(PS I should thank my sister for all of these wonderful things she taught me from having her family of four in a 300 sq foot FEMA Camper for a little over a year!)

We will buy bulk, separate immediately into smaller portions before we freeze, date and rotate stock, and specifically plan our meals according to what is on top (i.e. what needs to be used first).

As for a tip for what you can save on: it is USUALLY the case that items bought in bulk will be cheaper by the unit price if they are on one larger container than a few smaller ones. (i.e.: 30 snack sized bags of chips will still cost more per ounce if they are individually bagged than one very large bag which, if stored properly (vacuum bagged, etc) can be broken down into snack sized bags for kid lunches or individual portions because you are not paying for all the individual packing) This tends to be true for most products of the like; it tends to make your search easier if you know what to expect to be cheaper by the unit and therefore better in bulk.

Luckily we don’t have to compromise our health with poor food ingredients and additives since my local Costco carries a great range of all-natural and organic items that fit well with our lifestyle.

For fabric softener I use white vinegar (1/2 cup to a load). White vinegar also works for a hair rinse. I make my own laundry detergent, easy to make and a huge savings and no perfume smells left in my clothing.

As for hair spray and other perfumed grooming aids, people should think about folks who are allergic to all these things. I can’t even walk down the detergent aisle of a store without sneezing. We have a strange idea about what is good grooming, at least in the U.S.

If you have a baby use cloth diapers. I don’t see how anyone can afford the cost of disposables, and they are so bad for the environment. I work at a nursing home where we use adult disposable diapers (1 dumpster full per shift!) Not only do they smell, fill the earth with waste, they cause diaper rash, even on adults. One lucky resident has cloth diapers, and her skin is in wonderful condition.

I guess my only bulk items are produced in my garden.

Storage is the biggest problem for us in buying in bulk. We just don’t have the space to store more than a couple things in bulk. We do toilet paper towels and rice. That’s pretty much it.

Our chest freezer is filled with both free and bulk-bought food.

It helps to repackage bulk meat into smaller portions using heavy plastic like with the FoodSaver to avoid freezer burn.

We put milled grains like flour into it for a couple of days to kill any bugs.

We have had homemade applesauce, frozen blueberries, pumpkin puree – all of which were fine after spending over a year at -20F.

There is very little processing needed to prepare foods to be frozen versus canning.

In our chest freezer, food has remained frozen for more than a day even after the power failed (the same can’t be said for the typical kitchen fridge/freezer combo)

And chest freezers use so little power a small portable generator would easily keep them functioning.

>So work the bulk buy angle for only those items that will be consumed within the next month to 2/3 months

That said, we have a million cans of refried beans, low-fat chili, and our favorite soup for casseroles, bought when they were on sale. And we always buy the big packs of toilet paper, laundry detergent, hand soap, dish soap, vitamins, vinegar, and paper towels.

There are also a few items we buy in “bulk,” meaning hand-scooped out of containers, that we don’t get too much of at one time. One jar’s worth of spices or peanut butter, one cannister’s worth of whole wheat pastry flour, one week’s worth of instant hummus mix, etc., so they don’t go bad.