Lyttle Food Co-op in the Suburbs

Many of the books I've read in my quest to decrease our monthly food bill have said not to buy at Warehouse clubs like Costco.  They cite the reasons that between the annual fee and the fact that not everything is the best price you can get, you could probably do just as well at the grocery store.

Well, over the last year I've learned some things about Costco...

Unless you are buying at the business Costco by the case, meat is most certainly more expensive than a grocery store sale.

Baking supplies are DIRT cheap at Costco.

Coupons there go in about 3 month cycles and they are usually multiple dollars off.

Produce deals can be had, but make sure you know your grocery store prices.

I personally have an executive Membership, which is $110 (used to be $100). This is $55 (used to be $50) more than the regular membership, but we get a rebate check for 2 percent back.  Considering my check last year was $101 I figure the membership fee is not a deterrant for me. Last year I also went almost every week due to my son's preschool being next door.

Some things I buy there on an almost weekly basis are:

Bananas. They are 33 cents a pound
Spinach. 10 pounds of spinach you need to wash is a little less than $4.50.  If you want organic spinach that you don't have to wash, you can get 4 or 5 pounds for this price.
Milk. We go through about 2 or 3 gallons a week and Costco sells 2 gallons for $4.98. Considering most places sell a gallon of milk for $2.50-$2.89 a gallon, it's a safe bet I'm not overpaying. 
Butter. It's $2 a pound.
Cheese. They sell 2.5 pounds of cheddar of a local brand for $4 something, which is less than $2 a pound, which is where I like to buy cheese at.  The local grocery store had a 2 pound block for $5 on sale when I was there last.  And that's the regular price.

I also buy my baking supplies, but I try to split them because, frankly, I don't want to give up my pantry space to store 50 pounds of flour, which is what the wheat and bread flour comes in. I can handle the 25 pounds for all-purpose, but I digress.  So this time when I needed bread flour I asked around to my bread making friends if they were in need as well. I think I last bought it 2-3 months ago so I've used about 25 pounds in that time frame and I haven't bought bread in probably 4 months?  So this month my former meal swap buddy and my mom and I are sharing the flour.  Some information if you are planning on doing this...

My mom wants 10 pounds, Katie and I will each get 20 pounds.

I use a liquid measuring cup to estimate how much flour there is for splitting. Note that I completely estimate. I'm not measuring out exactly. This time I measured approx 138 cups of flour, so my mom will get 27 1/2 (or 3 of my 8 cup scoops a little light on the last scoop) Katie and I each get a smidgen over 55 cups each. 2 gallon bags (sold by Ziploc, and now in generic at Top foods for about 30 cents each and I'll wash and rewash them or just reuse them) hold 24 cups  (3 of my 8 cup scoops) and comfortably close, so I put aside 1 2 gallon bag for my mom with her 27 1/2 cups of flour, kept 2 gallon bags and topped off my own flour bins with my 55 cups and put the other 55 cups back in the original bag to give to Katie.  The 50 pound bag was $16.38 this time (I think last time I bought it, it was closer to $17.30) so 20 pounds is costing about $6.60.  To compare, the local grocery store sells 5 pounds for $2.99 generic or $4.29 for Gold Medal.   Then when you use that flour to make your own bread... savings abound.  I use 3 cups of flour for each loaf, so for my $6.60 (along with other ingredients, but most are just pennies) I an make 18 loaves of bread.  When you consider most bread is $2-$5 a loaf, I'm getting 18 loaves of bread for the price someone who buys it already baked of 1-3 loaves.

I was going to split granulated sugar as well, however, when I went to Costco, it was .55 cents a pound to get the 20 pound bag and only .555 cents for the 10 pound bags, so I just got the 10 pound bag.

So there's some more ways to stretch your grocery bill-make as much as you can from scratch and buy the ingredients in bulk-if it's too much for you to handle, split with a friend! Now that I know how much 1/2 a bag of 50 pounds of flour is, I can take out just my portion and wrap up the rest for someone else, no more measuring the entire bag. 

Shank Ham

So I got a shank ham at Top for $1.29... that's ok, I know they'll go down to 89 or 99 cents a pound closer to the holidays. I got it because it was 9 pounds and a friend needed 4.5 pounds so I told her while I was at the store I'd pick it up and I'd give her the 4.5 pounds she needed and keep the rest and the bone (split pea soup) well, I started cutting off bone and fat and was left with only the 4.5 pounds she needed!  Since the ham was about $11.50 that's $2.55 a pound. Still ok as far as meat goes, but not the bargain I was imagining.  However, I can make myself feel better when I know the ham steaks, which she was planning to buy for her recipe were marked $4.99 to $5.99 a pound, so it's still half the cost to cut it down, plus the bone is available for soup....