Saturday, September 1, 2007

Saving Money at Costco

For once, I actually saved Money at Costco! No really, I managed to go to Costco, buy food and leave with out spending all of the money I had. Costco is one of these places that you go to with good intentions, "I'll just buy a year's worth of toilet paper and then I'm outta there," and then, you notice, that a huge box of note paper is only $6.99, and that bag of Chex Mix big enough to serve a middle school is on sale for $3.99, and twelve canisters of salt are only $4.99,! Before you know it you've spent three hundred dollars and your pantry is stuffed with enough table salt to clear a Cleveland street in February after the biggest ice storm of the century.

Check this out. I went to buy meat and chicken for the Labor Day Weekend and I walked out pretty much with that. I spent less than sixty-four dollars and bought enough chicken, steak, and turkey burger to last long past the weekend. It was a miracle. The Costco check out clerk said it was the smallest bill of the day. My secret? I bought no beverages and concentrated on mostly unprocessed foods. Oh, and I bought nothing that wasn't food, despite the fact that they had a 320 gig hard drive for only ninety-nine bucks!

I have an unofficial way to check myself when I go grocery shopping. I figure out how many adult dinners (main course only) that I can make out of the food I buy and then divide the total of my bill by that number. Anything less than $10.00 a meal is cheaper than eating out... I live in LA, it's pricey to eat. So if I buy $100 worth of food, and I can make 20 dinners out of it, then my meals are worth about $5.00 each. I think that this Costco trip made(at best guess)26 adult meals consisting of quality meats for about $2.50 a meal. Try it next time you go to Costco and maybe you'll leave with some of your money left in your pocket.

2 comments:

Father of Food said...

Your comments were on the MONEY!
Cooking and eating at home can be fun and a great way to save money and eat better.

Family of Food said...

Yes! This is something that Son of Food does better than I. Hoping he shares some of his cooking secrets soon.

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