Do you like my orchids? Bill stood in the long Valentine’s Day line at the flower shop in the Amish Market to get these for me. They are my preferred cut flowers because they generally last at least three weeks if you change the water and trim the stems. Normally I would keep them in the living room, but I never sit in the living room. Most of my time is spent in my bedroom so that’s where I’m keeping them. I have also been known to carry my flowers from room to room with me for maximum enjoyment. At any rate, I am enjoying them in my bedroom.

Bill went to Costco to pick up a few things that I needed. I even had two Costco $2 coupons for extra savings! As I was looking at the receipt, I got curious to see how much the items would cost me at the grocery store (Giant) and Target. Our membership expires at the end of the month and Bill assumed we would renew it, but decided to hold off pending the outcome of my experiment.

A couple of things to note. These are things that I use regularly so buying in bulk is worthwhile. I am also trying to compare similar quantities/amounts so we’re looking at apples to apples. The experiment does NOT take into account my coupons which would have lowered the Costco price by $4. This is also pre-tax. Here’s the results:

I feel like I have to make a note on the cereal. The Costco box is 70 ounces. A regular box of cereal at the Target and Giant is 18 ounces. I went with buying three boxes or regular cereal (54 ounces) because when I was doing this in my head late last night I came up with the comparison being three and a half boxes of cereal. In hindsight I should have done the calculation on 4 boxes of regular cereal (72 ounces). Which would have shown even more savings. I digress.

So the verdict is that Costco is the best option for me. This might not be the case if you are a great sale shopper. My dad shops the sales and can often beat the Costco price. But he’s retired and generally has a little more free time than I do. And again, I reiterate that these were things that I needed (ok, I didn’t actually NEED vitamin water, but I do drink it and I was out so it was going to get purchased anyway) and that I use/eat a lot.

It was a fun experiment. I’m curious to try it for a few other things like chicken breast, ground beef, orange juice, toilet paper and possibly soy milk. Oh, and M&Ms and chocolate covered raisens. Yeah, I so need those last two things…