'd read my meal plan and realise I had all the food we needed for the week (Lidl is 10 min walk away and we live in the south so being snowed in is highly unlikely).

I was surprised at how little in the cupboard actually created a whole week's meals.

Now however, I try to meal plan for the month, buy most things in the first week of the month (straight after payday) so that the freezer and cupboards are full and I only need to worry about milk, bread, fruit and veg. That way if the money runs out we can still eat and don't need to worry.

The first week after payday when the cupboards are full, I do feel a sense of satisfaction and it is a good feeling. But by the end of the month I do panic when there are no beans, no tuna, no tinned tomatoes etc even if I know it's only till payday.

gollygosh

I'm a collector of bogof's as well currently have 18 litres of sterilised long life milk and 16 yes 16 shower gels in the house!!! i blame my mother it's how she taught me to do it. doesn't matter how often things fall out of over crammed cupboards at me, i can't stop buying more.