Deplete your Food Inventory to Save money

Introduction

It may seem unusual to start this post talking about boots and shoes, but I'm a "road walker" and I went through a period of buying shoes expecting them to last a few hundred miles. Now I have four pairs of leather boots and three pairs of running or hiking shoes. The total cost including tax is about $1,100. The good news is, one pair of boots is coming up on 3,000 miles with no sign of wear on the soles, and I have another pair just like it. Another pair of boots has almost 1,000 miles on it with no sign of wear at all. Maybe I should have written this post about shoes, but the key point is I have about $1,100 tied up in shoes. Probably enough for at least 12,000 miles of walking. (My secret is I use Gorilla tape on the soles of leather boots to keep them from wearing out.)

Inventory costs money

Instead of so many shoes, I should have saved the money to buy shirts, socks and pants. There were times I had to replace these when I was a little short on cash. Oh, I used to always be short on cash, but not since I learned how to budget well.


I first learned that inventory costs money from Eliyahu Goldratt who wrote the book, "Isn't it Obvious?" along with about seven other books. In this book, a retail store's storeroom was flooded and they had to order replacement items from the warehouse as they sold them. Surprisingly, their profits increased about 20% in just the first month. This was partially because they only ordered items as they sold to keep a 20 day inventory of each item in the store. The same theory works if a person only buys food they know they will eat during the next day.

Take a look into the recesses of your freezer and pantry and find the items that you would no longer eat. Toss them, while keeping a mental tally of the cost of those foods. How did they get there?  In my case it was either losing interest in something I bought in bulk or poor rotation of the foods.

Taking the Food Stamp Challenge

In a way, food stamp challenges do not mimic real life because they often start with a big shopping order to buy items like oatmeal, rice, potatoes, etc. This doesn't happen in real life, so the contestant starts out with a deficit. In real life, a person could eat from inventory as long as possible and then start shopping. This would build a cash reserve to make the end of the month less stressful.

Advantages of shopping every day

When I shop every day, I only buy what I'm going to eat that day or bulk items that are almost gone. This means I throw almost no food in the trash. Granted, I miss stocking up on some sale items, but then I have money to buy other sale items, so it all works out. I may miss the price advantage of buying a 10 pound bag of potatoes instead of a 5 pound bag of potatoes, but I always eat the full 5 pound bag of potatoes and I don't get roots growing out the bottom of my pantry door. Bananas don't get black, bread doesn't get stale, and I don't have any biological hazards in my refrigerator.

Shopping everyday allows us to change the next day's menu without worrying about wasting food. 

What about emergencies?

Unless a person lives in an isolated area, there is seldom a food emergency that lasts more than three days. Rice and oatmeal can last that long.

Conclusion

 In my case, I've found shopping every day means almost no wasted food. The exception is spaghetti sauce where I usually don't use all of the jar. I estimate it saves about 20% on my food bill. This is essentially free food for me.