10 Things Not to Purchase in Bulk

Since our family is small, just Jim and me, I've never been able to experience the value associated with mega super stores like Costco. Buying in bulk for two just doesn't seem to make sense. My friends with children, grandchildren, and neighborhood friends love the super stores. In a recent conversation with one such friend, she told me she had just spent over $500 at Costco. "I love that store, I buy everything in bulk, it's great!"

I did some research and found there are several things not to purchase when buying in bulk:

1. Brown rice: Buying perishable products like eggs or milk in bulk is an obvious no-no, but there are plenty of other things out there that people tend to store indefinitely without realizing they expire within six months to a year.
Case in point: brown rice. In general, we tend to think of rice as something that just lasts and lasts, but brown rice (which happens to be better for you than white rice) has a much shorter shelf life because it contains more oil.

2. Nuts: In general, you should try to avoid buying nuts in bulk unless you're the kind of person who munches on them throughout the day. They may be more affordable in bulk, but nuts usually expire within two months.
"The high fat content in nuts (particularly in peanuts, pecans and walnuts) causes them to go rancid rather quickly," says Alejandra Ramos, a home-cooking expert and the creator of the website Always Order Dessert. "If you must buy them in large quantities, remember that roasted nuts last longer than raw ones, and shelled ones last the longest. Light, heat and moisture also affect the quality, and they have the tendency to absorb smells, so always store nuts in the fridge or freezer. This also goes for seeds and nuts like sesame seeds, flax seeds and pine nuts."

3. Mayonnaise and other condiments: Ramos also recommends shoppers avoid buying condiments such as mayonnaise, ketchup and salad dressing in bulk "unless you'll be using them right away at a large party or event." These items, she said, tend to last only six months to a year and "take much longer to get through than you'd expect."

4. Vitamins and nutritional supplements: Even stuff that's good for you may end up being a bad investment. "Unless you are absolutely certain that you won't mind drinking the same flavor of protein shake every day for the rest of the year, avoid buying the jumbo containers of soy isolate. Even the most hardcore fitness enthusiasts need variety, and these products do eventually expire," said Linsey Knerl, better known as The Dealista. "The same can be said for vitamins. Unless you are certain that you'll tolerate them well, don't stock up. Sample a smaller size of packaging for a few weeks, note any side effects, and only proceed with an 'economy-size' package if it agrees with you."

5. Spices: Even if you cook regularly, it might not be a good idea to buy spices in bulk.
Lisa Brisch, a personal chef, wrote to us that you shouldn't do it "unless you cook all the time." According to Brisch, spices lose their potency in six months to a year. "I cook for a living and rarely buy spices from a warehouse store except whole spices like peppercorns," she said.

6. Bread: Unless you like the texture of hard, stale bread, you really shouldn't buy too many loaves at once. Freezing bread works, but that leads to a freezer full of big bulky loaves of bread. Also, bread is more flavorful when it's fresh.
And according to Ramos, the cuisine expert, shoppers should not purchase baking powder or yeast in bulk. Each has a life span of about four to six months, so don't buy more than you would reasonably need in that time.

7. Tilapia: Kimberly Peterson is a Costco lover who admits to going several times a week and runs a website called Addicted to Costco. For the past two years, she's done extensive price comparisons among Costco and several other stores, including Wal-Mart, HEB Grocery and Safeway.
In general, she's found Costco's bulk items to be a better deal than buying the same things individually at these stores, but there have been a few exceptions, and one of them is tilapia, specifically the farm-raised variety. When she did the math, she found that consumers could actually get this item for less at Wal-Mart than buying it in bulk at Costco.

8. Frozen foods and meats: It's often a great deal for the money to buy a ton of food and meat that you intend to freeze, but it's important to assess just how much space you have for your buys.
According to Knerl, The Dealista, consumers should "look realistically at what you can store for long periods of time in the freezer, and weigh the savings against the possibility that you won't be able to store anything else in there while you use it up."

9. Bleach: Bleach is another item that you might be inclined to buy in bulk, but it goes bad over time. According to the Scripps Research Institute, bleach has a shelf life of six months and then starts to degrade. Each year you keep the bleach around, it loses 20% of its effectiveness, and you lose that much more of the money you put into it originally.

10. Candy: One key rule of buying in bulk is that you should beware of purchasing guilty pleasures like candy and other junk food. Otherwise, bulk buying can turn into bulk eating.
One consumer put it well on SavingAdvice.com: "If I go to my local store and (buy) 2 candy bars for $1 a piece, I spend $2 and they will last a week. I buy a box at Costco of 24 candy bars for $12, they still will be gone in a week. Even though the unit price is less, I end up spending more."


Jennifer