I love to shop. There, I said it. I love the feeling of having something new. Something I want. Not necessarily need. Maybe it is some deep psychological issue I have not confronted or maybe it is just my XX chromosomes. I don't know but I do love it. I have read that it can be considered an addiction and I understand why. It is a rush. I feel happier when I buy things. I am also very cheap. I like money just as much as shopping. This is how I balance these two loves.
This addiction to shopping can be a little at odds with a preppers lifestyle. The most common SHTF scenario for anyone is a personal financial disaster. Loss of a job, medical bills, divorce and a whole host of other issues conspire to rob us of our fortunes. This is why we save. We keep money back for the hard times ahead. We prep.
But it's not just about the money. Or the rush. It's about putting things back. Prepper things. At some point in time, depending on how you think this great experiment will end, that funny green paper in your wallet may only be of enough value to blow your nose on. Then you have nothing. But you will have a lot of it. The key for me is finding balance. Buying things I need and love with saving as much money as I can.
Fulfilling both my need to prep and my need to shop is actually a symbiotic relationship. I am a very value conscious shopper. I know where every clearance rack is in every store I haunt. There has been many times when I have been in a store and saw something that I wanted but I refuse to pay full price. With most items, there is a limited amount of time a store will let an item sit on a shelf. If it hasn't sold out in a certain amount of time, off to the clearance rack it goes.
My local Walmart is currently undergoing a renovation and in the throes of shuffling entire shelving units from one end of the store to the other, They are winnowing out a lot of the chaff on their shelves. This is a win for me. I am there at least once a week to pick through the clearance racks full of rejects that no longer fit the new Wally World image. Image isn't a big deal for me, you may note at this point as I do say, yes, I shop at Walmart.
This weeks wins included a $31 fleece sheet set for $16, A half dozen arrows for my bow for $12, A full ream of printer paper for $1.44 (the wrapper was damaged) as well as a few other odds and ends. All of value in some way should the times get tough. Even if they don't, they are things that I would eventually wind up buying, I just bought them early at a lower price.
I also love Amazon. I make extra spending money using survey sites on my time off. I take payment from those sites in the form of Amazon gift cards. This opens up a whole new world of shopping for me. It is like having every store you can imagine at your fingertips. Except firearms. If they sold firearms, it would truly be orgasmic. I don't have as much spenders guilt when I use my surveying gift cards as that is exactly why I work so hard to earn them. I just got a delivery today. I got 6 dozen wide mouth canning lids, a hammock, a Mora Kniv for my husband and some freeze dried chicken for my long term storage.
Dollar stores can be useful but there is a caveat here. Watch the price per unit on food items. A lot of the dollar stores make agreements with manufacturers for smaller packages so, you are not really saving anything. In many cases, you will find you are paying more. The same coffee that we buy at our local grocery for $7.99 was $8.25 at the dollar store for the same size package. Small difference, I know, but dimes add up to dollars.
So, you see shopping and prepping can go together as long as you keep a prepper mindset. Look for value. Look for utility. Look for a nice place to have lunch while your out shopping because you should prep to live not just live to prep.