Our family has been on the road to debt freedom for a very long time. In fact, it has been so long that I can no longer remember when it all started. But looking back over the years, I thought it could be helpful to share a list of the things that helped our family save the most money. These are ways that we continue to use to save money on a daily basis and are listed in no particular order.
1 – Berkey Water Filtration System
Purchasing this system required us to save a little each month until we could afford the model that we believed would work the best for our family. Although it cost us approximately $550, it has more than paid for itself over the years.
This month I headed over to Meijer to see what I could find to stock up on for our family.
October $20 stock up haul from Meijer
I would like to first mention that I have randomly chosen stores and did not seek out items on sale to purchase. Instead, I looked for foods that my family eats on a regular basis and, if it happened to be on sale, it was a bonus. I also did not use coupons on any items that I purchased. The reason I have chosen to do these monthly stock-ups this way is because I wanted to see what people could purchase without doing any planning. Life is busy, people are stressed, and having to worry about stocking up on food does not need to be another stressor. So, when I was out running errands and I (1) happened to have $20.00 in my purse and (2) I was near a grocery store and had time to run in, then I did a monthly stock-up. If you haven’t already, please check out our August and September stock up posts.
I was happy to see that Meijer was having a 10 for $10 sale, with the 11th item free on a lot of canned goods.
October’s score included the following:
2 disinfecting wipes $3.99 each – total $7.98
2 garbanzo beans $1.00 each – total $2.00
1 northern beans $1.00 each – total $1.00
6 black beans $1.00 each – total $10.00
3 peach slices $1.00 each – total $3.00
All canned goods that I purchased were part of the 10 for 10 sale, 11th one free, so I also received one of the canned goods free.
Tax was $0.56
Total for all 14 items was $19.54
Two more months left to in the $20 pantry stock-up challenge and we would love to have you join us.
Have you been able to fortify your pantry? Please take a moment to let us know what you’ve found in the comment section.
A re-cap on what we are doing……each month we will be visiting a different store and spending approximately $20 to help restock our deep pantry. These are items that are not kept with our regular pantry foods and are used in case we run out of something and are unable to get to the store.
In the last blog post, we discussed the reasons you should have a pantry. I think we made a rather compelling argument for the importance of having a “deep pantry” (food that is set back in case of an emergency), so in this post we will discuss the 11 ways to go about setting up a deep pantry for your household.
I started writing this blog post way before covid19 became a household word. Why did I start writing it? Because this is a subject near and dear to my heart. I truly believe that having what we call a “deep pantry” is one of the things that helped us win with money. Just like having an emergency fund set aside in case of a true need, a pantry helps provide stability and peace of mind in case of an emergency.
First, let me start out by listing the top 10 reasons we believe that having a pantry is so darn important.
We all want to save money. We are working hard at our jobs and taking care of our families, and most of us are stressed out with a whole lot of stuff on our plate. Many of us, especially those of us who read (and write) blogs like this one have turned to budgets to help us reign in spending and give our money a purpose. While most line items have little room for negotiation, we often have some flexibility in our grocery budget.
If you are reading this post, you are probably already doing lots of things to save money on your groceries: coupons, sales, bulk when able, and shopping multiple stores. We do all of that, but one easy thing to do that saves a lot of money is simply not letting what you buy go to waste.
