Today was my day to head into the city for our monthly stock up shop at Costco. Another city stock up shop was done just a few days ago.
Normally, when I do a Costco trip, Costco is my only stop of the day. My husband was running low on distilled water for his CPAP humidifier, though, and Costco doesn’t have that, so I this time I made a stop at a nearby Walmart.
I did the Walmart trip first, since there would not be anything that needed refrigerating. It was also my breakfast stop, at the in-store McDonalds, since Costco no longer has food in their cafeteria that I can eat, or like.
Gosh, I miss their Montreal Smoked Meat sandwiches!
Of course, while in Walmart, I looked around for other things that we might need. Including a small donation, this is what $62.99 looks like.
The items on my list were the water bottles for my husband, and the pumpkin seeds to grind into powder and include with the cat’s food.
I remembered that I needed a new notebook. The one I’m using now to keep track of our budget is on its last page.
The New England Clam Chowder was on sale for $2.97 each. These days, those are usually around $5 each, depending on the store, so I got that for the pantry as a treat. I also grabbed a refill of liquid soap for the bathroom, plus some laundry detergent that was at a better-than-Costco sale price.
That’s it.
This didn’t even half fill one of my hard sides bags (not counting the large containers, of course).
Then it was off to Costco.
The first thing I did there was fill up the tank and reset my trip mileage counter. Most of the city was at $1.249/L, but Costco was $1.179/L, so it cost me $48.44 to fill my tank.
Doing Costco on a weekend can be pretty hectic, but today wasn’t too bad. Just the usual trying to maneuver a flat cart around people who think I can stop instantly, or turn on a dime. 🫤
I had hoped to keep the total down but, even with not getting some things I normally would get, I spent more than I intended to.
Remember when beef stew meat was the cheap meat?
This was not one of the larger packages, either. We used to get stew meat at Costco all the time, but just can’t afford it anymore. The price has pretty much doubled in the last few years.
This is what $711.89 looks like.
I got only three bags of kibble this time, buried under other items.
There were a few things that were still priced all right, and I stocked up. The flour tortillas, for example, are still $9.99 a package. I also got two, 2 pks of rye bread.
I got a case of water bottles; that has gone up in price, but it still cheaper than elsewhere. We don’t use bottled water a lot, but it does come in handy for in the truck. There’s a 30 pack of Coke Zero that is a better price than elsewhere, too.
For the pantry, there is a large pack of ramen noodles and a 9 pack of baked beans. Those have certainly gone up in price.
There’s two cases of canned cat food and three bags of kibble – I’ll be getting more kibble for the outside cats from the feed store, so this is mostly for the inside cats.
There’s toilet paper, of course.
There is a double flat of eggs (60 eggs) that I think has gone up in price since last time. For meat, I got a pork loin that was on sale, and a chub of ground beef, which was slightly cheaper/kg than the family packs. There’s a pork blade roast – pork is still reasonably priced – and a panini pack of sandwich meats. I also got 2 rotisserie chickens, as they are cheaper than buying uncooked chicken.
Their salad mixes are a much better price than elsewhere, so I got a couple of their double packs in two different mixes; Asian Cashew and Mexican Corn salad.
There’s 5 pounds of butter, plus avocado oil and sunflower oil, one liter of whipping cream, marble cheddar, extra old cheddar, frozen perogies, the Kirkland brand of mayonnaise, a big container of popping corn, plus some vitamins; gummie multi vitamins and B12. I also picked up a package of the clear leaf bags that we use for our recycling. Last of all, AA and AAA batteries. I got the Kirlkand brand, because the usual Duracell ones were just too expensive.
In total, there are 46 items for that $700 plus.
Altogether, including gas and breakfast, today was an $843, plus change, day.
Ouch.
Thank God my husband’s private insurance disability payments are as good as they are. We can juggle the numbers and make things work, still. Others are not so fortunate, so we are grateful for what we have, and to still be able to get a few non-essentials as “treats”.
And feed the cats, inside and out. I’ll be honest; things would be a lot better if we weren’t feeding so many cats. The rescue has helped so much in getting them adopted out, but we’re reaching a point where we need to seriously consider culling some of the outside cats. Particularly any we aren’t able to catch to get spayed or neutered. Even with the inside cats, we’ve been trying to adopt some of them out for years. Ginger and Toni, our two tripods, were supposed to be taken for adoption almost a year ago, and that hasn’t panned out, as sick or injured cats took priority.
We’ll figure it out, of course. It’s just getting harder to manage.
I can’t even imagine how much the Cat Lady and her family spend on their cats. They’ve taken in so many that are not adoptable, mostly for health reasons. Between special cat foods, medications and vet bills, it must get insane, and yet they still try to help us out, too! They are just awesome.
But I digress.
I’m happy to have been able to do our second stock up shop today. We’ll be good for quite a while, now. 😊
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 