Too Supportive of Stockpiling?

[LadyDove]

Last night my DH mentioned rearranging the budget to allocate $100 a month to starting and maintaining a stockpile. I guess I am feeling overwhelmed. To me I feel like the money could be used in other places, or to help out my mom which is the reason I wanted to super coupon in the first place. (full story in my intro)

Am I wrong for feeling like this is too much? Or could it just be that I am over reacting because I'm still taking small baby steps. How should I approach him to work it out.

I don't want to say something to him that will make him feel like his support of this endevor is wasted, but I don't want to loose my mind trying to run before I can walk.

[joemarcie]

Just try it and see how it goes. Once you get into it you'd be surprised how many deals you can find if you have the extra room in your budget. The worst thing that could happen is that you don't spend all of the $100 in a month - and then you can just save it! Good luck!!

[ekoury]

I would say this

Sure, honey, that's nice. However, some months do not have a lot of hot deals and we might have some money left over. How would you like to handle that? Can we save those in case in a few months we have a month with some great deals and I need some extra? And if I do not, we can allocate that money to .......

Believe me, such suport is rare and needs to be handled with extra care.

[mum2hba]

I get my bi-weekly budget in cash. If I don't spend it I tuck it away into my savings. I spent about a year tucking away my extra cash and paid for most of a trip to Disney for my family.

[shelleyf]

Originally Posted by mum2hba I get my bi-weekly budget in cash. If I don't spend it I tuck it away into my savings. I spent about a year tucking away my extra cash and paid for most of a trip to Disney for my family.

Wow that's awesome. We would love to go to Disney.
To OP that is great your husband is allowing you to do this. I would save the money that you don't need for the months when the really hot deals come. I don't know where you live but in TN the tax is very high when I use coupons. It is worth it though because it is still cheaper. You will learn to love couponing and finding the free deals too. I am proud of you for wanting to help your Mother. You are a great daughter and I am sure she is proud of you.

[meems]

Yep..What she said..

Originally Posted by ekoury I would say this Sure, honey, that's nice. However, some months do not have a lot of hot deals and we might have some money left over. How would you like to handle that? Can we save those in case in a few months we have a month with some great deals and I need some extra? And if I do not, we can allocate that money to ....... Believe me, such suport is rare and needs to be handled with extra care.

[LadyDove]

Thank you Ladies for all the wonderful advice. I talked to DH about it a little more and was able to clearly express my concern at the large amount and my fear that he would be dissapointed when our savings were not immediately visible.

DH told me that he was thinking that the money would be used not only for our stockpile but to get things for my mom and the family in SD who are struggling, as well as to cover shipping those boxes up there, and to cover the cost of the papers/stamps PP trades, ebay etc.

I feel much better now! I'm just trying not to bite off more than I can chew. We also talked about setting small goals for each item on our stock pile list. ie: 2 months of TP for us to start, and I'll add to it as time/sales permit, but our minimum level will be 2 months. Things like that. I'm very glad now to have concrete goals, and limits. Now I just can't wait to be getting those awesome deals!

[queenofthehivemomof5]

I think it is a fabulous idea to dedicate a certain portion of your grocery budget to stockpiling. Actually it is one of the steps that many people do not do and why they end up failing at couponing because they don't realize that sales come in cycles, and that it takes a while to build that stockpile up. If you dedicate a little bit of money each month for about 6-months to a year and work on getting the best deals on what you can and getting lots of it. You will then be able to start seeing some real savings after your stockpile is built up. As you are building your stockpile you will still need to buy your regular groceries until you have a good variety of items that you can plan meals off of.

Of course there will be weeks and months that you do not spend your budget and in those cases you can save that money and put it towards other wants and needs. But I really think it is key to set up a grocery budget and a stockpile budget. For my family when I first started this my grocery budget budget was $400 a month (family of 5) and out of that budget I started with $10 a week just for stockpiling. As the months went by and my stockpile grew my grocery budget stayed the same but the stockpile portion of my budget grew a little each month until after a few years of dedicated couponing about 2/3 of of my budget was stockpile budget and about 1/3 was for items like milk, bread and fresh produce and a few things needed for meals. My budget is still $400 a month but I have added a few kids, a few pets and I hardly ever spend anywhere near $400 a month for groceries. In fact last month I spent $150 on groceries, most of that was for the fresh stuff and I did a little stockpile shopping and for Holiday food. Over the years the extra money in my grocery budget has helped us get out of debt, help fund savings, and afforded us to take some vacations this year. Our trip to Yellowstone this summer was funded entirely by the money I saved grocery shopping.