Last week, I took the time to write out a blog post about how you can save money by meal planning, and I included one of our small grocery lists. This week, I’m going to show you the importance of stock piling and you’ll be able to see what our bigger grocery lists look like!

If you’ve never heard of stock piling, check out my first blog post about home organization to learn more. To make it brief, it consists of buying a large quantity of non-perishable products that you use frequently so you have them handy when you need them. And the reason you save money by doing this is because you purchase these items ONLY when they are on sale, at their best price.

To do this, you need to check and compare all the flyers from your local stores. My go to flyers are: Superstore (favourite), Sobeys, Costco, Giant Tiger, No Frills (out of town, so I don’t go very often), Shoppers Drug Mart and Jean Coutu. I check them every week on this great app called Flipp – you need to download this to save yourself the trouble, and to sometimes even see the flyers ahead of time so you can plan better! What I look for in these flyers is only non-perishable and frozen items that we need often. Some examples are canned vegetables, pasta, snacks, frozen veggies, and bread. I will occasionally stock pile one or two items that we don’t frequently use, but only get as many as I need before they expire. An example of this is coconut milk – we don’t make curry every month, but we do make it once in a while, so I will buy 3-4 when they go on sale.

As per usual, I also make my weekly meal plan:

• Tex Mex Casserole (we didn’t make it last week after all)
• Perogies & Canned Veggies
• Spaghetti (sauce in freezer)
• Hamburgers & potato wedges with salad
• Soup & Sandwiches (soup in freezer)
• Hashbrown Casserole & Spinach Dip – for a potluck
• Stuffed Potatoes & Tilapia Fish with salad (didn’t make these last week either!)

Next up is my list of all the ingredients, with those missing in bold:

• Olive oil
• Garlic
• Onion
• Orange Pepper
• Red Pepper
• Canned Corn x2
• Diced Tomatoes
• Tomato Sauce
• Black Beans
• Basmati Rice
• Cheese
• Tortilla Chips
• Perogies
• Canned Green Beans
• Spaghetti
• Hamburger Buns
• Veggie Burgers / Meat Burgers
• Potato Wedges
• Lettuce
• Caeser Dressing
• Simulated Bacon Bits
• Croutons
• Soup (pre-made in freezer)
• Bread
• Eggs
• Miracle Whip
• Hashbrowns
• Cream of Mushroom Soup x2
• Sour Cream
• Spinach
• Knorr Vegetable Soup Mix
• Hellman’s Mayonaise
• Water Chestnuts
• Sourdough Bread
• Green Onions
• Potatoes
• Broccoli*
• Butter
• Tilapia Fish
• Snacks

And so our grocery list started off with the bold items only – plus milk because we ran out. But after checking all the flyers, we added a few more things.

Grocery list:

• Cheese – Costco
• Spaghetti – Costco
• Hamburger Buns – Superstore (50% off)
• Lettuce – Costco
• Eggs – Costco
• Hashbrowns – Superstore
• Cream of Mushroom Soup – Superstore (on sale)
• Sour Cream – Superstore
• Sourdough Bread x2 – Superstore (one was on sale)
• Green Onions – Superstore
• Snacks (Pretzels, Peanuts, Ice Cream)
• Milk – Superstore
• Frozen Broccoli – Costco x2 (on sale)
• Shrimp – Superstore & Costco (we ran out, bought a small bag at superstore because it was late at night, but bought bulk at Costco the next day)
• Salsa – Costco (on sale)
• Sliced Cheese 2 – Costco (on sale)
• Cream Cheese x3 – Costco (on sale)
• Yogurt – Costco (on sale)
• Ham for Max – Costco (on sale)
• Butter (we ran out because I started doing some early Christmas baking!)
• Baguette _Superstore (on sale & 50% off)
• Brie Cheese – Superstore

And so that’s what our larger groceries look like, when we do some stock piling. Our grand total for this grocery was: $140.47

Have you ever tried stock piling? If you have, the number above might seem a bit small. I know we have definitely done much larger hauls before. What was your biggest haul ever? Let us know in the comments below!