How to Save Money to Buy Your Home Storage

I gave a talk this past Sunday on Home Storage and thought I would post a few ways to save/earn the money to start or finish your Home Storage. Here is part of a talk by Bishop Vaughn J. Featherstone. I quoted part of his talk on ways to save money for your home storage.

Food Storage
by Bishop Vaughn J. Featherstone

1. Decide as a family this year that 25 or 50 percent of your Christmas will be spent on a year’s supply. Many families in the Church spend considerable sums of money for Christmas. Half or part of these Christmas monies will go a long way toward purchasing the basics.

2. When you desire new clothes, don’t buy them. Repair and mend and make your present wardrobe last a few months longer. Use that money for the food basics. Make all of your nonfood necessities that you feasibly can, such as furniture and clothing.

3. Cut the amount of money you spend on recreation by 50 percent. Do fun things that do not require money outlay but make more lasting impressions on your children....

The rest of Bishop Featherstones talk (along with his ideas #4 - #7) can be found here on LDS.org. I know his talk was written in 1976, but his ideas still apply today.

The Prudent Homemaker

Brandy has some great ideas to save money! Please check out her site here for ways to shop wisely and save money. She has some serious ways to save money as well as some smaller ways to save money. I have used many of them, they are great ideas!

More Ideas on Saving & Earning Money

Here are some of the things that I have personally done (and currently do) to save in our budget.

#1. Shop smart at the Grocery store - I now plan my meals for the week. This way I only have to shop once a week and I only buy the things that I need. I also use coupons, price match & shop sales. With the money I save I use towards food storage. When something goes on sale for a huge savings, I stock up on that one item. We have been able to accumulate our 3 months supply by doing this.

#2. Have a Garage Sale - I sell all the clothes that my children no longer fit and the toys they no longer play with at garage sales, on craigslist or ebay. When I was younger and our family still growing, I saved all these things to use for our next child. I also shopped garage sales a lot to buy the things we needed at a great price.

#3. Make Home Lunch - I make my husbands lunch every day for him to take to work. He loves it and we save a lot by doing this.

#4. Shop Around - When we are purchasing large items, we always research the item to find which one (style/model/brand) will be right one for our family. We don't always buy the cheapest, but we look for quality as well.

Our hot water tank recently went out and we had to use our emergency savings to purchase a new one. We found the one we wanted, however our local Lowes was out of it. They called another Lowes who had it in stock. When we arrived at Lowes, we found the exact same model on clearance because it had a scratch on it and the faceplate was missing. We were able to buy it for half price and I had a coupon to use at Lowes. When we got home I called the manufacture, and they sent me a new face plate for free. It might take a little work, but it was well worth it!

#5. Attend Free Activities - We attend a lot of free activities in Henderson. There are many to pick from such as, Storytime at the Library, Summer Reading Programs, Lowes & Home Depot activities for the Kids, Lakeshore Learning Craft Time & Free Summer Movies.

Hopefully some of these ideas will work for you, so that you can start saving and purchasing your Home Storage.