What do you do with all that stuff???

I get questions from time to time on "what do I do with all that stuff I buy?"

Um, use it!!

For instance, I bought 40 cans of broth in December.  My husband has an addiction to making and eating lots of soup.  6 weeks later , I have 8 cans left.  That's what 5+ cans per week?  The stuff I get isn't sitting there collecting dust.  It's stuff I would normally purchase, but found a cheaper way to get months worth of it now and save money overall for the year.

The broth deal's one from GE where if you bought 20 cans they were only 50 cents each-- then I had a $1 off of 2 cans coupon (or many of them) so if I bought less than 20 I'd have to pay for them- when I hit 20 cans they were free.  I wouldn't normally buy 20-- or 40-- but for free I did and we use them quickly. So good deal.  Plus, Paul's made tons of soup and just had to buy meat at BJs on sale every few weeks- but he had all the rest of the ingedients he uses on hand.

SOME STUFF I GIVE AWAY.  I make bags of products from time to time for people with the stuff I have gotten for cheap/free.  They love getting razors and shampoo that they use and soaps and all that kind of stuff and now their next trip the store will be slightly cheaper for them (I ask ahead of time what brands they like and keep an eye out for those)   My recipients now are my side of the family.

Paul's family has a tradition of celebrating each persons wedding anniversary every year.  "Happy 14th anniversary!"  We all get together and give gifts to the couple... well guess what people are getting this year?   Yep, that's right gift baskets of items that I got for little money.  The next party is in April, it's for 5 couples.  Yeah, FIVE.... so those razors I got the other day (4 pks) for free will be part of the gift baskets for sure.  It'll all be name brand stuff and filled to the rim-- now to just keep getting stuff in time for the party.  Right now I only have some makeup, razors, bar soaps and cleaning supplies.  Depending on whats free over the next few weeks will determine what else goes in the gift baskets.

I bought my cousin TONS of baby shower stuff and on the things like  diapers and all the non-clothing items, I spent $5.  My sister didn't have money for a gift at the time of the shower, so I got her a bunch of stuff too (included in the $5) Then I went to Kmart and got clothes on clearance too- the result was 2 huge gift bags of stuff for maybe $15 total.  It looked like way more money- but thats all I spent out of pocket. 

I had gift cards from places like Rite Aid for switching prescriptions ($75) and used coupons and sales on top of it too... If I had spent cash on all of the items at full price, it would've been around $300.  95% savings. 

I'm not a hoarder, I'm a sharer/giver/user of the items I get.