Taking bulk buying to an extreme! Strange behaviour.

Skint_yet_Again

We lived in a flat when my DS was young and I know you do have to be creative at times with storage solutions.


It sounds like you are probably utilising all the space - places like on top of the wardrobe (we bought a top box so things didn't fall off ) and on top of the kitchen cabinets (we covered boxes with nice wallpaper)


I do only keep 1 or 2 spares though not 5-10 as in OP case !

GreyQueen

If the OP's level of inventory is causing her anxiety, perhaps she could try reducing it slowly so she becomes used to having a bit less around without getting panicky?

Such as having 9 units instead of 10, or 4 instead of 5. If that works out, perhaps she could go further.

I'm not unsympathetic as I'm a bit this way inclined myself, but limited by a very small flat. I know it's pretty irrational as I am five minutes' walk from several small supermarkets, half a mile from several middling supermarkets, a street-market and a farmer's market, plus within 1-2 miles of several superstores.

Sometimes, I run excess inventory quite deliberately as a money-saving arrangement when I see a heavy discount on a non-perishable or long-shelf life item which I would have been buying anyway.

Loo rolls, hmm, I keep 24 stashed as my emergency supply and otherwise only have a 6-pack on the go at a time. It was surprisingly hard to train myself not to rush out and buy more when I get to the penultimate roll of that six-pack.:rotfl:

robotrobo

As years have gone on and Im now into my second marriage




Are you on the way now to collect a few more husbands?, where are you going to store them !.:rotfl:

Pollycat

swingaloo wrote: »

As a young wife many years ago I was continually running out of things, I was so unorganised. I was forever running next door to borrow some coffee if we got visitors, dashing across to the shop as we had no milk etc.

As years have gone on and Im now into my second marriage Ive now got to the other extreme. A couple of years ago I was trying ways to save on my weekly shopping bill and for some reason I decided to bulk buy for a three month period anything which was not fresh and reasoned my only weekly expense then would be fresh meat, veg and milk. Of course my plan was flawed but it did start me on a path to being paranoid about running out of anything.

So now Im sure that what Im doing is not normal! I have to have everything in 5s or 10s depending on the item. My cupboards are looking a bit like a small supermarket.

I HAVE to have 10 jars of coffee in the cupboard, 5 large boxes of tea bags, 5 tubs of Clover in the fridge etc.
Anything I use, salt, pepper, sauce, oxo, gravy mix. The same applies to washing-up liquid (10), fabric conditioner (5), toothpaste (10), soap, even kitchen foil, nothing is allowed to run out.

If I open a jar of coffee I cant rest till Ive replaced it. Im sure its getting to be a bit of an obsession.
Please, someone tell me its not just me does this.

I think it's the possible obsession with numbers that I'd be concerned about.
I do keep a stock of tins, jars, cling film etc to ensure I don't run out but I'm not obsessive about how many.

Do you buy when items are on offer?
Or if you've opened a jar of coffee, do you pay whatever price is asked?
That's not really sensible shopping.

VfM4meplse

robotrobo wrote: »

As years have gone on and Im now into my second marriage




Are you on the way now to collect a few more husbands?, where are you going to store them !.:rotfl:

Under the floorboards?

PasturesNew

I have been thinking about annual purchase of some items I KNOW I'll use.

With the correct storage space, I figured it might be handy to stock up on a few things, but not everything. Off the top of my head I could see that buying annually could be done to get: 10 packs of 18 loo rolls; 12 jars of coffee; 48 cans of beans; 20 bottles of bleach; 50 kitchen rolls; 12 toothpastes; 26 bin liners ....

... then I come to a grinding halt over what I could buy so then it seems too short a list to bother with.

In the main, while I do repeat buy some things, I don't use so much of any one item to require stocking up. Indeed, I like to take my chances, spot something slightly new, see something different and grab it.

Imagine having 10 tins of carrots and then seeing another brand at the same price and having to think "I'd like to try those, but I can't as I already have 10 tins of carrots and have no space to buy 10 of this sort". I tend to like "things" not "brands". I like baked beans - if I saw another brand of "lower sugar/lower salt" baked beans at a comparative price I'd buy them ... if you have huge stocks you're limiting your opportunities of "the fun of the new find".

Gingernutty

It's dysfunctional if it goes out of date or goes off before you use it.

If you're rotating stock and using it, there's plenty of spece for it and it's not creeping out of the kitchen into other parts of the house/shed/garage/under the stairs then it's manageable.

miffedatparkingcharge

If it is in an order and not disrupting other members of the house, then it is your choice. Do you feel comfortable with the situation? I am sure there will be some help to reduce and overcome this if not.

Maybe some ideas to think about ....
How far away is the nearest supermarket?, Can you afford the amount of stocks to sit around? It would be a shame for perishable foodstuffs to deteriorate insitu. eg How long does a tub of Clover last once opened, so how old will the fifth Clover be when it gets opened?

Just a couple of ideas. Good luck.

The quantities of unopened toiletries, households etc that I found when my mum died (5 years ago) were pretty similar. I used many items up, but toothpaste, shampoos etc lasted more than a years worth. I still have 3 bottles of Bio oil boxed.

Let us know if you choose to alter this mindset. (Intrigued).

Pollycat

Gingernutty wrote: »

It's dysfunctional if it goes out of date or goes off before you use it.

If you're rotating stock and using it, there's plenty of spece for it and it's not creeping out of the kitchen into other parts of the house/shed/garage/under the stairs then it's manageable.

I was thinking that about the 5 tubs of Clover.

I like to have a spare Bertolli spread plus the one in use but I keep an eye on the dates. Although I don't rigidly stick to these I wouldn't want 4 unused tubs that are past the date.

splishsplash

I went through a phase of having lots of tins of tomatoes some years back. Tins of tomatoes cost pennies, so even if they doubled in price, we're still talking pennies, so no sensible reason for stockpiling them really. I don't even use tinned tomatoes very often.

I now keep only what I need, plus one back up. I use google sheets for my house and food spreadsheet so whatever I do on my laptop is automatically synced to my phone and vice versa.

My sheets include an inventory list with conditional formatting, so anything running low will trigger a change to red so I can see at a glance that it needs replacing. I update that every week (takes 5 or 10 minutes), then when I go shopping, I know exactly what I have and exactly what I need.

If you're doing this as a security thing, why not just put aside some cash in a jar instead? It would be easier to keep track of everything you have and you're not taking up tonnes of space with dust-gathering hoards of stuff. I keep money in the car (for petrol or emergency chocolate), but it might be no harm to keep some in the house also.

I imagine I would find it mildly stressful having to store 10 of everything. I think I would feel slightly under pressure to use things up also, otherwise, how can you justify buying them all? You might be pleasantly surprised at how relieved you would feel if you could let this go.