Budget. Fail.

This weekend drove me on a wild adventure...to Costco! My friend, Mary, has a Costco membership and was kind enough to let me use her membership and take a shopping adventure to see if I can save some money for food.

Me and my giant cart!

Costco was super cool and I found a lot of items where I could REALLY save some money! For instance, fish oil and multivitamins. I bought these giant bottles of fish oil and multivitamins. They were about $10.00 a piece. However, I will not have to buy more vitamins or fish oil for over a year! If we average it out as well, you see how little you actually pay! My multivitamins cost $11.75 for 500 pills. That is  about $.02 per vitamin! Fish oil is $8.99 for 400. That is also only $.02 per pill. That is cheap! I think I came away with quite a good deal!

Other things I purchased included spinach (bulk - I've been going through a lot of that lately with the new life eating changes), limes, almond milk (bigger half gallons that I believe should last me through August), quinoa, frozen berries for smoothies, avocados, toilet paper and agave syrup. My total bill was $166.00!! I was shocked, I bet my jaw dropped! However, I do have to look at this as an investment. Toilet paper - 36 rolls! I think it has taken me about 2 months to get through the 18 rolls that I had. Four months and no having to buy TP? I think that more than makes up for it. Quinoa, won't have to buy that for a while. I'm interested to see how long the frozen berries will last me. I've been making lots of things with berries but I think that this should hold out a while and may be cheaper than having to buy bag after bag of frozen berries. I also bought a HUGE bag of chicken. This should last me for quite a while and I won't have to keep making trips to the grocery store. My hope is that this will all even out and that it was in fact,  a wise investment. Over this month it will help me to better judge if I made a good investment or not. Despite going over my budget, I believe the products that I chose will last and I will be able to utilize them before they go bad. Next month, I may spend much less due to these bulk purchases!

My giant bag of lettuce!

Grocery cart with only SOME of my items!

Protein powder in bulk! I'll be hitting this up when I've finished my container at home!

Giant box of strawberries that Mary and I split.

Do you shop in bulk to save money? Do you find it as a wise investment? How much money do you think you save? What items have you found are worthwhile and which ones aren't?