Now that I HAVE all this STUFF... Where do I put it?

Most any couponing blog, site, queen, princess, or whatever will eventually tell you that in order to maximize your savings, you need to get friendly with the S-word: Stockpiling. It's a pretty simple and basic concept that we've known WORKS for decades and decades since now. Farmers and other families that grew/raised their own food would always put up the excess for winter to get them through the lean season. Hey, even the fabled ants worked all summer to get their winter stockpile ready (though I sometimes think they were just showing off to the grasshopper). But we're not really raised for a lifestyle of stocking up on things anymore, are we? Why would we be when Walmart is open 24/7 so we always have SOME way to get the things we need quickly and easily?

Ok, so maybe TODAY we don't need to stockpile to keep from starving in the winter! Still, TODAY having a stockpile of the things you use often means that (1) if you DO have a week or 3 where you can't get to the store you have plenty of supplies to get you by and (2) if you time your shopping purchases right, you'll rarely EVER be stuck in the situation of running out of something and having to run to the store and buy it at regular ($$$) retail price.

But that can lead to another problem. Suddenly, you find yourself surrounded with STUFF... and no place for it to go!

That's kind of where I am at the moment. In one of my initial posts about how I've had to tweak this couponing thing to work for MY lifestyle, I mentioned that I don't stockpile like the "grid" is about to go down next week. I just don't have the space for it. Limited cabinets, no pantry. I did get a set of plastic shelves and managed to cajole some of the spouse's "Man Zone" (garage) space away from him for them. And I filled them up. And I revelled in walking by my little stockpile every day. And life was good.

Then TN did what she does best every summer; she opened the door to 80% humidity and 90 degree temperatures and invited them RIGHT ON in! It hasn't gotten REALLY bad and actually since the humidity lifted last week, the garage has stayed nice and cool all day. But it got me thinking that I need to come up with a better solution. I don't want to open a bottle of BBQ sauce in 2 mos and be blown out of my garage! (We already had a gallon of milk that went toxic on us in 2 days b/c our fridge had broken down; no need to repeat that.) So far -- nada.

I made a comment about it on another one of the blogs I follow, All Things Frugal 4-U and Me, and she actually posted a bunch of ideas and photos of different systems for food storage! I've looked at a few of them and am currently waaay jealous of the pegboard "store" style system. The under-the-bed drawers and containers might work... except we already maxed out our storage in that arena. And we have a cat who likes to wriggle under there when he's not feeling so hot... and he occasionally leaves evidence of that (I'm thinking I don't want that near ANY food I store; I don't care how airtight it is!)...