What foods do you personally buy in bulk & where do you buy them?
Has anyone found any online sources that are worth the cost of shipping*?
Right now all we are buying in bulk is rice (30# for about $20 if I remember correctly), from a local store. We also have a Hispanic store a little farther away that we haven't tried looking at yet.
*By 'worth the cost' I mean 'you have bought from them, and would do again'
Sources for Bulk Foods
Re: Sources for Bulk Foods
Minced garlic, ginger paste, olive oil, canola oil, ghee, table salt, black pepper, vinegar, canned diced tomatoes, basmati rice, all-purpose flour, carrots, yellow onions, russet potatoes, and whole chickens.
I buy these primarily from Costco, but some non-membership big box stores are in my rotation too (Smart & Final, Food 4 Less, and Persian, Korean, and Mexican supermarkets). The latter are a compromise between Costco and a regular grocery store, in terms of the package size / unit price tradeoff.
For a while I bought dry lentils and pinto beans in bulk too, but we started to find that monotonous. Now I rotate through ten (?) varieties and buy them 1 lb at a time.
So far I haven't found any online sources that seem worth it, although dry dog food can be bought economically online.
I buy these primarily from Costco, but some non-membership big box stores are in my rotation too (Smart & Final, Food 4 Less, and Persian, Korean, and Mexican supermarkets). The latter are a compromise between Costco and a regular grocery store, in terms of the package size / unit price tradeoff.
For a while I bought dry lentils and pinto beans in bulk too, but we started to find that monotonous. Now I rotate through ten (?) varieties and buy them 1 lb at a time.
So far I haven't found any online sources that seem worth it, although dry dog food can be bought economically online.
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jacob
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Re: Sources for Bulk Foods
Six things: Flour, sugar, black beans, pinto beans, rice, sushi rice. Usually bought in bags from 5-20lbs at the "Mexican" stores(*). Stored in 5gal gamma seal buckets. It's a very convenient system. If something begins to run low, we just fill the bucket up again.
(*) These are really just the regular small supermarket chains (of 3-5 stores each) around here. I think they all source from the same distributor since they usually all have more of less the same things on sale. I think we naturally end up in the "cosmopolitan" stores because we cook from scratch and don't eat a ton of meat, so stores like Kroger aren't very useful in our case.
We usually have 15-25 cans of tomatoes and 5lbs of onions around at all times. Various other random cans. Smaller containers with a few pounds of less used beans (e.g. white, navy, kidney, brown, chickpeas). When something like ketchup or olives are on sale, we buy 3-4 bottles of it. Everything is on shelves in the kitchen. It's a pretty easy system. Chicken, etc. goes in the freezer. Also oil in "gas cans" ... and then just refill the counter bottle from that.
The shelf system pretty much functions as our own little supermarket---and almost everything in it was bought on sale.
There's very little "bulk buying" rather it's "buy a bunch whenever it's on sale". Add some vegetables on top of the base above and that's it.
(*) These are really just the regular small supermarket chains (of 3-5 stores each) around here. I think they all source from the same distributor since they usually all have more of less the same things on sale. I think we naturally end up in the "cosmopolitan" stores because we cook from scratch and don't eat a ton of meat, so stores like Kroger aren't very useful in our case.
We usually have 15-25 cans of tomatoes and 5lbs of onions around at all times. Various other random cans. Smaller containers with a few pounds of less used beans (e.g. white, navy, kidney, brown, chickpeas). When something like ketchup or olives are on sale, we buy 3-4 bottles of it. Everything is on shelves in the kitchen. It's a pretty easy system. Chicken, etc. goes in the freezer. Also oil in "gas cans" ... and then just refill the counter bottle from that.
The shelf system pretty much functions as our own little supermarket---and almost everything in it was bought on sale.
There's very little "bulk buying" rather it's "buy a bunch whenever it's on sale". Add some vegetables on top of the base above and that's it.
Re: Sources for Bulk Foods
We buy pintos in #25 bags, lentils and brown rice in 5-10# bags (don't eat enough to go through it faster than that), and flour in a 50# bag (just recently found it for 50# for $5 or ~25# for $4 at our local Smart and Final--figure we may have some spoil but almost certainly will get more than 1 extra dollar's worth out of it). We buy garbanzo beans, white beans, whole wheat flour, and oats by the pound from smart and final because we can't find true "bulk" packages that are actually cheaper. We usually pay $0.65 a pound for these. They semi-regularly have 10# sacks of potatoes for $1 or $1.50, which we buy.
We buy our green veggies frozen (except for lettuce) for $1.50 a pound or less.
We buy strawberries, bananas, bell peppers, onions, etc., at the grocery store or trader joe's. Some of these go on sale for cheap, but a lot of them don't and it's just important to choose which store to buy from. TJ's has the cheapest bananas and strawberries, Lucky has the cheapest bell pepps when they're on sale, etc.
QUICK EDIT:
Our costco used to be our source for most veggies, as well, but they've switched to a new buyer or something and have raised prices on most of our staples by ~60% as they transition to a more organic produce aisle. I don't buy organic, so we've had to go elsewhere.
We buy our green veggies frozen (except for lettuce) for $1.50 a pound or less.
We buy strawberries, bananas, bell peppers, onions, etc., at the grocery store or trader joe's. Some of these go on sale for cheap, but a lot of them don't and it's just important to choose which store to buy from. TJ's has the cheapest bananas and strawberries, Lucky has the cheapest bell pepps when they're on sale, etc.
QUICK EDIT:
Our costco used to be our source for most veggies, as well, but they've switched to a new buyer or something and have raised prices on most of our staples by ~60% as they transition to a more organic produce aisle. I don't buy organic, so we've had to go elsewhere.
Re: Sources for Bulk Foods
I've found Aldi close enough to bulk prices that I gave up on buying bulk. Twenty cents extra for a pound of beans just doesn't register on my budget.
The one exception I make is 10lb boxes of unflavored whey protein isolate, from supplementwarehouse.com. I like to eat more protein than I reliably get from my vegetarian diet, whey concentrate gives me gas, and soy protein tastes terrible. I usually pay around $100 a box. Isolate would be outside my price range otherwise.
The one exception I make is 10lb boxes of unflavored whey protein isolate, from supplementwarehouse.com. I like to eat more protein than I reliably get from my vegetarian diet, whey concentrate gives me gas, and soy protein tastes terrible. I usually pay around $100 a box. Isolate would be outside my price range otherwise.