Buying in Bulk

Buying in bulk is something anyone can do- it just takes a few tricks and some space to do so. I'll share some tips I use when buying in bulk.

Check the price. Seems obvious, I know, but hear me out. In our current economic climate, even I am getting weary of buying in bulk because I worry the price will go down. If I find something at a price I haven't seen in a while, I will buy the product. My attitude on this is that even if I do end up inadvertently spending more now on, say, Kleenex, if I find a sale for even cheaper I'll get more then. Meantime I doubt I'll find as good a sale any time soon.

Buy things with long expiration dates. Kleenex does not expire. If I buy something that has a short expiration, I make sure to process it as quickly as possible to preserve it. I recently bough ten pounds of chicken for 49 cents a pound, an awesome deal in my area. As soon as I got home from the store, I divided it into freezer bags and put it in my chest freezer. Now in a few months when all my vegetables are ready for harvesting, I'll be ready to make and can soup.

Plan ahead. Make sure you know ahead of time where you'll put items that you buy in bulk. Before I left for the store I checked to make sure I had room in my freezer for my chicken. I have a designated place for Kleenex (I actually usually buy Puffs), toilet paper, shampoo, et cetra. Make sure you're organized! Also be sure you have all the equipment you'll need to process your bulk purchase. I bought a peck of apples this summer to process into canned apple sauce. I already knew I had the cans, the water bath pot, and so on.

Do the math. This goes back to my first point, but do be sure you are getting an awesome deal. I recently got toilet paper at half it's regular price, so I got a few packages. I know I probably won't find it cheaper any time soon. It's the probably part that kept me from getting more packages.

Tips for beginners. First of all, before you start bulking up, make sure you are well-aware of current prices. How good of a price can you get on toilet paper or chicken? Is that the absolute lowest price? Make sure you know. Secondly, don't bulk up all at once! You'll have no money left, and you'll most likely have to buy all that stuff again all at once because you'll run out of everything all at once. Use coupons whenever you can. My motto is, a dollar is a dollar. If you use a fifty-cents-off coupon on a $20 worth of hot dogs or whatever, you not only saved money on the hot dogs by buying that much all at once, presumably, but you still saved fifty cents on top of that.

Finally, just so we're clear, I'm not talking about walking into some wharehouse club and getting agiant pack of toilet paper just because it's in a giant pack. You're usually better off getting this stuff at your local grocery store in small packages. The trick is to get a large quantity of smaller packages. Say you buy 4 packs of Kleenex for a super good price. If you have four fifty cents-off coupons, you saved yourself two more dollars.

I'll be back in a few days with more money-saving tips! Enjoy your Monday!

Savings

What percentage of your take-home pay are you saving? How does that translate into real dollars? Do you have an emergency fund, no matter how meagre? Sure, the point of an emergency fund is to have living expenses for 3-6 months (I recently read that in this market you should have enough for 8 months!), but for every dollar you put in, you feel that much better about your entire financial picture. I'll be the first to admit, I don't have much of an emergency fund. But I have one. And month by month it's growing.

I do realize most people don't just wake up one morning to find money falling from the sky. I realize saving money is hard when you don't have any to start with. If your expenses are greater than your income, then yeah, you don't have the money to start an emergency fund. If you've pared down as much as you can and you still are barely staying afloat, then you don't have the money.

On the other hand, if your expenses include daily (even weekly) lattes, expensive haircuts, frequent dinners out, etc, then you do have room for an emergency fund. I recently read that an alarming trend is for people who have decent salaries to piss all their money away without saving any of it. A lot of those people are just now starting to save, after we're two years into a recession. If you are among this group, I want you to think long and hard about every single money decision you make. Oh, sure, it's just a five-dollar latte, but wouldn't that five bucks look a lot better a few months from now when you've lost your job and you need to pay the mortgage? If you eschew 20 lattes, you'd have a hundred bucks in your pocket.

Plan Ahead. That's what saving is all about. If you want to take a trip, plan and save for it. Don't put it on your credit card. And don't plan on using your credit card or your HELOC as an emergency fund. Banks are rescinding HELOCs left and right, and now is about the worst time to depend on a credit card. (More on credit cards later.) How much would you need to live for 3 months without your income? Plan for that first. An emergency fund should be your first priority. Can you make improvements to your house to increase equity? Do you need to make certain improvements? A new roof, for example, may be something you will need in the near future. How will you pay for it? Start saving now. What about your childrens' college funds? If you have money in a 529, I bet it took a real beating. But your kids are still going to want to go to college. Notice I didn't mention your 401(k) because I think we talked enough about that already. You need to save. Make voluntary cuts in your spending now so later you won't be forced to.