Are bulk-buying and offers just a false economy?

[LovingTheseAutumnSnippets]

I am just taking a break from spring cleaning my kitchen. One of the reasons I am doing this is to take stock of what I have.

I've run down my cupboards of food and just started on the herb/oils/tea & coffee cupboard of which there are 2.

For some reason I have 4 bottle of Rapeseed oil, 4 bottles of Olive Oil, Olive oil with garlic and 5 bottles of coconut oil. 50% of them are half empty. Then there are quite a few boxes of tea bags I forgot I had.

I'm pretty sure that I bought these either because they were on offer or because I felt under pressure to have them incase WW3 happened.

So, it got me thinking. If I was running a shop, I'd probably go out of business because my stock control is bad. Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden would hand me my arse on a plate. It's money in the cupboard, not working effectively for me. It is not worth anything until I use it, or bin it as the date has gone.

How do you effectively stock control your kitchen so you don't run out, but then aren't wasting money? Any tips?

Also, is bulk buying just a false economy? Are we better off and waiting till we need it, even if it costs 20p more?

It depends on a lot of factors. I was just thinking about bulk buying cat food today, but I decided against it because the savings is minimal (only a few pennies less per unit), and I guarantee as soon as a buy a box of 90 pouches the cats will suddenly hate that brand.

Our last house had much bigger storage for dry / bulky stuff so we used to stock up in Costco. I only ever had one of anything open at a time though and kept the rest in the basement.

then we moved house and buy 150 bog rolls at a time isn't practical. Buying in bulk isn't necessarily cheaper. I always look at the price per KG / litre etc. I never found costco cheaper, but convenient.

Depends on the bulk buy!
The secret is NOT to get sucked into buying more than you can use, or something you won't use. Then it's not a bargain..
Supermarkets tend to run the same offers on a cyclical basis eg PG Tips box of 240 currently £3.50 in Waitrose. We use them a LOT as DH drinks masses of tea when wfh, and PG is his favourite. Typically we use of 1 box per month, and the offer comes up every 3-4 months. So when it does I buy 3-4 boxes depending what I have left. Their sell by date is typically well over a year. Those I have in stock I rotate.
I'm not paying £5.99 regular price!
Things I typically ONLY buy on offer:
Instant Coffee
Dog food
Soup
All things with lengthy sell by date
I might also buy fresh food on offer that I can freeze or cook and freeze.

I have one under counter cupboard as a store cupboard with unopened long life food.
I stock it up when things are on offer, that way when I run out of something, I know I can just take a new one from the cupboard.

I only buy things that will last, and that I know we will use - for us things like tinned tomatoes, tinned fruit, tuna and beans, rice, pasta, cooking oil, peanut butter, jam, marmalade, pickles etc.

I don’t think it saves us masses of money, but it helps a bit.
I give it a tidy and check dates periodically, it works well for us having the unopened food separated.

240 PG boxes cost £3.99 in tesco as standard price incase you need any when there isn't an offer on at some point. £5.99 is ridiculous!

I rotate things in the cupboard, so new stuff goes behind.

Normally yes, bulk buying can save you money.

Right now with prices rising weekly? Oh god yes it will save you money. That money "sitting in cupboards" is probably accumulating more interest than you'd get in most banks. If a tin of beans was 20p a few weeks ago and 38p today then show me a bank with that rate of return.

The trickbis - as you've learned - storage space abs stock control and buying stuff you'll actually use.

I only ever buy DHs expensive coffee on offer. It's about half price every 3 months so I stock up then. We just make sure any left from the last round is at the front to use first. Ditto sensodyne toothpaste and Simple moisturiser. But I would only buy in bulk if its a substantial saving, will keep and no more than we would use in 2-3 months.

I put new things behind things bought previously. Things we use a lot of I keep three or four spares, other stuff one or two. I rationalised my system as I bought things I liked the look of but took ages to use, so I only buy what we like now.

I use Sainsburys for the weekly delivery but there are some things that are a lot cheaper at Aldi/Lidl like kidney/cannellini/black beans. I use things like this a lot in salads and chillis and the price is 47p a can compared to Sainsburys 60p. I also stock up on tomato puree, olives, roasted peppers in jars which again are cheaper and I am fortunate to have the space to store them. We do this type of shop about every three months. As previous poster mentioned needing to be sure these are things you actually use (looking at myself with the two bags of whole roasted chestnuts that I thought were a great idea !)

Funnily enough I did a spring clean/stock take of the fridge and kitchen cupboards yesterday and was shocked about how much out of date food I had to throw out because my cupboards or fridge had been too full for me to see exactly what I had. I'm ashamed to admit I had to throw out a bin bag worth of food which is just awful. So I've vowed not to buy more than I need or can easily see because it's clearly not a saving if it then gets thrown away.

