[don-code]

There was a point where two friends and I each lived alone in an apartment, and I was the only one who had a (2-door) car. We still occasionally did Costco runs.

We'd go in and walk the store - the whole store - aisle by aisle.

If I saw something like a 2-pound bag of tortellini, but thought two pounds was too big a quantity for me, I'd ask, "does anybody want to split two pounds or tortellini?" One might say yes, so we'd throw the tortellini in the shopping cart.

At the end, one person (the membership holder) would pay, and we'd divvy up the result of our haul into reusable containers, in the parking lot. One of us would then take point on itemizing the receipt, and we'd pay back the person with the membership.

In hindsight, I think we did this more to socialize than to save money, but we definitely did save money. Even as a single apartment-dweller, I bought my fair share of 24-packs of yogurt and 5-pound bags of frozen vegetables.

[dylan604]

Growing up as a kid, we lived in the sticks and the small local grocery store had a limited produce section. My mom joined a little co-op where each person would put in the same amount of cash, but one person would make a trip to the downtown farmer's market. The purchase was split evenly between each member. Each trip a different person made the trip so the variety changed not only by what was available but by the person making the trip's preferences.

This was my introduction to collective buying and at the same time the fact there's a bigger world out there than where one lives.

[ryukoposting]

This is what I did with 3 roommates in college. We saved a ton of money that way.

After college, I only had one roommate and Costco didn't work as well. The quantities for certain things are just a bit much. Buying 36 eggs for 4 adults made sense. Buying 36 eggs for 2 adults... not so much. I ended up going to Costco for toilet paper and gas, and that's it.

To this day, I'm still the "spouse" on one of those college roommates' costco memberships, LOL.

[hawaiianbrah]

Eggs last a long time in the fridge! I could definitely go through 36 eggs myself over the course of 3 weeks. :)

[ryukoposting]

Actual conversation with a roommate from that time:

"Who's been eating all the eggs?"

"I'm not sure, how many eggs do you eat?"

"Not many, like 3 eggs in the morning."

"(Name), that's 21 eggs per week"

"... oh, yeah."

This friend was known as the mongoose for the rest of college.