Buying in Bulk

I have invited an out of town friend for dinner for tonight. We have been friends for at least 10 years. We met right after we were both married. We had our first babies within 6 months of each other. We have taken different paths in life but remain close friends. She now lives in another town and will be in our neck of the woods this evening so we are excited to spend time with her. When I extended my offer of dinner, one of her responses was something like "Please don't make extra just for me. I don't eat much." I had to chuckle because just in the last couple of months I have noticed how differently we have to cook and shop. (Well, daddy has to cook and shop ;) We can go through a whole box of spiral pasta now. We used to have some left over for lunch. In fact, almost every meal we (daddy) cooked was left over for lunch the next day. That is happening less and less. It blows my mind. We were talking about the grocery bill the other day (we live on a loose budget) and how much it has grown. Daddy is going to the grocery store twice a week now (have I mentioned what a blessing that is!) and the end total hasn't quite doubled but it has gotten noticeably larger. I know part of it is things just cost more but now we buy toilet paper in bulk and granola bars in bulk and soap in bulk and the list goes on and on. We go through gallons of milk a week. We actually have a membership for Costco and use it. I am in the process of making a grocery list just for Costco so we don't forget to buy stuff when we go. It is kind of scary because are children are still young. I can't even imagine what it is going to be like when we add EG to the mix and Boop becomes a preteen . . .