economies of scale

at 03/12/10 6:03PM
Last year we got a Sam's membership around Memorial Day. I needed to buy vast quantities of meat, and there were a few things there that I knew we would use frequently. Some of our regular items include 10lb bags of frozen chicken and 6lb tubs of Peanut Butter (6 lb tub!). I shop there warily, since I know of their tendency to make things look cheap when they really aren't great deals. In fact I always leave feeling a little dirty, a little bit like I'm shopping for a used car.

Well today I needed a car battery (batteries and tires are a great way to get your money's worth at Sam's) so we made a trek down to Sam's Club. By trek, I mean a 3 mile car ride (side note: I"m spoiled by city life sometimes). Hilary was taking care of Amos (diaper+nursing) so I wandered the isles trying not to get sucked in by the 'deals'(again the comparison to used car shopping is eery). I started down the canned goods isle and passed our normal 12 pack of tomato sauce (they look like coke 12 pks) and I came across the industrial sized cans. I started looking at the 105 oz can of Tomato Sauce. We're prodigious Spaghetti eaters, and I ran a few calculations based on my sauce recipe. It turns out that we use somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 of this beast per meal. It is even twice as cheap as the 12 pack we normally get at Sam's! Here's the rundown in table format, where the first three cans are things you find in the grocery store (sorry if the table looks funny)

can size price unit price
tiny 8oz $0.85 .106
normal 15oz $1.35 .090
large 28oz $1.80 .064
massiv 105oz $2.47 .024

that totally blows everything else out of the water!!! Here is a picture comparison of can sizes:
left to right: 6 oz can of tomato paste, 15 oz can of diced tomatoes, 105 oz can of tomato sauce

  • rebekah
    But of course if you stock up on the smaller ones when there's a sale and a coupon, you can get a normal size can for roughly $.25. :)
    by rebekah at 03/12/10 6:24PM
  • iammountainfolk
    yes, and Sam's isn't really about saving money since I would have to account for the fixed yearly membership cost. It is really about convenience, I don't have to scour for sales and coupons or for space to store that much food until the next time I can find the sale.
    by iammountainfolk at 03/12/10 7:24PM
  • spinningbee
    I buy 6 massive cans of tomatoes at a time. :) Can't beat the price.
    by spinningbee at 03/13/10 11:58AM
  • fullofgrace
    love tomato sauce
    by fullofgrace at 03/13/10 2:41PM
  • littlelamb
    I, too, get the massive cans of tomato sauce...and the 12 pack...and the little ones of tomato paste. I make a sincerely massive batch of spaghetti sauce once a year (20 quarts) and use the other cans for chili and various other things. Fortunately, I have a large dry cellar to keep all my Sam's Club finds in. :)
    by littlelamb at 03/18/10 9:51PM
  • littlelamb
    Oh, and heads up- Sam's is a great place to get toys in January. I know this info won't be useful for another 10 months, but still. They clearance out all the christmas toy stock in January and you can get things super cheap.
    by littlelamb at 03/18/10 9:52PM

This is not fake

at 02/21/10 11:14PM
LINK


I happened to pass it on my way home today and thought it was really awesome. If I could have taken a picture without crashing, I would have.
  • kendrad
    Teehee!
    by kendrad at 02/22/10 3:23PM
  • littlelamb
    That is so funny!
    by littlelamb at 02/22/10 8:26PM
  • mountainmama
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY LOVE!!!
    by mountainmama at 02/27/10 7:08AM
  • weekendsongservice
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY ... BROTHER IN LAW!!!

    may the wind ever brake behind you, and the sun rise on the board game of your dreams.
    by weekendsongservice at 02/27/10 7:32AM
  • madtomkidd
    HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MY... FORMER STATE-MATE!!!
    And HILARIOUS sign
    by madtomkidd at 02/27/10 8:07AM
  • denisemccaskill
    Happy Birthday!
    by denisemccaskill at 02/27/10 11:23AM
  • nannytwistyfingers
    Happy Birthday!
    by nannytwistyfingers at 02/27/10 3:30PM
  • smiley_face
    Happy Birthday Aaron!
    by smiley_face at 02/27/10 3:54PM
  • heatheronthehill
    Happy Birthday Aaron! :)
    by heatheronthehill at 02/27/10 4:07PM
  • el_magnifico
    :-D that makes my day
    by el_magnifico at 03/03/10 6:31PM
  • fullofgrace
    lol
    by fullofgrace at 03/05/10 12:01AM

gripe

at 02/04/10 12:06PM
If you constantly use ctrl-c, ctrl-v (or equiv.) when coding, you are doing it wrong.


Sigh. Refactoring someone else's code all week. Do ppl think this way about mn code I wonder?
  • smiley_face
    :( That's no fun. Hope that you are doing well besides that though! :)
    by smiley_face at 02/04/10 4:11PM
  • rebekah
    Philip just explained to me why that's a problem. Sorry bro.
    by rebekah at 02/04/10 8:36PM

Holidays

at 12/30/09 12:10PM
So it has been a great time of year for us in 2009. We got to see every immediate family member at least once in the last month. We went to Ohio for thanksgiving and saw Becca, Philip, and Eden, my parents and both grandmothers. I also got to see an aunt and an uncle when visiting Bowling Green to pick up Becca and Eden and see my Nana (Collier). Then we had a few weeks to recover until the Buntings arrived in force for Christmas break. Being close to the airport makes us the default pickup and dropoff depot for family and friends. They stayed only a few hours and headed up to Duluth. We picked up Heidi that weekend and headed to Duluth for Christmas. We were all planning to leave on Chistmas day but a blizzard made is depart early. Duluth had 4 foot drifts so it was good that we left. We had about 12-18 inches in Minneapolis when we left to go back to Ohio. Nate was coming in From Saudi Arabia so we went back to Ohio to see him as well as therest of the family that assembled, including aunts and uncles galore. Now we are back in the Columbus airport waiting for our departure. We listened to the news reports about being an extra hour early and now we have an extra hour to kill. Thanks for the free wii google/Columbus intl!

Amos has been kind of a bear with all this travel. His sleep pattern is all messed up and he is teething to boot. First molar is almost through. Hopefully we can get back into routine and start focusing solids and walking again.
  • rebekah
    This made me feel all warm and fuzzy. :) We had such a nice time visiting with you all over both holidays! Tell Amos that Eden misses him very, very much!
    by rebekah at 12/30/09 3:16PM
  • ruthkrumrei
    So happy we got to see you :) Hope getting back into a routine helps Amos.
    by ruthkrumrei at 01/02/10 10:03AM

Epistolary Times

at 11/08/09 11:07PM
So this weekend was the end of Dracula. I mentioned this at the beginning of the novel, but I was reading it in a real-time manner using the dates and times on the diary entries from the novel. It finished on Nov 6. You can see the whole thing from the start if you go back to the May entry. Yes, I've been reading dracula for that long. It was quite an adventure, and I am looking forward to finding another novel to ingest this way. I'm already looking at dailylit.com and other sources for a small dose of fiction daily.
  • weekendsongservice
    i read Dracula in pre-High (also known as High Jr.).
    i liked it, but couldn't follow ALL of it.
    i don't remember the whipping chain part from the picture though.
    by weekendsongservice at 11/09/09 7:44AM
  • fullofgrace

    happy
    holidays!
    by fullofgrace at 12/24/09 12:52AM