Tuesday Timesavers: Warehouse Shopping

Welcome to this week's edition of Tuesday Timesavers - helping busy mom bloggers everywhere save time each week!

This week, I'll be talking about Warehouse Shopping. I am a big, big fan of warehouse stores such as Costco (where I have a membership), BJ's, and Sam's Club. I love them not just for their money-saving potential, but for their time-saving potential as well!

If you're going to shop the warehouse stores, though, you have to do it right - otherwise you'll be shelling out a lot of money on big packages of things that will eventually go to waste. If you think of shopping at the warehouse store not as an alternative to grocery shopping, but as an aid to grocery shopping, you'll be in good shape.

For example, at the warehouse store, I pick up big boxes of the staples we use all the time, and easily-preservable perishable items.

For example, the items I might buy at Costco (monthly) over Albertsons or Publix include:

• Shampoo and Conditioner


• Granola Bars (or 100 calorie packs, or any other type of snack)


• Soap


• Pasta and Pasta Sauce


• Frozen Lunches (our Costco carries both Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine)


• Diapers (Costco's brand diapers are amazing, and at under 18 cents a piece, are so worth it)


• Wipes (Again, Costco's brand is great and saves money over buying brand-names)


• Formula (TWO cans of Costco-brand formula for under $20...that's less than $10 a can!)


• Ground beef/turkey/chicken (refrigerate a few portions, freeze the rest)


• Milk (they still sell Milk by the gallon, but it's cheaper than the grocery store)


• Toothpaste


• Animal Crackers (one of Angelica's favorite snacks - Costco sells organic animal crackers under their store brand)


• Cereal (two boxes of Cheerios for a grand total of $4.99 versus $3.50 a box at the grocery store)


• Frozen fruit/vegetables

Doing a 45 minute Costco run monthly saves me time in that instead of making weekly trips to the grocery store, spending an hour or so each time, I usually only need to go two or three times a month to replenish the staples.

At the grocery store, I usually buy:

• Fresh Fruit/Vegetables for salads


• Bread (Though larger families may benefit from buying bread at Costco - the three of us just don't eat it fast enough and it gets moldy).


• Milk (if we run out of the gallon from Costco)


• Yogurt


• Soda (our store brand's soda - diet, of course - is good and very inexpensive)


• Juice


• Eggs

Of course, this isn't the entire shopping list - but it covers the staples and I fill in the gaps where needed.

I hope this is helpful information!

Got a suggestion for Tuesday Timesavers? Comment on this post, or email andrea@minuteformom.com.