Why I Don't Stockpile

I should change the title to "I used to stockpile then it made me crazy so I stopped."  There was a time when I became fascinated with extreme couponing and stockpiling and tried my hand at it.  I thought I was helping the family budget by creating a stockpile.  The problem was that coupons aren't that easy to come by in Canada and the majority of stores don't allow coupon stacking.  I tried and tried to download online coupons and, no matter what, each time my computer would freeze and crash.  A lot of my free time was spent scanning the weekly flyers.  My anxiety levels began to rise as I compared my miserable stockpile to photos of gargantuan stockpiles that resembled a Costco warehouse.  But as I looked at the enormous stockpiles of extreme couponers, I noticed that many of these couponers were a touch, shall we say, OCD about their hoards.  If they used a product from their stockpile and left a space on the shelf, this triggered a frenzy to fill that space with more.  It didn't matter that they had enough to last them the next 10 years.  The fact of the matter is that I live in a small home with limited storage space.  I was never going to achieve a stockpile large enough to fill a warehouse because my home doesn't have that storage capacity.  One time I bought a huge bag of rice and there it sat on the dining room floor for months because I had nowhere to put it.  It was such a relief when we finally finished it off.   It is weird to think of a staple food such as rice as clutter but that is precisely what it became, sitting in the dining room, annoying us every time we needed to vacuum, silently reminding me of the error in judgment I had made.  There are several grocery stores within a few blocks of my home and many convenience stores.  The likelihood of a shortage of any necessity is nil.  There is always a sale on a necessity somewhere and, if I run out, it is easy enough to get it.  So eventually, I stopped.  Now, if I happen to see a good sale on something that we use regularly such as toothpaste, I will buy a couple, one to replace the tube that is running out and one as backup, but no more than that.  I still peruse the flyers but only to see if there is a sale on something that I know is running low.  The only time I consider having a very small stockpile is if I know a very busy period is coming up and I think that it would alleviate stress to have extra on hand.  If you have a large family that goes through groceries like wildfire or if you live in a remote location, then I can see the value in having a stockpile.  But for me and my situation, it wasn't worth the anxiety and seemed to be the antithesis of slow living. Do you stockpile and why?  Let me know in the comments!