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 Why
not go shopping just once a year? There are so many benefits to reducing the number of times
you visit a store for sundries, paper products, and toiletries. Every trip
eliminated saves time, hassle, decision-making, and money. Why not make a
yearly trip to the store and purchase all the items you will need for a whole
year? It is easy and ever so simple.
How
do you begin? Take a lined sheet of paper (or use the inventory form found
in Chapter 14, "Home Storage", of the "House
of Order" Handbook) and do an inventory of your cupboards.
Prepare the sheet of paper with a large left hand column and nine smaller
columns on the right hand side (as seen in the example below). Walk from
the kitchen, to the laundry room, to the bathrooms, and on around the rest of
your home. Down the left hand side of the paper list every item which you
regularly use and which could be bought for a year's worth of time.
For
instance, you can buy cleanser, toilet paper, kleenex, over-the-counter
medications, cold remedies, ziploc bags, and many others items just once a
year. It helpful to note the size of each item for this is the beginnings
of comparison shopping which will allow you to save even more money.
Skipping a column, note how many of each item you have on hand in the fourth
column.
Next, list the number of items which you think you will
need for a year's time in the third column. Subtract column "Number
Needed" from column "Number on Hand" to figure column
"Number to Buy". The first time you do this, it will be a
guessing game at best, but with practice you will get very good at knowing how
much of an item you use in a year's time.
Estimate how much each item will cost. Again, with
practice and use of the Best Price Box, you
know for sure what a good price is, but for now a reasonable estimate will
do. Take column "Number to Buy" and multiple it by column
"Proposed Cost Each" to figure "Proposed Cost Total".
Now you are ready to go shopping.
The first time you do this "once a year"
shopping you will find it best to cherry pick. This practice saves you the
most money in the shortest shopping time possible. List the items you are
interested in purchasing, along with their size on another lined sheet of paper
or use the "cherry picking" form in Chapter 14, "Home
Storage", of the "House
of Order" Handbook. Delegating your stewardships to someone
else, go alone, without your purse or wallet, to three of your favorite
stores. At the first store, price each item which you are interested in
buying and record that price on your "cherry picking" sheet (see
example below). Go the second store and do the same, and then the third
store. Usually by this time, you will need to return to your other
stewardships. Go home, circle the prices which are best at each of the
three stores and plan another shopping trip tomorrow. Go to the first
store and buy the items, in the quantities you need, which are cheapest at that
store. Do the same with the second store and the third. You have now
visited three stores, purchased items at each at the cheapest price and are
ready to return home and put them away.
Each and every item which has been purchased should be
dated. This can be done with a permanent marking pen or with a date
stamp and stamp pad. This allows you to rotate your items when you
make next year's purchases.
Don't worry about storage space before you shop.
Just go, buy, and when you get home, you will be amazed how easy it is to fit
some of the items in that cupboard and some under that bed and others on that
shelf. When you are all done, you will find you have time, lots of time
which can be spent doing other things besides buying shampoo again,
toilet paper again, and cleanser again.
Find more helpful ideas in
the "House
of Order" Handbook, Chapter 14, "Home Storage".
Also see:
Best Price Box and Food
Storage.
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