Is "Stocking up" the Answer? Or How Much Should we Stock up?

Does anyone see the same thing wrong with a headline like this that I do? It went something like this: "Foods You May not be Able to Buy in the Grocery Store in 2023. Stock up now." Hint: What I see wrong with it is that it could be a 'self-fulfilling prophecy'.

I'm not saying that it's impossible that certain foods may become harder to get. We've already seen that in the past few years. One of the things in the list was bread, and my son who depends on delivery has already had to manage without bread some weeks. However, that's because sometimes the delivery people don't substitute, and that's about shortages of certain types of bread, not of all bread across the board.

But why I said it could be a self-fulfilling prophecy is that it seems to me that if enough people "stock up now" for the rest of 2023 (a year?), then won't those foods be *even harder* for everyone else to get? We saw that with toilet paper several years ago.

Now, you do what you feel is best, but I just want to suggest three things:

1) Yes, I do encourage being prepared; and I believe it's good if some of that includes some stocking up. Some say it's good to stock several weeks worth of food, in case you can't get out, and much of which can be eaten without cooking in case of a prolonged power outage or else also have a way to cook without electricity if the power goes out. (I'm not telling you how much to stock, just sharing my own thoughts and what I have heard and read in the past from emergency management people regarding things like weather events). For some, this can be done by buying two or three extra items a week.

2) One of the best ways to manage specific shortages is to be flexible. When my son didn't receive bread in his grocery order, he made bread. He didn't have yeast so he made no-yeast bread. He didn't receive eggs in that order either, so he made no-yeast bread and substituted for the eggs. I don't remember what he said he substituted, but there are all kinds of ideas on the internet for egg substitutions. But if we ever couldn't get bread or make our own, what else could we eat in its place? Could we get cereal? Or could we eat rice? Or oatmeal? Or crackers might be good for spreading peanut butter.

3) Think about what skills we have. What skills can we use to help someone else in our family or community during an emergency or in tough times? What new skills can we learn? Or maybe we can break it down to one new skill I can start learning right now that might help me and others in the future. In the bread example, could we learn to make some kind of bread that doesn't require yeast or eggs? What else could we teach ourselves or someone else who is willing to learn?

Keeping a Price List for Grocery Shopping - in the Digital Age

Frugal tip for today. I made a spreadsheet, listing the foods we buy. I chose to use Google Sheets because that way I can access it on my phone, and so can others in the family. Although we access it on our phones, I only input things on my computer, because I am not as efficient at adding rows and data to Sheets on my phone.

On the spreadsheet, I have columns for item, price, size, unit price, store, brand, and date. I do not list everything at once and then fill it in. Instead, I add a row or several rows at a time to the appropriate place alphabetically, whenever I want to add an item, filling in the information at that time.

Sometimes I get the prices from my receipts; some stores keep my purchasing information on my online store account or phone app and I might refer to that. Sometimes I go into the store and use my phone to take pictures of the prices and the information.

I have been doing this for about a month, as well as adding two stores to our line-up (our new Aldi and BJ's discount store). I have been using what information I had gathered, as I went along, until I now have most of the foods we buy on any kind of regular basis.

Now I have revised my master grocery shopping list accordingly, so we don't have to refer to the price list every time we shop. I'm all about efficiency. My master grocery list has the stores and what we buy from each store, often with a note about size or brand. I know some of you probably don't use a master grocery list and that's fine. And some of you can keep prices in your head, but I'm not that person, so this combination of master grocery list and price list works well for me.

Aw, the digital age! Years ago, I used to read articles about keeping a "price book". I tried, but it was just too unwieldy to carry it into the store and also to update it. It's so much easier now!

I would like to add one point. We don't always buy everything at the cheapest price, even if we know what the cheapest price is. We space out our trips to different stores, and get an item at the cheapest store that we are going to that day or that week. Again, efficiency has a place in all this! But, knowledge is power.

 Myers

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