Buying in Bulk: Part 1

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Today I begin to plan my bulk shopping trip, for many people this is easy, but for me it's pivotal I do it correctly. Our storage space is more then limited, our budget is low, and the opportunity to shop at the bulk stores are few and far between.

One of the great disadvantages of living in Spain is that conveniences I was used to back in the US are not so convenient here. Most of the stores good for large savings are quite a distance from where we live, and not owning a car in the city makes sense, until you want to shop in bulk. So we rely on the kindness of family to hitch a ride, gasoline was over 3 euros a liter (thats over 18 US dollars a gallon) last I looked, so we make the most out of these trips.

So how do we utilize this golden opportunity? I will need to break down what I need in to stages.

The first stage will be assessing what I need, and what is worth to buy in bulk and what will surely be a waist of money.

The second stage will be deciding what I can afford, what is a savings over local markets, and what i can fit. Like I said storage space in my flat is extremely limited. Then we have to be able to fit it all in one care with 4 people and their bulk shopping items.

I will break down each section in the next two days, as I need to take the rest of today to actually do it... wish me luck!