Before I was focused on minimalism I use to dedicate a lot of time to finding coupons, matching them with sales add's, scouring the internet and blog sites for deals. I followed at least 5 different local blogs that posted deals where using coupons you could purchase items for little or no money. Sometimes large quantities of items. I would find myself buying items that my family would never use because I could get them cheap. I still have a few citronella candles that I purchased last spring for $0.02 each. The thrill of getting an item cheap or free was awesome!
Eventually our freezer, refrigerator, and cupboards were stuffed with food and couponing items. I talked my husband into buying a smaller used deep freezer and it eventually got packed to the top. We weren't even eating everything I was buying and I was having to throw away lots of food because of it spoiling. The small freezer ran a lot, which wasn't a big deal until we got our electric bill. It had almost doubled! But I thought it was okay because we were buying lots of food for around $30 a week if that.
Then we had a power outage, for almost two days. We were trying to eat everything in our fridge and freezers before it thawed or spoiled. We weren't successful. I had 10 cans of frozen juice concentrate that melted and spoiled before it could be used, lots of meat that had to be thrown out and other frozen foods. While emptying the freezer I had an Oprah Ah Ha moment. Having so much food didn't make any since if we weren't going to use it and I was just going to waste it all.
I started looking at how much money I was spending trying to find deals. Every Sunday I was purchasing at least one if not two newspapers. I was printing around 10 coupons every week, and I was running to stores all the time trying to find these deals. 75% of the time by the time I would make it to the store with the sale the items would already be sold out. I was wasting a lot of time and money hunting down things we didn't need.
I believe shows about extreme couponing have opened many stores eyes. Many stores are now changing their coupon policies making it much more difficult to buy large quantities of things and items at a large discount or for free.
So I sold the freezer, stopped following all of the blogs, no longer purchase the newspapers for the sole purpose of coupons, and no longer print mass amounts of coupons. I have found that by giving up extreme couponing I have so much more time and we are able to save money just by budgeting.
We are currently member's of a club warehouse store. Yup, I know it doesn't seem like buying in bulk would be very minimalist thing to do. However, I menu plan two weeks to a month in advance. I also try to purchase at least two weeks worth of food at one time, sometimes a month worth. We originally joined the warehouse store because I got a really good deal on a membership through a groupon. I have found that some meats such as chicken breast are more than $1.00 cheaper than purchasing it from my grocery store. When I purchase the big pack of chicken breasts I divide them up individually and freeze them. I also divide up burger into smaller servings before freezing.
Many things I buy will last us a whole month. Such as snack foods for the boys and condiments. I buy paper towels, toilet paper and some cleaning products that last us at least two months. By meal planning for a whole month I am able to buy bulk things at the warehouse club that will provide us with more than one meal. At the end of the month or two weeks I am always pleased to see that our cupboards, fridge and freezer are almost empty. This means I have successfully menu planned and we are not wasting a lot, if any food.
Menu planning has made my life much simpler and has helped us minimize the amount of food waste we have. Buying in bulk and being members of a warehouse store isn't for everyone but it works for our family of five.
-TMW.
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