I would bet that all of us has been caught in that “good deal” trap. I know that I have when it came to food. But then I realized that I had to hustle to use up food by expiration dates. I look at good deals on food a little differently now.
When I make my list I always check my inventory to see how much of an item I have. If I am buying something we need, I make sure to buy no more than we can use. For example, I bought 6 bags of fresh salads recently. They were a good deal on B1G1F. I knew that we could easily eat those salads in the next week to 10 days. I also made sure that the expiration dates were good during that period.
I do the same with every food item now. Anything fresh has to be used up quickly so I buy no more than what we can eat during that period.
I check my meat chart to see how long things will last in the freezer. I am trying to get down to just three months worth of meat and we are really working at doing that. Most sales run on a 3 month cycle so that will work great for us.
How many baked items like bread( I am thinking of the clearance bread rack at Walmart.) have you purchased and then they ended up in the garbage because they got moldy? Only buy what you can really use up. I only buy bread for Hubby now. So I buy one loaf at a time and freeze most of it. I just take out a few slices at a time.
The same applies to clothing. We only really need a week or 10 days of clothing. I can wash our clothes during that period. How many of us bought clothes on clearance because you just couldn’t pass up that deal? In my old wardrobe that I donated, I had way too many clothes.
Shoes are another issue. How many of you have 20+ pairs of shoes? I only have 10 plus a pair of boots. However that is way too many! The reason why is that I really only wear 2 pair all of the time. Sure I have some dress shoes for when I dress up. But what happened to me is that when I lost weight, my feet also shrunk. I now have a pair of loafers that have never been worn. Fortunately, my DIL wears that size so I will see if she can wear them.
Oh and while we are at it, let’s think about all of the clutter that is around our homes. How many pieces of decor did you buy because it was on clearance? It was such a great price that you just couldn’t pass it up. Now it is a a pain to move every time you have to dust and you really don’t like it anymore anyhow. How many of us read a fiction book and then leave it on a bookshelf to collect dust? Unless it is a signed copy that may be worth something some day, pass it along to someone else to read or to your public library. There is nothing worse to dust than full bookshelves.
The same goes for 40 bottles of shampoo and 10 of cleaning wipes. Do you really need that much? There is always a sale. So bring your inventories down to manageable quantities that won’t get wasted. Why let your money languish on a shelf. Put your money to work for you by letting it make more money. Don’t let it just sit in the form of products that you won’t use for the next 3 years.
So the next time you purchase something that is a cheap deal, ask yourself if you really need it. Will it enhance your life or just sit around your home? Do this with every purchase and you just may realize you don’t need a tenth of those great deals that you now think you need. As a bonus, you may end up with more savings.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend with your families.