I've organised the fridge so that each shelf is a category e.g. drinks on one shelf, one shelf for dairy, one for meat, one for fruit and veg so I can easily see what I have. Similarly for the cupboards I've organised so tins are on one shelf, dried pasta/rice/grains etc on another. Hopefully I can keep the system up because it's much easier to keep stock.

Bulk buying is great if you get a discount and don't buy more than you will use before it's expiry date.

But why have you got multiple bottles of the same product open at once?! Work out what you typically use in 6 months and go from there.

Organise storage so that you only have one of each thing available / in use and the rest of it is in a different cupboard that you use for replenishment only.

<goes to organise cereal cupboard as realises there are multiple boxes of open cereal in it>

I only bulk buy for things that are in more or less constant use.

It depends.

I bulk buy tinned tomatoes, granulated coffee, baked beans, kidney beans, wholemeal pasta, lentils and cooking oil because it doesn't go stale and because I use plenty of all of them.

Frozen stuff, I limit to one freezer full. Ingredients like flour and sugar attract insects if not properly stored so I don't keep too much of either.

do not stock pile things you don't like just because cheap, ie tinned potatoes
or that don't keep you must rotate stock,
the time to stock take is before you go shopping so you see that you have 4 carrots a cauliflower, 3 apples to use up quickly and 4 rashers of bacon and 9 eggs within the next week, plan meals to use up what you have before starting on next stuff
The most thrown away foods are milk bread bagged salad and bananas

Buying on offer saves loads of money, but you need to be aware of what you have so you don't over buy and don't open a new pack until the old one is used up.

But it sounds like you need to organise your oil cupboard so you can see what you have and work through it before you buy any more.

Don't worry about it being out of date. Unless it tastes stale, which it probably won't unless it's years old, it will be fine.

Considering how much oil has gone up, you've probably saved yourself a fortune if you're able to use up what you already have.

It is well known that coffee etc do a "price drop" every now and then, rotating round the different supermarkets. Is there a website that tracks this so I know when the next "price drop" is due in my supermarket?

If you've thrown away an entire bin bag you've probably thrown out tons of food that was still perfectly good to use. Precisely why some campaigners are advocating to have " best before" labels (as opposed to "use by" labels for genuinely perishable food) abolished entirely. Personally I'd like a packing date on them, much more useful for items like dried beans.

I don't have much storage in my current kitchen and usually batch cook and freeze. I live alone so bread, bacon, sausages etc go in the freezer in portions. I have a sideboard in which I keep tins, pulses, pasta etc. I do bulk buy cleaning products in 5L containers but they don't go off.

I can't abide food waste and feel terribly guilty if I throw anything away. Looking forward to having a compost bin again in my new house as at present my food waste goes in the bin (no kerbside collection here). Have also been thinking about a wormery.

Bulk buying saves a LOT if you are organised.

Buy only what you know you will use, before it expires, and store by expiry date, so the oldest gets used first. Always check the expiry date before buying. No point in buying 6 of something you rarely need if they all have to be used in the next 2 months.

Don't open a new item until the old one is entirely finished (and washed up and recycled). Obvious, but apparently you did! Partners and children will sabotage this at every turn.

I keep the bulk buys separately from the food in use. I only have 1 cupboard/a couple of shelves of food in use, 1 of each item. The duplicates are stored elsewhere.

It helps to have worked in a village/corner shop, so stocking shelves and rotating dates with newest first is second nature. Encourage suitable weekend jobs for any teenagers :)

It also helps if you're naturally inclined this way, so you can sustain the organisation. My preference is to stock a pantry once every six months then grow/buy fresh food as needed. The weekly supermarket food shop feels very unnatural to me, even though it is what I currently do. So I enjoy my very minimal pantry-store-box.

If you know you're not organised, or your family won't co-operate, and you keep wasting the extras, then you're right that it might be a false economy for you. But try first. Start small. Build up just one extra of everything, buying only when on offer, and store it separately. If you can master that, then you start buying multiples, which is when the savings really kick in.

*newest at the back

I chop chestnuts up and add them to dried stuffing mix, the stuffing tastes so much nicer with that addition. Can also add to stews and casseroles, perfect timing with autumn weather really!

A year ago I bought 128 Regina Blitz kitchen rolls - they are now 30% dearer in bulk so the best investment I made last year. I should have bought double the amount.

I bull buy if I know for sure I’m going to use that product repeatedly, and if there is an offer on like two for £3 or something. Things like sugar, fairy liquid, eggs etc.

bulk