Living Alone? Shop Costco the Smart Way (20 Picks From a Lunch Lady)

📕 Get the full cookbook - The Lunch Lady's $3,600-a-Year Grocery Cut (175 recipes & tricks, scaled for 1, 2 or a family): www.dorislunchlady.com/ Two hundred and eleven dollars. That was my first Costco trip alone, the fall after my husband died, and by Christmas a good part of it was in the trash. For thirty-five years I turned forty-pound cases of ground beef into four hundred school lunches. That fall I could not work out what to do with one rotisserie chicken. That store is built for a family of five. Here are twenty picks that work for a family of one, and how to split each one the day it comes home, so nothing goes bad. On the list: gallon freezer bags, the food court hot dog, bananas, frozen berries, frozen vegetables, the big muffins, shredded cheese, butter, two dozen eggs, pasta, broth in cartons, frozen shrimp, ground beef, chicken breasts frozen one at a time, pork tenderloin, salmon fillets sealed one by one, the two-tray lasagna, the rotisserie chicken, a bag of nuts for the freezer, and at number one, the one thing you will not find on any shelf in that building. For every pick I tell you how to portion it for one, how long it keeps, and about what each supper costs. I am Mrs. Doris. A school kitchen in Scioto County, Ohio, on a dollar and five cents a tray. Prices are around what I saw at Costco in the fall of 2026 and change by warehouse and by season, so check the shelf tag where you shop. Freezer and refrigerator times follow the USDA and FoodSafety.gov storage charts. Safety notes from the video: get the rotisserie chicken home and into the refrigerator within two hours, thaw meat and fish on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator or sealed in cold water, open vacuum-sealed fish before thawing it, and cook pork tenderloin to 145 degrees with three minutes of rest. #costco #livingalone #cookingforone