My Costco Monthly Shopping Trip Experiment
A Thoroughly Honest Review of What I Did Right, And What I Did Wrong
I recently got gung-ho about getting the most out of our Costco membership. I’ve always been a fan of the Kirkland Signature diapers (read: essentially Huggies but less spendy) and eye the cheese fridge with hungry desire every time I go. So. Much. Brie.
After reading a few posts online about others who have attempted to do a once-monthly shopping trip to Costco, I decided to attempt the same. We have cleaners who come every other Tuesday, so I regularly find myself needing to get of the house for a few hours with the baby when they arrive. Costco is a great place to hang while they do their thing.
So here’s how I did it.
First, I did a preliminary price-comparison visit. (Yes, I risked being caught taking pictures in Costco! The audacity!) Essentially everything I compared was less expensive per ounce at Costco, sometimes by quite a bit. You just have to lean into the fact that you’ll need to use up a ginormous bag of broccoli before it goes bad/have a spot to store like twenty packs of graham crackers. And children who will eat all those graham crackers. Which, I do. Here’s the link to the spreadsheet I put together if you want to view the cost comparisons in more detail. I’m hoping to update it with more pantry staples soon.
About the cost of milk: one thing I learned after complaining to my brother-in-law about the fact that milk is actually cheaper at regular grocery stores is that Costco’s milk is ultra-high pasteurized. It comes in refrigerated three-packs, but it’s actually completely shelf-stable. That fact made the slightly higher cost worth it to me. Pennies more to never have to worry about running out of milk? Sign me up.
After that, I was ready to shop, baby! I made a list of groceries and emptied out my van.
And then proceeded to hyperventilate my way through the shopping experience. Extra-fancy mixed nuts? Sure, add three packs. We eat tons of nuts. Milk? Of course. Brussels sprouts, mangoes, spinach, power greens, baby carrots, “Peter Rabbit” carrots…in, in, in.
I was fairly certain I wasn’t leaving there under $700. There was a lot of meat and cheese in that cart. I winced as each item was scanned. Then the total came and I was floored: I’d only ended up spending around $450 for the entire dang cart. (Which, of course I didn’t take a picture of or write down the list of what I purchased. A month ago, I didn’t even know I was going to be starting Emily’s Notebook. Impulsive much?) $450 sounds like a lot, but for a month of groceries? Peanuts. Satisfied, I got myself a Latte Freeze, toted everything home, and got ready to get creative.
A month in, and I have more insight on the entire experiment. I was going to break this down into what I did right vs. what I did wrong, but actually, within each category of food I did things right AND wrong. So here’s the summary for everything.
Fruit. Costco has pretty good fruit. I’ve been such a fan of their mangos and nectarines the past couple months. So that’s what I did right. Their frozen fruit is also great, too.
As for the less-great: I haven’t really found a great selection of apples. I got some giant honeycrisps, but my kids take like three bites and abandon them, and for myself I prefer granny smith apples. The raspberries I got were great to begin with, but got moldy before we could finish them. And we go through raspberries fast. The bananas are always a mixed bag. I’ve found that they look extra green (I like them juuuust on the verge of unripe) but then develop spots before they get more yellow. It’s confusing. And I don’t like it. Luckily with bananas I can freeze them for smoothies. Also, I got a bag of lemons and couldn’t fit it into the fridge, so I left it in the pantry and half the bag went moldy before I could use them. So that’s a mistake I won’t repeat.
That said, I may try other citrus fruits next time. I guess the biggest con of buying fruit on the monthly trip is that then you have a TON of fruit to get through before it all goes bad a week later. Then you’re left with no fruit the rest of the month.
Veggies. The great news here is that I’ve found that most Costco vegetables last a really long time in the fridge. I got a giant pack of Brussels sprouts and didn’t even open them until August hit (this was a July experiment), and they were still pristine. Mushrooms are mushrooms, but I was surprised that I was able to use them three weeks in and only throw out a handful of icky ones.
Buuuut some things just didn’t last. I hate food waste, and I had to throw out half a package of green beans because they’d developed a milky slime. The broccoli seemed brown almost from the start (though I still cooked with it and it always tasted fine). A personally dumb thing I won’t do again is bought two different-yet-similar types of greens — spinach and Power Greens. Both are the type I would cook down, but I never got around to cooking down the Power Greens and they’re still in my fridge waiting for me to decide if I want to try and pick the gross leaves out or just trash the whole thing.
The selection, obviously, isn’t as great as in a regular grocery store. I’ve really gotten into okra the past couple weeks, but that’s something I’ve had to go to Smith’s for. Fresh herbs, too, are out. And if you want garlic you have to settle for an econo-bag of bulbs. I can barely have three in the house at a time before they start sprouting, so that was a no from me.
Also, fridge space, y’all. I found myself panicking when I finally got everything home. So unless you happen to have a second fridge in the garage or something, really consider where you’re going to put everything before you load up.
Dairy. Honestly, no real cons here yet. Like I said before, the milk can be stashed in a pantry. I got a lovely Wensleydale with honey and lemon that I snacked on with tea every morning until I got tired of it. So maybe that’s the con. It’s a lot of cheese, if you go for the cheese. But it doesn’t really go bad, so that’s great.
If we’re counting eggs as dairy (oh, why not?), the only error was buying one 24-pack of eggs. That was gone in two weeks. Yikes.
Meat. You really can’t go wrong here. The meat is great, and if you own a deep freeze (we do, thankfully) it stores indefinitely.
The biggest mistake I made was not accounting for how much of certain types of meat I wanted. I only bought one package of shrimp and cooked it all up into one dish the first week. Which meant no more shrimp the rest of the month. Pork chops, too. I want more pork chops in my life, man! I overestimated the amount of chicken we would eat, but that’s a-okay. My meat expenditure will carry over for the next few months, and cut into grocery bills in the long run.
Pantry. This stuff is up to you. I try not to go crazy with packaged items, but it does make for really easy church snack prep. Jordan Page of Fun Cheap or Free has a great tip for packaged food (which my children are always “hungry! hungry!” for, to the point that it detracts from actual meals): anything that comes in a package has to be eaten outside the house. So, no single-serve goldfish packs when you’re lounging at home. Make Mom pop a bowl of popcorn instead. Or grab some carrots and a pat of butter (Ambrose’s favorite carrot accompaniment).
In Summary
I guess all this is to say, it was an interesting experiment, but next time (read: this month) I’ll tweak it. For most fruits and vegetables I’ll stick with weekly trips to Smith’s. I just can’t handle the fridge being jam-packed full of produce. I aspire to be a spur-of-the-moment household chef, but in reality, I prefer having a plan for everything so as to avoid food waste as much as humanly possible.
This month I’m trying a new experiment to keep our grocery budget down, which I call: STICK TO THE GOSH DARNED BUDGET AND DON’T IMPULSE SHOP, EM! Honestly. I’ll write a post at the beginning of September to let you all know how it goes.
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