Week 11: Buy in bulk when possible

I'm always on the lookout for ways to save money on our food bill.  I don't want to sacrifice quality, but I want to get the most I can with my food dollar.  Buying in bulk can do just that.  This past Saturday I visited a local Dutch Bakery and picked up a few items that I hope will last 2-3 months.  I purchased 50 pounds of Wheat Montana Prairie Gold Whole White Wheat, 50 pounds of old fashioned oats and 50 pounds of Wholesome Sweeteners Evaporated Cane Juice (a little healthier sugar).  Those were the big things.  Then I also got 5 pounds of brown rice, a pound of steel cut oats (to try, if they work for our family, I'll buy the 50 pound bag of them next time), a brown and wild rice mix (no seasonings, just the rice), 1 pound of raw sunflower seeds, 32 ounces of pure maple syrup and some chocolate turtles (a healthy lifestyle is a work in progress).  My total came to right around $122 and I'm thinking that while I might have to buy more flour in a couple months, the oats and sugar should last 4 months or more.  I'll keep track of how long it takes me to use everything. 

My ulitmate goal would be to have a rotating stock of bulk quantity items so that each month I may spend $50 to build up what I'm getting low on.  I would eventually like to keep 20+ pounds of brown rice, pinto beans, flour, sugar, and oats on hand at all times and smaller quantities of a few varieties of beans, wheat germ, seeds and nuts, etc.  If I did this consistently and also purchased our meat direct from the farmer and had it locally processed, I can see our overall grocery bill dropping considerably while maintaining, or even increasing, the quality of our food. 

The bags lasted in my kitchen about 3 hours before I tore into them and started cooking.  I have already blogged about the 100% whole wheat bread that I made (delicious!).  Last night I made squash mini muffins, and chocolate chip cookies.  This morning I made a batch of whole wheat waffles and honey wheat bagels.  Everything has turned out very tasty and I'm excited to share the recipes with you!