Shop with Me: Stocking Up For Winter at Costco!

Good morning dear friends. We are heading to Costco today. Winter and the Christmas holidays are around the corner, so I need to stock up on baking supplies and other pantry staples. Also I want to see if Costco has some kind of containers in which I can store the newspapers and kindling that I use for the parlor fireplace. Please come shopping with me. I think we will have a good time together. Oh, I'm wearing sweats because I'm just two weeks post hip replacement surgery and they told me to wear loose fitting clothing. It's been at least two months since we've shopped at Costco. I like the store because it sells foods and sundries in bulk. Buying in bulk allows me to save money. My goal today is to stock up for winter. I have a shopping list and will try my best to stick to it. We've just arrived at Costco. Wish me luck sticking to my shopping list. Am I getting recorded? You look camera ready. Now, so today is Thursday October 29th and Costco has a lot of Christmas decorations up already. Seeing all of these Christmas decorations is definitely putting me into the Christmas spirit, but I tend to make my own holiday decorations. I'm always looking for cargo pants. Let's see if they have any today. Oh, utility pants. What are they? These are sort of like it. It's utility pant 38, although you can't even open it to see what they look like really. Well, I found something called Wrangler Men's Utility Pant. Let's see if they have my size. They do not have my size. Sort of looks like... Cargo Pant. It's called Cargo Pant. Does it say Cargo Pant on it? Yes, they have it, but they, you know, list it up here. Yeah, um, I found Cargo Pants. So far, all in sizes that are larger than me. No 29. Oh, do they have one? Oh, here. We are in luck. I found close to my size. Let's see. These will work and I think they are loose fitting enough that I can wear them now. This was not on my shopping list, but I have to have these Christmas mugs. When we decorate the Christmas tree, I always make cocoa and we sip the cocoa from Santa Claus mugs similar to this, but I think these will be fun. It's a nice variety. I just found a basket that will be perfect for storing kindling and some of my fire logs in. And it's only $18.99. That's really, that's perfect. It's just very wide too. It's great. Yeah. Wow. This was not on my shopping list, but when I saw it, I realized I needed it. It's a bath mat, and I need it for one of the upstairs showers, and it is $12.99, and it looks really nice. In you go. I love this Pyrex snapware, but I already have a lot of it at home. So now we need to find butter. I need to buy a lot of butter because Christmas is coming. I make Christmas cookies and almost all of them use butter. Also not on my shopping list but I know my spouse loves hot dogs. This is on my shopping list. Bacon $13.99 for four pounds. Breakfast sausage patties also on my shopping list. I like the patties for breakfast sandwiches that I keep in the freezer. Here's what we want. This was on my list. Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar Cheese, and it is $9.39 for two pounds. On my shopping list is Boursin Cheese. I'm going to make a type of pasta sauce with this cheese, and this is three packages for $6.29, that is an amazing price. Pre-sliced mozzarella. I love to add this to charcuterie boards. Two pounds for $8.29. Boneless chicken thighs. Nine pounds of skinless boneless chicken thighs for $29.25. This was on my list. Now, I'm looking for something called, I think they're called chubs. They're the little tubes of ground beef. Chuck pot roast $7.49 per pound. This is going in my cart. I just asked for 10 pounds of ground beef in what's called chubs. They're like tubes. I use ground beef in chili, in tacos, in pasta sauces, and the like. You have a nice day? You as well. 2,000. No. That's a good price. Got it. Now, I will probably cook most of this, crumble it, and freeze it. Have you ever seen such a large pumpkin pie? I have not. It's not going into my cart. All right. How dare they locate the dessert department right next to the meat department. That's for a minute rice. Okay butter, butter, butter. Where are, where is the butter? Costco is so huge it's really easy to get distracted. I'm still looking for the butter. And these are the regular... Yeah, great. This was on my list. Gallon-sized freezer bags. Lots and lots of butter. And it's in the freezer room. It's really cold in here. I bought this before. It is excellent. 12-count paper towels. Kirkland brand. Premium for $20.79. This will last me a very long time. Facial tissue. 10 long boxes for $19.99. And this too, this is probably a two-year supply. We're gonna need a bigger cart. I've heard very good things about this Meyers multi-purpose cleaner. So it's three bottles, three 24-ounce bottles for $16 and change. Sounds like a good deal. I had these lightly breaded chicken breasts before. They are very convenient to have Convenience food but sometimes I'm in a hurry. Another item that is on my list, a bag of frozen mixed vegetables. I love to have these for when I make cottage pie and shepherd's pie and things like that. Five pounds for nine dollars. I saw someone else buy this the last time I was in Costco and I vowed to buy it for myself. It's yakisoba vegetarian wok-fried crisp vegetables and noodles in a savory sauce. And this contains six nine ounce packets and it is $15.99. Capers, artichoke hearts. Oh here's tomato paste. Organic tomato paste. 