What Goes in My Costco Cart? – Saving Your Money (and Health) one Meal at a Time

Posted on by saveymommy

I recently read a blog post by Not a Coupon Queen Blog titled What Goes in My Costco Cart? She exclaims that with her family of 6 they eat a lot of food (obviously) but also that her 4 hungry kids consume healthy food. I myself have found that Costco is amazing for healthy finds! We have searched for a few years now for the best ways to eat what we want and healthy foods at that. Health tip: leave a platter of seeds, nuts and or dried fruit out.

I grew up eating what I would say very healthy! Our family was also a family of 6 and we had a giant garden growing fresh produce all summer long. I can remember my mother saying “you can eat whatever you want outside”. So I would eat apples from our apple tree, green peas and when my dad would dig up carrots then I would rinse them off with the hose and chew those down too.

I’m however not a huge veggie person nor is my husband. You couldn’t catch him eating ANY VEGGIE EVER. He also does NOT like fruit. Yes, seriously he doesn’t like fruit. Here I am loading up my Costco cart with strawberries, green grapes, oranges, blackberries, grapefruit ect. I REALLY like fruit (and Costco has the greatest deal on fruit especially per size). Anyways when I married my husband I inherited some of his cooking books titled “The Sneaky Chef: How to Cheat on your Husband (in the kitchen)“. I realized that although he doesn’t like fruits or vegetables (as chunks) he WILL drink smoothies (DUH THESE OBVIOUSLY HAVE FRUIT & VEGGIES IN THEM!) So off to the frozen isle!

Frozen Organic Fruit:

-Organic Blueberries (Used in kids lunches and snack time)

-Organic Strawberries (Used in smoothies for myself and kids)

-Organic Mixed Berries (Used in my husbands smoothies)



Purchased Regularly:

  • Organic Frozen Fruit for smoothies and kids snacks. This is a key component of our weekly meal plan
  • Quinoa Bread for breakfast toast and lunch time sandwiches
  • Oikos Greek Vanilla Yogurt tubs used for smoothies
  • Kirkland Plain Greek Yogurt used for Friday night pizza dough (If this is freaking you out – click here to read the recipe)
  • Meat: Chicken (strips& breasts), Beef Roasts, fresh Salmon Fish, ground Turkey and sliced Turkey
  • Marble Cheese (we cut it in three and freeze)
  • Garlic Pickles (both pickles and pickle asparagus – my daughter eats pickle asparagus everyday in her lunch!)
  • Nuts: Cashews, pecans, walnuts, almonds and sunflower seeds (We find that if we have a plate of these on the counter we will snack on these rather then dig around like a scavenger for unhealthy goodies hiding in the pantry) We also use these to make recipes from Fit Your Life
  • Cranberry Vanilla Qia Superfood (this has chia, buckwheat & Heap) I’ll have this for breakfast with the Vanilla Greek Yogurt previously mentioned
  • Organic Anne’s Macaroni for lunch with the 2 year old
  • Dried Mangos, dried mandrin oranges and dried sweet cherries

Purchased Occasionally: 

  • Kirkland Sea Salt
  • Kirkland Ground Pepper
  • Kirkland Toilet Paper
  • Kirkland Paper towels
  • Kraft Peanut Butter
  • Baking items like: Kirkland Chocolate Chips, Pure Vanilla, Organic Coca
  • Parchment Paper
  • Non-GMO popcorn kernels
  • Kirkland Dishwasher Pods

At this point I literally looked into my fridge, freezer and pantry and thought WOW – I could be here all day going through every item. Basically everything was from Costco. The point is, where are you shopping? Are you saving money by buying items from store X? For some buying in bulk is a great way to save – for some, being more of a minimalist is. Where do you fit in? For us Costco is fantastic! Yes, there is a membership fee (bummer!) BUT – we get money back on purchases (bonus! especially if that pays for your membership fee) and we use our Westjet MasterCard for these purchases to get Westjet points for FREE flights! (HELLO SAVINGS – HELLO FREE VACATION! Click here to read my blog post about how our family went to Disneyland for FREE)



Take a peak through your kitchen, we can all be healthier! You don’t have to go to some hole in the wall store and buy high priced organics… You can go to Costco purchase the SAME ITEMS IN YOUR KITCHEN but cheaper, non-GMO, and organic. (Christmas is coming so don’t even think about gaining 20 pounds!) Your spouse, kids and well being will thank you for it!

 

 

 

 

**Thanks for reading! If there is something you’d like me to try out send it my way! Email me at saveymommy2@gmail.com**