Welcome back to my Couponing Tips series. I have officially decided to call this series “Couponing Made Easy!” What do you think? I’m opened to suggestions. If you are new here make sure to catch up on our series:
Today’s topic is all about Sale Cycles. A sale cycle is the period of time between sales. For example Pasta is on sale this week at Publix. If you don’t buy it today you will have to wait 6-12 weeks before you can buy Pasta again at its Rock Bottom Price! Knowing that it is important that we buy enough pasta at its rock bottom price to last us to get to the next sale. Every item in every store has some type of sale cycle. Some items go on sale every 6-12 weeks like clockwork, such as shampoo, soaps, cleaning products, pasta, rice, and snacks. However other items don’t go on sale as often such as baking items or stuffing. These items typically will only go on sale during the holiday season. See the figure below for a typical sale cycle:
(Image Courtesy of Southernsavers.com)
As you can see from the graph Yogurt and Cereal have been going on sale every 6 weeks but are never on sale during the same week. Which is why we need to try and shop every week to catch all the sales. You can also see that from each sale cycle the items may go on sale but just not at the “Rock Bottom Price.” So Yogurts Rock Bottom Price is $0.50. But they may go on sale for $1 so unless we need it we need to wait for it to go on sale for $0.50.
There are good and bad things about “seasonal” sale schedules. They are good because at Thanksgiving you can get stuffing and cranberries really cheap when you need them. But they are bad because when I want stuffing in July I have to pay full-price L. However, it is not in my budget or my stockpile space to buy 100 boxes of stuffing in November when it is super cheap. So I will have to compromise. I bought several boxes last week at Publix to last me a few months and will have to buy other items throughout the year instead of stuffing (or I will just have to splurge if we HAVE to have stuffing in July!). Make sure to check out my “Become A Couponing Psychic” resource to find out more about what goes on sale during what time of year.
That is the basic concept about Sale Cycles. If you have any other questions about Sale Cycles please let me know in the comments and I will answer them! Next week I will be covering Stockpiles.