finance food for thought no.3

Buying the bigger size isn’t always cheaper

I just got a Costco card today. We used to have one in NY, but in NY we would travel over an hour to go grocery shopping. Buying big sizes helped a lot. However!!!

I priced almost every item on my HUGE grocery list (Confession: I haven’t been grocery shopping in over a month). It took a long time, but I am so grateful that I did. Maybe you can glean some info from this too-

Cheaper Items

• Olive oil per ounce
• Only some cereals! You need to price out per ounce on those. I bought Frosted Mini wheat, but that was it
• Multi Vitamins
• Milk – My Skim milk was as cheap as the grocery store, but whole milk was more expensive
• Bulk candies

More Expensive Items – just to give you an idea

• Eggs
• Some granola bars
• Toothpaste
• Diapers (wal-mart’s and target’s generic brands beat out by almost .06 a diaper!)

I didn’t price out any produce because I purchase mine at Sunflower Farmer’s Market. They are a company that specializes in health foods and produce. Most of the time they are the cheapest. I like supporting them.

Sometimes it just isn’t logical for you to buy in bulk! We get sick of the same granola bars for a month! We also don’t need a 48 ox can of evaporated milk when in my life I have never used it in a recipe until today and probably won’t use it again. Plus, spending $200 just might not fit in your budget for the month. In this case you don’t want to only get 1/3 of the groceries you need.

The last thing that is actually a positive about these warehouses are that you can order online and then just go pick up what you need. It can save so much time AND no impulse buys!!! When we were in NY I would order online about two days before I went down and then all I had to do was pay and take it out to my car. It really helped when I was pregnant too!

Overall, I love shopping at wholesale warehouses! It is really fun! I love looking at books, home goods, and clothes. They have great samples ;) too. Just be careful!

Next is in the grocery store! I was at Winco a couple of weeks ago and I needed tinfoil. I went to grab the bigger size, but I looked and the smaller size was cheaper per foot! This happens to me all the time. It really pays to keep a calculator in your purse. You will know me in the grocery store because I always have my handy-dandy calculator out crunching numbers. Sometimes stores are awesome because they have the price per ounce or pound already calculated for you! Just watch sale tags, they usually need recalculated.

Buying the bigger size isn’t always cheaper