another post about grocery shopping

This weekend I was really looking forward to going to Costco and Winco and doing a price comparison on some items I commonly buy (and especially those I sometimes get in bulk from Costco). It was the most exciting weekend activity EVER. (Nerdy, I know.)

Since I know you're all as interested as me, I shall tell you the results. I was somewhat surprised by my findings, perhaps naively so. I really love Winco's bulk foods section and love that you can get however much you want or need of whatever it is you want or need. And I have noted that the prices of the bulk items per pound are cheaper than other places I've seen items sold by weight. I'm less impressed when I compare other areas of the store, though; however, the sales are often pretty good. Most of the items I compared were items you could find in the Winco bulk foods section.

Costco's worthiness was demonstrated in the comparison. (The comparisons are not all fair, I should say. Costco has better quality goods, generally speaking, but I tried to match the products as closely as possible.) Here are the results:

Costco	item	Winco
1.08/lb	whole wheat spaghetti	.98/lb
1.06/lb	penne	.76/lb
1.96/lb	egg noodles	1.10/lb
2.22/lb (organic)	peanut butter	1.48/lb (non-organic, self-churned)
3.57/lb	almond butter	3.96/lb
1.66/gallon	milk	1.88/gallon
6.29/lb	pure maple syrup	8.85/lb
1.76/lb	semi-sweet chocolate chips	2.21/lb
2.33/lb	dried cranberries	3.67/lb
2.21/lb (name-brand)	honey nut cheerios	1.79/lb
.75/lb (organic)	apple sauce	.54/lb
1.16/lb	short-grain brown rice	.74/lb
.28/lb (for 25 lb bag)	long-grain white rice	.45/lb
2.50/lb	quinoa	3.52/lb
2.00/lb	honey	2.24/lb
.69/lb (10 lbs)	oats	.51/lb
4.22/gallon	soy milk	5.12/gallon
4.60/lb	walnuts	3.30/lb
5.28/lb	pecans	8.50/lb
3.33/lb	almonds	3.78/lb
.24/lb (for 25 lb bag)	all purpose flour	.27/lb
.61/lb	sugar	.46/lb
.81/lb	brown sugar	.97/lb
18.62/gallon	olive oil	28.62/gallon
5.96/gallon	vegetable oil	6.27/gallon
6.32/gallon	canola oil	7.18/gallon
.62/lb	tomato sauce	.80/lb
1.32/lb	tomato paste	1.68/lb
1.06/lb	diced tomatoes	1.02/lb

Some of the results were interesting. For example, although pecans and almonds are cheaper at Costco, walnuts are not. Pecans are significantly cheaper at Costco. Granulated sugar is quite a bit cheaper at Winco, and flour is comparable (I probably will still buy from Winco to avoid dealing with the 25 lb bag, though). I did not realize that canola oil is more expensive than vegetable oil. Brown rice is cheaper at Winco. Peanut butter is too, but almond butter is cheaper at Costco. I compared S&W canned garbanzo beans and black beans as well, and it turned out they were the same at both Costco and Winco: .68/can.

I hope you appreciated the results of my experiment. I guess shopping at Costco does save money after all. Which makes me feel a little better about paying to shop there? Hmm, I didn't factor that into the prices . . .