Buying in bulk from Amazon

Joanna wanted me to write about how I buy food in bulk from Amazon. Just a few disclaimers before I do.

1. I know some people have philosophical issues with Amazon, I respect that. I don’t have the same issues, so if you hate Amazon, ignore this post.
2. I try to buy local, all my produce and animal products are local, soon to be even more local. What I buy from Amazon is stuff I couldn’t get locally anyway.
3. I don’t buy in bulk as in 50 pound bags of rice or wheat (at least not from Amazon), but I do buy in bulk as in 12 cans of something we use at a cheaper price.
4. I’m one of these weird food storage people. We have 3 months of food stored now and are working up to 6 months. It really helps me to be able to get our stored food so much cheaper.

I discovered Amazon was a good source for food about a year ago, I’ve always been happy with what we have gotten. When you get food from them, they give you the option of signing up for automatic delivery at a reduced price. This is worth doing. You generally save an additional 15% off their already low price. You can sign up for 1 month, 2 month, 3 month or 6 month intervals. They will email you before they ship anything and you can delay the shipment as long as you want or even cancel it all together. I generally sign up for every 3 months, figuring if we aren’t out by then, I can just delay it another month or 2 until we need it. The other upside of the automatic delivery is that shipping is free whether you are above $25 or not.

OK, not convinced? Let me give you a few examples.

Coconut milk, we use on average a can of coconut milk a week. We eat a lot of Thai food. The cheapest I can find coconut milk in the store is $1.89 a can. It is generally over $2 a can. One Amazon, I can order 24 cans and after I get the automatic delivery discount, I’m at $0.89 a can! A savings of $1 a can is huge!

Whole wheat penne pasta – This is generally over $2 a bag at the grocery store. Sometimes $1.50 if you can find a sale. On Amazon, I pay $1.35 a bag. We eat a lot of pasta, at least 3 days a week.

Organic vegetable bow tie pasta - This is over $3 a bag in the store if you can even find it. On Amazon, $1.89 a bag. We eat this particular pasta an average of once a week.

One last example, my husband eats these every morning for breakfast (different flavors so he doesn’t get bored) and Logan eats them as snacks. At the store over $4 a box, from Amazon, $2.87 a box.

These are just a few examples of stuff I buy from Amazon. There are many more. I got a great price on cans of organic black beans!