Stocking Up

I recently made a trip to Costco.  Overall, it was a pretty conservative trip in terms of purchases... most of the items were items I use all the time in baking or cooking.  However, due to the types of purchases made at Costco - the volume (and cost) was pretty high.  It has sort of thrown the "10 dollar day" plan for a loop.  I've decided to keep tracking things as I have been - just to see what happens.  It would be neat if it starts to level off.  I suspect it might.

Buying in bulk is the oft promoted way for saving money on food costs.  Judging by my costco membership and my referencing of stuffed cabinetry.  I obviously subscribed to this method as well.

It's a good method.  Many things have a shelf life of much more than two weeks... "the usual shopping cycle", so if I find them on sale, or can buy them at costco (lower per unit price), then I can really stretch my dollar.

Obvious things I buy in bulk are:
noodles, crackers, cereal bars, flour, sugar, canned tomatoes, olives, canned beans, dried beans evaporated milk and sweeted condensed milk - most of these items have a shelf life of a minimum of 2 years - some of them a lot more.

Some not so obvious things I buy in bulk are:
mayo, ranch, ketchup and other condiments - these items are refrigerate after opening... you can store them on the shelf until then and they often have a shelf life of a year or more. 

Some items I buy in bulk - because of the invention of the freezer:
meat, vegetables, other frozen foods (duh!), bread (yes - you can freeze this - but I do keep my quantities on this smaller than other things) and tortillas (same as bread)

This the list of things I buy in bulk or for storage, but other people make other choices.  I'd be curious if there is anything you depend on from your storage. 

Saving money this way suits my personality.  I have half a dozen dishes I could whoop out of food storage at any moment, and to be honest I get a perhaps weird sense of security out of this.

There are risks with this method however, as food does expire.  Also, many fresh foods are healthier as well (though not always the case).  If I were to stock more than I could use by the expiration date - this would not be a practice in saving, but in losing.    Loss of foods that have expired.  It's important that I mention this is just not a loss to my budget, but a loss in terms of environmental resources as well.  Resources were used to create the food, package the food, move the food to wherever you bought it from.  If these are wasted; I waste those resources too. 


Do you "stock up"?  Are you careful to avoid over stocking?  Do you freeze anything interesting (such as bread)?

Cheat-zilla!

So remember when I made claims of eating for 10 dollars a day and how easy peasy it would be. 

Well somehow between buying wine for parties, treating friends and oh um... treating myself.  I am more than a little behind on my $10/day plan of attack.  If you like numbers check the "10 dollar day" tab.  Right now, I am not a huge fan.

Anyway, I thought about wiping my slate clean and starting at square one, but then I thought better.

I going to give myself the rest of 2010 to catch up.   

So what to do:

Cutting the Crazy: My crazy schedule of work doom will end this wednesday - when I will return working normal human amounts.  I think doing this will help cut the crazy and allow me to make more food at home.

Holiday Mooching: I figure I should get a lot free food over the holidays, and err.. why not take advantage ;)

As always, I'll let you know how it goes.