News flash: do the math, and buying in bulk doesn't save money

A Christian Science Monitor article on bulk warehouse food shopping explains the obvious concept that, if you buy more than you really need, but then you consume it faster (or let a portion of it spoil), then you're not saving any money. The article brings up two further points I'd like to highlight:

Often, prices are cheaper per unit at warehouse clubs, [Clarkson University Professor Larry Compeau] says. But they aren't always less, and customers may overspend because it's difficult to comparison shop between wholesale clubs and regular grocery stores.

Some stores reveal price per unit in terms of ounces, while others in pounds, or even by package. Going between grocery store and warehouse club "takes effort, and unless you have a photographic memory, memorizing even the dozen products you buy most often is a significant task. And if you can't remember it, you have to write the product price down at one store before you go shopping in another," he says.

Keeping a notebook of prices is a well-known and very effective frugal strategy. I don't keep one myself, because I find that, between the four grocery stores I can walk to, I can remember which one has the best produce and which one sells my toothpaste cheapest.

I think Compeau in the article there is referring to convenience foods (boxed macaroni and cheese, baking mixes, frozen dinners, bagged salads, etc.), frou-frou cleaning products (stuff above and beyond your basic ammonia, bleach, vinegar, scouring powder, cheap dish soap, and sponges), and other things I can't think of because I'm such an atypical consumer. I mean, I had to get something at KMart a few days ago -- only place in Center City where I can get a mattress pad and similar housewares -- and it's weird to me to see the aisles upon aisles of stuff that either I never, ever buy, or I never buy new. Scented candles, cases of blue sodapop, canned cheese, bubble bath, food storage bags, junk food and cookies, etc.

Though I admit I do buy cookies once in a while. It's more satisfying than I care to admit that Nestlé did not change the recipe for LU cookies when they bought the brand recently. As for McCormick when they bought Old Bay Seasoning from the Old Baltimore Spice Co. sometime in the 1990s: -shakes fist- Damn youuuu!

Anyway, my point is that, once you quit buying things you don't really need, and then move from name brand stuff to generic stuff, and then move from convenience foods to making foods from scratch, you don't need a bulk warehouse any more. You will automatically save money on your weekly groceries. The groceries that are "cheaper" at a bulk warehouse are almost solely name-brand convenience and junk foods.

And meats, from what I understand. The impression I get is that you can save a bundle on good cuts of meat at bulk warehouses, especially if you have a deep-freeze. But for myself, I went vegetarian in the early 1990s and started eating fish again only a few years ago. My local supermarket sells canned tuna at a deep discount a few times a year, so I buy a dozen cans when I spot the sale. While I'm certain that a bulk warehouse does better than that price as a rule -- unless it's only for the larger cans, which I don't use -- I can't otherwise justify a trip to the closest bulk warehouse.

Can I get a wild Alaskan salmon steak at the closest warehouse store? I'll do that as a treat for myself or guests once or twice a year. I wonder if they sell wild salmon or only the artificially colored farmed Atlantic salmon. But to continue:

Buying in bulk isn't always a bad idea, Compeau says. Shoppers probably won't roll through toilet paper any faster whether they have 30 rolls on hand or five. But overbuying food products often creates a different outcome.

"If you buy cases of soda, you're more likely to consume it faster than if you only have a six-pack," he says, adding that people consume a bounty of food more quickly than if they must conserve the same food product.

And this is why you should be able to buy beer by the six-pack in Pennsylvania, rather than having to get it a case at a time at a distributor. If I have six bottles of Rowhouse Red in the fridge, I'll have one with dinner. If I have a case of Kenzinger, though, I'll have two with dinner, a third while my daughter is taking her shower, and a fourth that makes me pass out before her bedtime.

'Cause I like Kenzinger a little better. It sure does taste good on a hot summer afternoon when I have to console myself at having blown almost all of my weekly food budget on farmer's market produce, and when I get maudlin about how nowadays Old Bay doesn't taste as good as it used to.