Extreme Couponing – Do you have a Healthy Stockpile?

A very large portion of society buys their food different then a couponer does. How and why is that. Well how is very easy to describe. With sales many deals are usually lower priced with more items purchased. That and with the desire to get even more for less is a hard notion to avoid.

But the thought of why a couponer does their shopping differently is slightly a different thought process. Just in French class this week we talked about the different buying habits of societies. The “old school” of grocery shopping is to go down to your local bakery or butcher or grocery shop and purchase the items needed for eating that day. The way this began was that there was no refrigeration process available. This daily shopping habit also became a social habit. The shopping became more of a way to hang out and talk with friends as you shopped. In the United States, since our country is so “new” compared to the rest of the world, we never developed deep social patterns. Grocery shopping or heading down to the bakery isn’t a social event in many cases. We seem to be more pressed for time. And either it is an economic reason or simply did not have the room, many families today only buy the food needed for a day or two.

With couponers we tend to develop a “stockpile”. Now with shows like Extreme Couponing on TLC, that term “stockpile” becomes more of a negative term, with these piles of food to the ceiling, and bottles of soap to last 1,000 years. But a true and “healthy” stockpile is just the opposite. A healthy couponer tries to build a healthy stockpile. A healthy stockpile is a supply of food that can be rotated through. An ideal stockpile  is one that can support that individual family for a year. Why a year? Well in real life terms this is to protect the family in case of an emergency. Now that can be both an economic emergency or an environmental emergency.

Not to be presented as a scare tactic, but if something where to happen like the disaster in Japan, what would your family be able to live off of? The grocery stores in the region were long since empty and now what. Even here in the states, when a major “threat” of a storm comes in there is the mad rush to the grocery store. What if that were to happen and a major storm did come through that shut down the town for days or weeks. Would you have enough to live on, knowing there was nothing left in the stores?

When Matthew was born, and we basically lived in hospitals out of state and we relied on our stockpile. Long before we started this coupon site A Thrifty Mom.com , we were able to live on our stockpile for many months. Sarah would live in the hospital and I would fly to visit her and Matthew on the weekends. How could we afford this? Well, about a year prior to his birth, we were in debt about $11,000. We scrimped and saved and paid off our debt. Sarah also wanted to get our mortgage paid off 6 months in advance. So we continued to eat ramen noodles and potatoes and paid off our mortgage and bills 6 months in advance. We also strengthened our food storage or “stockpile”. So once he was born and the worry moved from bills to support Matthew and his stay in hospitals, we didn’t have to worry about anything else. We didn’t have to worry about our mortgage and the money I would of spent on the house, I spent on plane tickets. When we were home, we didn’t have to go out shopping. We stayed home and lived off our food storage. Later in our marriage when I was laid off and I started school, we didn’t have an income while I was in school. So how did we eat….Our Stockpile.

Think to your self – do you have enough in your pantry to live on if stores were closed or you couldn’t afford it? Follow A Thrifty Mom.com and we will show you proper and healthy ways to protect your family both in your finances and living thrifty.  One can of food at a time, you will be on your way – to a healthy food storage.

To see how we use our stockpile or food storage, in our daily menu plan click here.