12 cans for $10.49. It's a good price. What have they pickled here? Lemons? Are these Meyer lemons? No, it's peaches. Oh, the coffee smells wonderful. Well, I think I have gone through my shopping list. I bought almost everything I came in to buy so we can check out mustard and ketchup. Why not? Lizette is here with me and we both agree that no trip to Costco is complete without a Costco hot dog before you leave. I will meet you back at the house. I need to put all of this away and I want to see how those baskets work out for the kindling in the parlor. We are home again and here is the hall. So I have paper towels, a lot of them. These go into the backup pantry. I have facial tissue, more than a year's supply, backup pantry, which is not over here. It's over there and we will visit the backup pantry in just a moment. Freezer bags. Probably a year's supply. Back at pantry for now. Charcoal colored cargo pants. I've always wanted a pair of cargo pants. It's nice to have them. These will go into the laundry and then I will try them on. Chuck pot roast. I'm going to cook this in the instant pot tonight and we can enjoy it for dinner. 10 pounds of ground beef. Now my plan is to cut this into maybe one One-pound sections. And freeze them in freezer bags. But for now, this will go into the refrigerator. Ditto for these Kirkland hot dogs, also known as butter. And I bought, let's see, how many pounds is each of these? Two pounds each. So two, four, six. And there's another one somewhere else. So I bought eight pounds of butter. That should get me through the Christmas holidays, I hope. And these go into the freezer for now. I also bought for my spouse some gluten-free pizzas. It just seemed like too good a bargain. So these are gluten-free four-cheese pizzas. It's a three-pack. It was $16 and some change. Freezer, pork sausage patties. I'm going to make another batch of my own homemade English muffins and make breakfast sandwiches with these patties that we can freeze. Boursin cheese which I'm going to use for a pasta sauce. Pre-sliced mozzarella. This is a very good brand so I can use at our next cocktail gathering. And what's in this bag? Many pounds of bacon. This will go, well I will probably cook at least one pound of this and then freeze it. And the others I will put into the freezer. Lightly breaded chicken fillets. Huge bag of frozen mixed vegetables for the freezer obviously and almost 10 pounds of skinless boneless chicken thighs which was $29.25. These go into the freezer. Let me start putting things in the freezer before I continue with this haul. Well we will definitely have to do a freezer organizing video very soon. Butter, butter, More butter. More butter and chicken thighs can go on top of the cottage pie that you and I made together the other day. The beef can go here. So everything that needs to be frozen is in the freezer. Everything that needs to be refrigerated is in the refrigerator. So now I have more things for the backup pantry. So I have 12 cans of tomato paste simply because I'm out of my own homemade I have this multi-purpose or multi-surface cleaner. One for the kitchen, two for the backup pantry. I'll take one out right now. I have these adorable Santa mugs or Christmas mugs that we use when we decorate the Christmas tree. Oh, something else for the refrigerator. A huge thing of cheddar cheese which I will probably shred and then freeze. And I have these Two beautiful baskets and I can't wait to try them for the kindling and the newspaper that we keep in the parlor. So let's go to the backup pantry. Paper towels go up here. This is the backup pantry that you and I created together at some point during the summer. Okay, gallon size freezer bags. You can go up here. You are on view. And the multi-surface cleaner can go with the other cleaners right up here. This is like having our own little supermarket right in the house. This room was previously a bedroom. Tomato paste can go with my other tomato products right there. And I suppose the facial tissue, also known as Kleenex, can go up here. And then let's go into the parlor to see how these baskets work. I was on my way to the parlor, came through the kitchen and realized I didn't give you a close-up of this bath mat, which I'm going to use in one of the upstairs bathrooms. It's a sage color and the tile in that room is a sage color, so this should work out very well. And it seems like a very heavy duty mat. I really like it. I burn a fire in this fireplace almost every evening. Throughout late fall and winter and early spring and I have, well I use newspaper for kindling. So I have a pile of newspaper here which has been a real thorn in my side because I don't like how it looks. So we are going to transfer that to a basket. Actually I have two baskets here. Firewood can go there. Well it's looking better already. Put some of the Another firewood over here. And I'm going to get rid of this old thing. It's intended to hold firewood but it's really too small. I need to sweep up some of the debris from that firewood. The baskets are really nice because they won't scratch the floor. I have a few more pieces of firewood for tonight's fire. This way I won't have to go outside to grab the wood. And you probably noticed this bucket of ash. It's fireplace ash and I actually pour this at the base of my dwarf lilacs. Lilacs love potash, which is what fireplace ash is, and I see Goldie is very interested in what we are doing. I'm going to bring these fireplace ashes out to the garden, but before I go outside, I wanted to thank you for spending time with me today as we shopped for meats and vegetables and sundries at Costco. It feels great to have the backup pantry restocked. It feels great to have a lot of meats and vegetables in the freezer. I will have another video in just a few days, and until then please treat yourself very, very well. I can't wait to see you again. I'm off to the garden.