Friday, June 8, 2012

How to Calculate How Much You Really Need

As some of my long time readers know, I have been prepping for one income. I'll be quitting my job and attending medical school full time in August.

I have also been using coupons to get some really good deals, but how much do I really need to get us through the two years? ( FYI: All of these bottles were either free or less than 50 cents each! )

 Bargain Dawn Stockpile

The first step needs to be to find out how much you are actually using on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. You do this by labeling the product the date it was opened with a sharpie. I opened the last Dawn on 5/10 and opened a new one on 6/2, so a 9 oz. bottle lasted for 23 days.

Next, I have to figure out how many 9 oz. bottles I have , so that I can multiple it by 23 days.

I have 15 ( 9 oz bottles ), 1 ( 10.3 oz bottle ), and 1 ( 24 oz. bottle). With the amount and usage of Dawn, I can now figure out how long my stockpile will last. 

For ease, I'll use the 9 oz. as a standard,
so 10.3 oz. plus 24 oz. = 34.3 ounces in the odd sized bottles, divide by 9 (standard bottle size) = 3.8 ( 9 oz. bottles ) to get everything to a common standard.

15 bottles plus the 3.8 = 18.8 ( 9 ounce bottles ).
18.8 times 23 days =  432.4 days

I should use my last stockpiled Dawn in 432.4 days.

So, to answer my own question. I should still be on the lookout for bargain Dawn. About 10 more 9 oz. bottles should get us through the 2 year period without having to purchase any more.

You can use this same procedure to found out how much of something you need. Figure out how long a product lasts, then divide by the time frame to derive the amount of that product(s) you need.