There's a subtle difference between "buying in bulk" and "keeping a reasonable stock".
I grew up in a quite poor family and my parents are terrible with money. One thing that frustrated me to no end is that they would almost never buy something ahead of time. An item would literally have to run out before they'd consider buying its replacement, which meant I'd regularly get in the shower in the morning to find there is no soap, no toothpaste, no toilet paper.
You'd end up going to a local convenience store and paying 2x the price for the item because you need it now. Your grocery budget becomes hugely inflated, and you still end up buying the same necessities. Also when you work on a system of buying one item only to replace the previous, you really miss out on bargains because you have to pay the full price it is at the time you need it, instead of a week or two earlier when the same product was BOGOF.
At the same time, they throw away tonnes of food which has gone off because they can't plan meals and shopping consists of "we might eat that." Food which has a long expiry date (canned foods, etc) always runs out.
> You'd end up going to a local convenience store and paying 2x the price for the item because you need it now. Your grocery budget becomes hugely inflated, and you still end up buying the same necessities.
I see this at a lot at my local 7-11, many poorer people do a lot of their grocery shopping there even though an aldi is 5 minutes walk away (so it's actually closer for some of them, literally across the road) and three other supermarkets are under 15 minutes walk. I suspect there is some sort of psychological effect (possibly from advertising) that is compelling them to go to 7-11 instead of somewhere cheaper and that they aren't making a conscious financial decision.
I grew up in a quite poor family and my parents are terrible with money. One thing that frustrated me to no end is that they would almost never buy something ahead of time. An item would literally have to run out before they'd consider buying its replacement, which meant I'd regularly get in the shower in the morning to find there is no soap, no toothpaste, no toilet paper.
You'd end up going to a local convenience store and paying 2x the price for the item because you need it now. Your grocery budget becomes hugely inflated, and you still end up buying the same necessities. Also when you work on a system of buying one item only to replace the previous, you really miss out on bargains because you have to pay the full price it is at the time you need it, instead of a week or two earlier when the same product was BOGOF.
At the same time, they throw away tonnes of food which has gone off because they can't plan meals and shopping consists of "we might eat that." Food which has a long expiry date (canned foods, etc) always runs out.