It seems that life has been very busy lately. Since starting school back up it seems my tasks to be completed in each day are multiplied. I usually have to limit how much time I spend away from the home each week running errands. If I don’t, then I am stressed trying to get all the school and household work that has to be completed each day.
I have my schedule set up so that I have time to run errands at least once per week. Lately, we have been having to be gone a few times per week due to doctor appointments or different tasks that needed to be accomplished away from the home. Well whatever the reason, I have found that I am away from home more than I would like to be. I needed to change some things.
Each month, I usually designate once a month to go do our household paper shopping. I buy things like soap, diapers, cleaning items, etc. All of our non food products I get this day. I have a list on my marker board where I write down things that come up that are needed for the month and I would get them on this day.
I also take a day to do our monthly big shopping trip. We usually attack a few stores and get all of our major food shopping for the month done. This way I am left only to have to pick up milk and fresh produce usually every week and a half.
The problem with my old schedule for shopping is that it takes an entire day each month that I have to designate to shopping for paper goods for our household. If I could just eliminate that trip it would free that time up to go do other things of interest to our family. It might not seem like much to most people, but when you aim to just leave your home once a week and on that day you have to go do shopping…..that is usually not what you want to be doing. I had to change what I did.
I sat down and wrote down all the paper/household goods that we would need each month in our home. I then figured out how much I would use for 3 month’s worth of usage.
Since this is the first time doing this and I could be completely wrong with how much we use of an item, I put a column on my page for what we used and need. That way when I go do this shopping, in 3 month’s time I will see if my figures were accurate.
Since my pantry is not full of packaged foods anymore, I was able to free up some space. I took my top shelf and designated that to household items.
I decided to keep the items down in the basement verses up where they could readily be used. I have found that if there are new tubes of toothpaste or new shampoo bottles, sometimes that last little bit in the container gets overlooked and thrown away. This way they have to use every last bit before grabbing another product.
I used a small basket for items that would normally get lost on the pantry shelves.
I usually spend about $200 a month getting these types of products. Since figuring out my 3 months supply I spent about $400 on these products. I am anxious to see if I will actually save by buying more of the items at one time verses when I need them.
Having this new way of shopping will hopefully save me some money—I will give an update in the end of my 3 months time. It also has allowed me to skip out on having to do this for the next 3 month thus allowing us more time to do fun things.
Plus, we have been watching Doomsday Preppers—love this show, even though I truly believe that they all need to make Jesus their Lord and Savior. It makes me feel good that we have stocked up on some basic necessities in the event that we have some sort of calamity that does not allow us to go to the grocery store. It never hurts to be prepared and have a plan.
