How-do Peeps!
I’ve been thinking about re-stocking the pantry for a while, but I like to do my research first.
I was watching a YouTube grocery haul/meal planning video (or 5) and they bought a lot of stuff in bulk…like huge table sauces and such, so I thought it was worth investigating.
I had a look at a couple of wholesale websites and a local place to try to price up some non-perishable/long-life things I could store away.
Everyone always says bulk is cheaper, but I didn’t find it to be that way!
I’ll take ketchup as an example, but I researched several items to check it was true across the board:
There are 2 bulk-buy options, either buy a case (like a card tray with 6-12 normal sized bottles on) or buy one mahoosive bottle and decant what you need.
I expect you can guess that the one large bottle is usually the cheaper (although that wasn’t true of milkshake as a case was on special)… it makes sense as it has less packaging and can be a generic brand (cases seem to be known brands).
The huge bottle of (generic catering) ketchup was equivalent to 6 bottles of our regular ketchup and £3.29…. would be a great deal if you’re used to buying branded stuff. However, our Sainsbury’s basics ketchup is only 45p per unit. If I wanted 6 times the amount of ketchup to keep stocked up, then 6 bottles would only cost me £2.70.
Admittedly 59p over a couple of months isn’t a massive saving, but that’s on just one item. Furthermore, small kids or elderly relatives couldn’t pour that big bottle, so I’d need something to dispense it from and either a delivery cost or petrol to go and retrieve it from the wholesaler.
So if you want to buy bulk, do your research. I found that on almost all the items (I think there was one exception in the pasta/rice category) it’s cheaper for me to buy the same weight of stuff in the basics brand I usually buy.
Just thought I’d share, please don’t assume you will be in the same position because you might live near a different set of stores, but be vigilant when you compare prices.
Happy scrimping!
Anna x
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash
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