Grocery Shopping With Brother At Costco

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Not long ago I met up with my brother. After visiting awhile we ended up going grocery shopping at Costco. I told my brother my budget was $174. I grabbed a cart and we headed into the store. When the cart was about half full my brother asked, “Are you going over your budget?” I looked in the cart and said, “No. I can buy more stuff.” I rolled the cart around putting more in. “Are you sure you haven’t gone over your budget?” My brother asked after I put in a few more items. Again, I looked at what was in my cart. “Yes, I’m positive I haven’t gone over my budget.” I put more items in the cart. “Are you–well, I guess you’ve done this enough times you know how much you can buy,” my brother said. I grabbed more items and had the cart filled. As I rolled up to the cashier and she started to ring up what I had I could see from the look on my brother’s face he was expecting I had gone way over my budget. When she was done my total was $141 and change. “Huh,” my brother said. “Is that all it was? I thought for sure you had gone way over your budget.” I told my brother since most things in Costco is sold in quantity (you can’t buy just a can of soup–you have to buy a case) that I figure ten dollars for each grocery item I put in the cart. Some things will be less than ten dollars and some will be more. Almost every time I’m under what I have budgeted. Of course this will not work if I’m also buying things like sheets or clothing but for grocery items it a good judge of how much I’m spending. I live by myself so I have to be careful what I buy so not to buy something that will go bad before I use it. For meat, I divide it up and put it in FoodSaver bags and freeze it. I buy the big block of cheese and cut it into thirds and put them in FoodSaver bags and freeze them. According to America’s Test Kitchen cheese can be kept in the freezer for three months. Also, according to ATK, eggs will keep for three months in the back of the refrigerator. (I have a friend who raises chickens who tells me they will last even longer than that.) I like buying canned things since the used by date is anywhere from one year to three years. Canned fish such as tuna or salmon have a used by date of about three years from the day it was canned. The used by date on milk at Costco is usually a month away (and milk is usually good a few days after the used by date). I also buy canned milk for cooking and save the fresh milk for drinking. In a way I’m glad my brother was with me because he once told me he thought I wouldn’t get the bang for my buck (the buying power) at Costco that I would elsewhere.