Saving Makes Me Smile

Call her cheap or crazy, but Ncumisa Ndelu is undoubtedly the stockpile queen of Mzansi.She tells us how she does it.

- Nadim Nyker

SHE’S travelled to Hong Kong and Dubai, been to China twice and treated her daughter to a trip to Disneyland.

And she’s done it all by saving . . . thousands of rands each year after turning her home into a storeroom that’s almost better stocked than the average supermarket.

The stockpile queen of South Africa – that’s what Ncumisa Ndelu could be called. Her efforts take buying in bulk to a whole new level and she’s inspiring thousands of other women to follow her example.

Ncumisa, a 40-year-old mom of two, is the spokesperson for the KwaZulu-Natal MEC of social development, but that’s just her day job. Her passion is stockpiling and to say it’s changed her life is no exaggeration.

“When I started I didn’t even know it was called stockpiling,” she says. “I just knew I didn’t like paying full price for anything.”

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Ncumisa has always been a fan of buying non-perishable goods on special in bulk and storing them in every available space.

She kept her habit pretty much to herself until 2014 when she joined a women’s group on Facebook that discussed household-related issues.

“We talked about how to remove a beetroot stain, that sort of thing,” she recalls. “I noticed my contribution to the group was always telling women which items were on sale and how much they could save by buying in bulk. And people would focus on my contributions.”