Buying in Bulk

Due to Coronavirus restrictions, shopping has become a very unusual experience. We need to think a lot harder about how we shop and what we buy, as we cannot go to the store as much as we used to. One strategy that has become very popular is buying in bulk. I wanted to find out if in general, this is a good tactic, even outside of a pandemic. 

There are many advantages of buying in bulk.

1. You are almost always spending less per use of that product. In other words, it is cheaper per unit.
2. When you have that much of a product, you are unlikely to run out all of a sudden. This reduces the amount of impulse buys you make.
3. Buying in bulk is environmentally friendly. There is much less packaging used on each product. For example, buying several small boxes of cereal uses much more plastic and cardboard than buying one huge box of cereal.
4. If you buy essentials in bulk, you will be very prepared for emergencies. This is especially relevant right now, as people who did not buy in bulk realized that they did not have nearly enough to last them and started panic buying everything.
5. Buying in bulk also means you won't have to take as many trips. This is another huge advantage at a time like this since every trip to the store is risky. It is also helpful in many other ways, including fewer opportunities to impulse buy and less money spent on gas.

However, there are also several disadvantages.

1. It is an upfront expense. Spending $50 all at once rather than $10 at 5 different times can be difficult for some. It is especially hard if you are living paycheck to paycheck, as you are unlikely to have enough in your account at one time to do that.
2. When you buy that much of a product at once, you can be prone to overusing that product. This is especially apparent with food, as many of us will eat more of a food item as long as we know we have more of it for later. 
3. It takes up a lot of storage space. You need a relatively large space to store things if you are planning to buy in bulk.
4. What you buy will lack variety. Again, this is especially apparent with food. It can be an issue because you are likely to get sick of that food after eating too much of it and waste the rest.
5. The most obvious disadvantage is that things can expire. Of course, this is easy to avoid by only bulk buying things that don't expire or you know you will use in time. However, if you don't do that, it can be very wasteful.

It seems to me that the best way to shop is a mixture of bulk buying and smaller purchases. However, during a time like this, the advantages of bulk buying make it the better option.

https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/my-money/articles/when-buying-in-bulk-is-really-worth-it