You can’t Save Money by Buying in Bulk
Ha made you look!
Be Frugal, Simple, Thrifty. HOW?
Thats for each person to decide.
Something I find interesting, is that a lot of frugal blogs advise us to buy in bulk to save money. I’m also hearing a lot more about the Law of Attraction, “The Secret” to Abundance, Feng Shui - working with the “way things work” in order to manifest everything we need and desire.
So what’s my DEAL?
Today I got to thinking about it.
I subscribe to the Laws of Attraction and Abundance, I dabble in some feng shui principles, I believe in it - and I believe in letting and even encouraging magic to happen. I have a few superstitions and I believe in my fair share of old-fashioned kitchen lore. I believe, also, that it’s important to trust that God will always provide.
What’s frugal to me?
I’m on a very tight budget. I have a certain amount of money each week for food.
- We buy only what we need
- We look for sales and use coupons or rebates
- Keep a shopping list
- Shop in ethnic stores and alternative markets for lower prices
- Stretch what we can
- Make everything I can homemade / from scratch.
- We try our best.
I don’t buy in bulk or bulk-shop. I don’t have that much money at ONE TIME anymore - and if I did, I wouldn’t buy in bulk, because I’ve discovered it doesn’t match with my values.
I used to do the “Costco Thing”. The $1200 in a month Costco thing. Cases of BBQ sauce, flats of Macaroni & Cheese, Cola,Frappuccino, a giant box of muffins, gallons and gallons of laundry detergent and fabric softener. 6-Packs of Bathroom Foam Cleaner. 4-Packs of glass cleaner. Bottle of 8 million Tylenol. Twenty pounds of chicken.
For cheap!
Yes you know what I’m talking about. I was right in there.
We’d load up the 5 kids in the mini-van and do a day trip to Costco, completely filling up the van. Oh I still wonder what I was teaching my older children? What a spectacle we must have been unloading into our garage.
The garage freezer overflowing with otter pops for the kids summer ah no wonder our house is the most popular? Go ahead, give them away to ALL your friends. How can 10 cases of Otter Pops go in
just a week? Oh well, they were a great deal! Mom doesn’t care! Look at the wrappers littering the street!
But wow look at all we got, and at what a great price? SO? We spent $1200, in ONE month, on stuff we didn’t NEED that month. It was exhausting.
Now, looking back, I’m embarrassed. What we were doing had FEAR written all over it. Lame.
We weren’t saving money, we were spending money. On junk we didn’t NEED. On stuff that wasn’t even “good” for us.
See, while we liked to think we were doing this to save money, we weren’t. Our value was having enough “stuff” to feel content.
Meanwhile, I got tired of looking at it all. I was running out of ideas for menus. I was haunted by marching bottles of BBQ sauce chanting at me, pressuring me every day to make SOMETHING with BBQ sauce. Something, anything.
“You bought all of me, on sale, you’re going to eat me, little lady!”, it would say.
Oh the guilt. I would ignore the cries in the basement coming from all that “stuff”, what a yucky feeling.
I just wanted to go to the store, I wanted so badly to just get something fresh! I wanted, no, needed to gather for my family, to find a bargain, to experience the THRILL OF THE DEAL. So, my cabinets were cramped, over-flowing with this and that, canned goods stockpiled under the bed, did I feel content and abundant?
NO! I felt completely STAGNANT.
Now I appreciate some emptiness, some space, in the cabinets. I appreciate being off the hook from the pressure of “buying a bunch” just because it’s on sale.
Resisting the feeding frenzy when something is supposed to be a good buy is a very tough thing to do if we really believe we need all that extra. I no longer feel I need it. So for me, it’s easy. I actually appreciate having to work with a small budget - because I get to experience the thrill of the deal - I get to use my wits and my skills to gather and provide for my family using all available resources.
Now, what about the money part? I never worry I’ll “run out” of something. I just don’t. And the big one? Stay out of Costco. I even stay out of Wal-Mart. I don’t need those messages you know?
