Flashback to my mother buying entire brown cardboard shipping boxes of cereal out of the back storeroom of the grocery store and storing it in her basement pantry ๐โค๏ธ
For those of you who have the luxury of buying in bulk, what do you buy in bulk when it's cheap? Do you do it because it's always going up in price, because it's seasonally expensive, or because it's a staple item that you always need. To what extreme do you go with your bulk purchase?
Examples from my own life,
- toothpaste and mouthwash, buy when cheap store extra tubes, usually no more than 5-10
- cleaning supplies, chemicals and towels. Enough to keep a backups closet stocked.
- pasta, probably have enough for a couple of months
- coffee, ten to fifteen bags
- shoes, buy multiples if I find ones I like
- consumable hobby items like bike intertubes
The basic idea is to identify the items I will almost certainly decide to buy then snag them up when they're at their cheapest to achieve long term frugality.
Anything we regularly use if I can afford it. We save loads by just going to cheap shops, sales and thrifts. Wife found the Arm & Hammer toothpaste I like, typically kinda high-priced, for $.50 a box at a garage sale. At another garage sale she found a dozen bottles of hand soap for $.50ea. and got them cheaper than that buying them all. Still using those! One time I got a 8-month supply of shampoo for $3 from a garage sale.
I buy shoes at the thrift if they're nice and a good fit, no matter how many I have ATM. OK, for awhile I quit, but I wore out several at once and I'm back to checking every time we're in the store.