In the discussion on whether or not to clip coupons, part of the reason some people don’t stockpile is that they think they have no room. We’re lucky enough to have a big garage that we don’t park our cars in, but even the smallest living area has stockpile room. You just have to be creative!
My friend Donna lives in a travel trailer. I know some of you are gasping at the thought, but it’s not that unusual here in rural Washington. She stockpiles. Since she lives in about 80 square feet of living space, it’s not quite as easy. What she did is to buy a used outdoor shed for $100. It locks, sits up off the ground on a couple of pallets, and keeps her canned goods secure and dry. Her dry goods are inside of plastic garbage bags which are then put into clean (new) garbage cans with lids underneath her trailer’s canopy. They’re covered with a rain tarp, and she hasn’t lost any yet, even here where there is precipitation most days.
Most of us don’t need to go to that extreme. There IS space in your house or apartment that isn’t being used. Our military housing has ranged from 800 s.f. (for six people!) to 3000 s.f. and everything in-between. Here are some of the ways you can maximize the space you’re in:
Use a pegboard in a garage wall or in a closet. Since they hang on pegboard systems in the store, a lot of items have holes for them. I got my pegboard for $10 at the hardware store and found hangers at the thrift shop for next to nothing.
Over the door hangers. You can’t open a closet in Grace’s house without one. They hold all the skinnier things such as smaller cans and boxed goods. Along the same line are cupboard pockets. Wish I could remember where I got mine, but they stick to the insides of your cabinets and hold all those mixes (can you tell what was on sale?).
In my house, the space underneath the beds better not have anything under them – except food, of course. I put canned goods into plastic boxes or even cardboard lids and then slide them in. For sanity’s sake, only vegetables go under the boys’, only sauces under the girls’, and I have a list of what’s under mine. It would be really confusing to have to wonder what was where.
You’d be surprised at how much space is underneath your fold-out couch. Unless you use yours all the time, it’s a great long-term storage space.
I put those cheapie plastic dishpans in the cupboard underneath the bathroom sink. Then I sort like with like. The nice thing about being in the dishpans is that they can be stacked if need be. I only store bathroom stuff there. The space underneath the kitchen sink is often under-utilized. By grouping like items, you can fit in more.
The space underneath my desk is large enough for legs twice the size of mine. I have a couple of boxes of dry goods (labeled, of course) that I didn’t want to keep out in the garage because of moisture. I didn’t lose any space that I was using, just formerly wasted space.
We have a lot of spiders in our attic space so I don’t really like going up there. However, if I were short of space, it would be one of the first places I’d head.
Those of you who do stockpile, where do you put yours?
Related Blogs:
Eight Practical Stockpiling Tips
Adventures of the Stockpiling Queen