I feel abundant when I DON’T have an over-flowing pantry and freezer. Why? I feel abundant because there’s room for more in my life and I expect it will come. On sale. At a discount. With a coupon! It works like magic, it happens to me over and over again! I might go “without” for a day or so, right? Right. So? No worries! It will come. And when it does I’ll appreciate it a lot more because it’s there because I need it.
So this is how *I* feel about being frugal. There are lots of ideas and viewpoints, and, well, OPINIONS. The buying in BULK thing doesn’t work *for me* anymore but I do realize it can work for others.
Now I live in the city - I don’t have storage space for bulk purchases, I no longer have a big garden and I no longer have a big freezer, AND I live very close to the markets (walking distance) - and I’m still saving just as much, and eating fresh food. I go to the market a few times a week (walking). I still feel anxiety when I spot a good deal and can’t “stock up” - but it’s easier to resist now that I’m learning that I can STILL be just as frugal on a weekly basis, without buying in bulk. Can you save money by buying in bulk? YES. Can you save money and NOT buy in bulk? YES.
Another Viewpoint:
FindArticles - Buying lots of food? So what?
Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Feb 8, 2008
April 16th, 2008 at 8:44 am
I just stumbled across this post from The Well Fed Network, and I wanted to say, “Right on!” If only the masses would realize that they don’t need all the *stuff* from Costco and Sam’s Club–that eating fresh can also be cheap, if you keep an eye out for good deals and use coupons.
April 16th, 2008 at 10:13 am
We do buy our meat in bulk when it is on sale and use the Seal-a-Meal to re-package it. (even if this means stopping more than once a week as we are driving by) We also buy vegetables in bulk from the farmers market in the summer and freeze it for the winter. Last seasons corn on the cob is a sweet and juicy as the day it was put up last fall and no freezer burn what-so-ever!
Then there is always our own little garden.
April 16th, 2008 at 11:40 am
@Rebecca - Definitely! I canned 20 jars of my own home-grown tomatoes last summer. I used to buy packaged / wrapped meat in bulk once a month from a local butcher. Right now my budget for groceries is such that I can’t spend very much on just one thing - and, I now live in the city. I’m finding out now that I can still save *just as much* by buying fresh, I just have to watch for meat-counter deals all the time and check out alternative markets. I can’t wait for the city’s farmer’s market to start up. At first, I felt “guilty” because I didn’t think it could be done, you know, the guilt of NOT buying and re-packaging. I think I wanted people who read this post to realize it CAN be done, you can still save money if you can’t afford to buy a lot of something at once. The deals come, every week. I feel anxiety when, after years of buying in bulk on a good deal, I spot a great deal and can’t afford to “stock up”. Now I’m feeling better, after having had to spend way less, I’m actually eating just as good, for just as cheap, and I’m not getting anything in bulk. For some just starting out trying to be “more frugal” it’s a good thing to know, it takes some of the pressure off. There are so many factors involved! How often you can go to the markets, what your re-packaging and canning skills and supplies are, how much time you have, and if you have the shelf and freezer space. I have no storage, a small freezer, and I live very close to the shops / markets I can walk to or take the bus. My life is a complete opposite as it was, when I lived in the ‘burbs or out in the country, had garage and basement shelving systems, a large garden, my own laying flock of chickens, a giant chest freezer. I’m enjoying the city for what it has to offer - and am finding out for the first time, it’s totally possible to be just as frugal! I can’t save money at Costco, though. I just can’t. I stay far away, haha! Sorry I just realized this is so long it could be a whole new entire post. Oh well. I’m very wordy - thanks so much for adding your tips, Rebecca!!
May 29th, 2008 at 7:25 am
You can save money by only buying what you use.
It is logical to buy in bulk what you use in bulk. And what you use sparingly? Either buy it singly, or purchase with a group and split it.
In any case, the key is to only buy what you need. Costco is well engineered to help people leave the store with things they don’t need. That’s why their best-selling item is at the very back of the store - so every person who is there to buy 36 rolls of toilet paper is forced to see every other “bargain” they could add to their cart. But in the end, what you don’t need is never a bargain.