Buying in bulk

[Hibernatalie]

Hello! We are spending too much on groceries and I'm thinking that buying in bulk could be a good way to save.

I've just seen a Muscle Foods deal which looks like good value, and I have subscribed to Who Gives a Crap for toilet paper.

Can anyone recommend the best places to buy things like washing powder and dishwasher tablets in bulk? Any other bulk buying tips?

Considering Costco but not sure if it really does work out all that much cheaper when you factor in the hour round trip and the annual fee.

Thanks!

Bump

I get vouchers through the letterbox for Farmfoods. £10 off a £100 spend (and vouchers for lower spends too). You can sign up to get them too.

A few times a year I bulk buy their crates of baked beans -3 crates of 24th a fills a trolley! We get through a lot of beans and the saving is good. I bulk buy their freezer stuff too. It's not always cheaper elsewhere so check using the Trolley App, but I buy enough to get me up to the £100 discount threshold

I've been known to add up the trolley value and split it in the conveyor belt into two shops so I can use vouchers - one for £100 and one for £25 etc

I use amazon subscribe and save as you get bigger discounts the more subscriptions you have. I use for kirchen roll, toilet roll, ketchup, squash, dishwasher and washing machine pods, shampoo etc. You do have to keep an eye that the price stay competitive but it's very easy to do.

My husband does the weekly shop online and if he sees something on offer he will buy between 6 and 10 of them.

Weetabix is a big favourite in our house and they only like branded (and I agree on that one!). Heinz ketchup is another expensive buy in our house. For both we use the Trolley App to see which supermarket has the lowest offer. When the offer is very good we go and (quite literally) fill a trolley!

Farmfoods let you add multiple vouchers up to the value, so you can use any combo on one shop, saves you splitting the shopping on the belt.

I keep getting told Costco is good, but I agree it's not worth the drive and the fee (and the temptation to blow your savings in the cafe!)

Make a list of your regular big spends that have a long life. As mentioned above, for us it's baked beans, Weetabix, ketchup. But also coffee, other branded cereal, cup a soups etc. And then keep an eye on the prices. As soon as you spot a good offer buy as much as you can store ... but with one proviso.... you know it will get eaten before the best before date.

Some things keep for way beyond their best before date such as tinned stuff. Others definitely not - crisps can start to taste yucky even if they are a few weeks before their date. We're eating tinned soup six months past it's date with no issues and same with some cereal.

Stock rotation is key. We have a huge cupboard for storing our bulk buys and it is a pain putting newer tins to the back, but it needs to be done. Every 3 months or so we spend an hour going through the cupboards and doing a stock check so see what we are getting low on and making sure everything is in date order and stuff going out of date soon is used first.

It's a lot of work, but has saved us a lot of money. There have been losses though. Usually crisps but we've stopped bulk buying those. Also the time when my youngest went off the cereal we had bulk bought. All 6 boxes went to the food bank as no one else liked it!

Good luck!

Oooh! I did not know that! Thank you! That'll save me some work.

Thanks all - going to look at Farm Foods. Will also have a look at Amazon but feel like there is so much choice - I have no brand loyalty at all!

I find Costco good, for example bulk dishwasher tablets, baked beans, soup etc. However you have to kind of 'enjoy' going there to make it worthwhile financially vs quickly ordering via Tesco delivery, there is more time and driving involved with Costco!

We use a local meat delivery company which does brilliant deals on different meats with add-ons for a nominal amount like £5 or even 99p. A meat pack for two of us can last for 3/4 months and has everything from sausages, chops, bacon, steaks etc to joint packs. Worth looking to see if you have anything local to you.
We have used muscle foods and got the introductory discounts but I didn't particularly rate their meat but you may differ. As a previous pp said Farm Foods are good too and at the moment Iceland have a limited £10 for 10 items - stuff like pizzas, chicken, fish/cakes - the sort of stuff to buy for easy teas.
Home Bargains are hard to beat for good value washing soaps and fabric conditioners along with their cleaning products - but we are currently on a use up drive and have not bought cleaning products for quite a few months - we had that much in the cupboard!! 😬
Oddbox are good for a challenge - with Fruit and Veg - you may get something you wouldn't normally buy - but you can become very inventive with your cooking!!
Amazon is great for large sizes of bulk buy stuff like Hot chocolate (which never lasts long with GCs in the house) if you don't want to find your nearest Costco.

I love costco for bulk meat and divide down. But its always busy however i live a 5 min drive away. So aim for 10am opening.

have been vaguely aware of the Trolley app for a while - just checked it out on a test with "baked beans" and saw to my surprise that none from Lidl listed. In fact have the idea that there are no Lidl products at all in its database. What's all that about? Does the app effectively flog listings to the supermarket chains?

Looking forward to more tips on here. I think I have been marked as a bulk shopper ever since as a kid rooting under the sink I asked my mum what some unfathomable amount of a forgotten product was doing there. "It was on offer" she said.
Lidl do coupons on the app every week - discounts not mega, maybe 10 or 20 per cent or 50p off - some of them are limited to a single purchase or maybe a limited number of items but some are just "one time use only" which seems to mean that you can buy as many as you want of the item on a single shop. Recently got 50p off each jar of their quality jam. Bought about 10. They have done similar on coffee as well.

Costco has absolutely been worthwhile for us. For our first year of membership, I tracked the prices we'd paid there versus what we would have paid on offer (not full price) in the supermarket, and it came to around £200 of savings for the year. But it very much depends what you're buying - there are some things that aren't cheaper there at all. The two things people go on about at Costco are kitchen roll and loo roll - we never buy those because Ocado is actually cheaper.

Are there any discount shops near you, B&M or Home Bargains, Wilko?