I went back to Costco last night (alone, Candice was working), and left with a cartful of things, none of which I got home and went “What was I thinking?”, so I think it went well. Most of the stuff I bought was stuff we always buy right away when we’ve run out, which I think is a good rule of thumb.

I’m kind of glad I went when it was quiet, because there were a few things I wasn’t prepared for, like the “people on one side, carts on the other” process at the cash, or the fact that they don’t bag what you buy. I should have taken a picture of the trunk of the car filled with loose food. IKEA bags to the rescue!

Our take from our first shopping trip there (since this weekend we just got a membership and looked around):

• 1kg of Parmigiano Reggiano
• 320 kitchen garbage bags, which I figure will last us about six years
• Sliced chicken breasts (11 breasts’ worth)
• A case of San Pellegrino orange soda for about 50c a can; in the grocery store it’s $1.50 a can
• A bottle of water for the water cooler (no deposit! but only 15l instead of 18l, what?)
• six red peppers
• 45 crunchy granola bars
• a litre of Neutrogena shampoo
• a giant bottle of Tide
• eight magic erasers
• a pack of sliced processed cheese the size of a brick
• three jars of pasta sauce
• 1.5 lbs of salad croutons
• two giant bags of chips

• and a new MP3 player for me.

The MP3 player might sound like an impulse purchase, but no! I’ve been downloading a lot of new music lately, and found the one case in which my Shuffle doesn’t really work out: when you aren’t familiar with the music you’re listening to! The little Sansa doesn’t have much of a screen, but it does have one, so I can look and see what’s playing, or choose to listen to a whole album, and so on. From what I’ve saved on CDs it made sense.

1.5 lbs of salad croutons!