A suggestion: if to your mother in law it’s a matter of psychological security and knowing that there will be food available even if she doesn’t shop so much, you might suggest that she open up a savings account and deposit the extra money she would normally spend on shopping in there and leave it. Then she would know that the money was available to spend on food at any time, and maybe that would help her let go of the need to hoard so much food.

Wow, just for perspective, that’s a LOT of trips to Kohls from some people’s perspective. I only go to one of those stores like Kohl’s or Target about once every 6 months or when something wears out (like, gets holes in it) and I don’t have another so I need to replace it.

If cutting down on the number of shopping trips is something you want to tackle, you might want to try not accompanying your Mom on these trips and just marking on your calendar 3 months from now “go to Kohl’s” and see how that works. It will feel weird the first few times that you don’t go (like “why aren’t I at the store today!!!??? What’s going on???) but I suspect that you will quickly you find other uses for the time and the money you have been spending on these regular trips to the store and get out of the habit of such overly-frequent shopping.

usually if that happens it’s pretty easy to just go shopping and buy some groceries.

Seriously, it sounds like she has had some bad experience with *not having money to buy food* and having an empty pantry shelf. She’s probably not in that financial situation now and actually could be wasting money by letting food go bad if she is overstocked. It is worth examining.

I myself have tended to overstock both my pantry and my fridge and have wasted lots of food as a result simply by not realizing it was there and it going bad. So I have started eating the fridge and pantry down over the last 6 months and I have found it to be a postive change. When the fridge in particular gets low, it’s time to eat some of the less “popular” things that are in there, which prevents them going off. Same with the pantry. About once a week I pull some heretofore forgotten staple out onto the counter and make it a project to use it in a recipe in the coming week.

If you have an overstocked fridge and/or pantry, this approach is worth experimenting with

My mother in law is a perfect example of this. She has a huge stockpile of groceries in her kitchen cabinet. I sometimes think that she could run a food bank for the homeless out of her kitchen and still have enough to feed her family. She goes shopping every two weeks for food, and I personally have never seen her pantry dwindling. However, my inlaws are in debt from my father in law’s medical bills. There are 4 people in that house to feed and my mother in law is the only one in that house who works. I have suggested to her that if she didn’t buy groceries for one or two months and used what she has in her pantry, then that money could go towards those medical bills. She says that makes sense, but she and I both know what it’s like to have bare cabinets, and she doesn’t want that to happen again. Understandable, been there done that and got the tshirt! But when your cabinets are chock full of food and you’re not using very much of it then to my mind what you are doing is little more than hoarding.

LOL–That’s so, so true and so well stated!

That’s a really clever way of looking at it, I love it.

To use sales to my advantage, I like to keep a running list of things I am on the lookout for in tadalists(currently there are a few wardrobe staples on the list and I’m looking for a hand held mixer) and I only buy those things when they are on sale. That way I buy things I need, but only when they are on a hefty sale as I am prepared to wait for a great deal.

I think this is one of the toughest things for people who are addicted to shopping to get over and realize. They focus on the “savings” versus actually needing the product. Sales reps and car dealerships use this tactic to draw you in, keep you there, and get you to buy. “What if we could get that payment down” or “How about I take another hundred off the price” are just some examples of their come ons.

I’ve lost count of the number of people at work who keep telling me about some deal at some store for an item I don’t need. They look at me like I have two heads when I tell them I’m not buying anything right now.

But, regarding the current environment of many markdowns in retail stores, when I realized how many sales are going on, I looked ahead at my actual needs, which are very few, and I may buy two pairs of pants this holiday season if the sales are good, because by the end of 2009 I will be wanting some new pairs of pants and I might as well buy them at heavily reduced prices now.

I just got a $10 off certificate in the mail for any purchase over $10 at JC penney and considered going and buyig a couple packs of underwear, getting the $10 off and just spending a few dollars total, but it seems like stealing to me because I know they are really hoping to have customers come and really shop, and they are on the ropes. It doesn’t seem fair to go and spend $11 and get $10 off when they are really hurting and need sales, and people who work with them need jobs. I don’t know, maybe I will buy my pair of pants with it.

I have to admit though, the team in the show really pressures the family.. a few books a man used to study that he hardly reads anymore HAD to go in the sale. Books can be read over again and besides I feel the houses aren’t going to be clean forever.

My mom has a bad spending habit especially on clothes and sometimes I wish she didn’t. She doesn’t take my advice so every time we go to Kohl’s on Saturdays, we bring back a bunch of shirts and the ones we “don’t wear” anymore, we throw them away or donate them.

Something that saves us from filling up our garage is that fact we only have a carport. We could fully enclose it, but we feel it would just get filled up with junk if we did that.

Likewise, this is how I buy all my gifts. 70-90% off is typical. I get them when I see them and give them later. I try to stay a couple of years ahead on Christmas gifts for people. Sharon