Haulin' in the USA!

So I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that Vancouver is el spensivo. Shet costs mad jobros here. AKA... hide your Nicks, hide your Joes and hide your Kevins 'cause they snatchin' up all the jobros round here. Basic toiletries, bread, eggs, turkey, face wash... you name it, they're selling it here for $3 more than it is in the US, plus their approximately 12% sales tax. All those extra jobros add up mighty quick!

It was obvious fairly soon after we got here that we'd need to make some trips to the States to do some serious bulk shopping for non-perishables.

I'm very pleased to report that we went to town at both a Target and an Ikea when we were back in Portland for Thanksgiving this past week/weekend. (Not to mention a couple of those expensive thrift stores that I love to hate... Peer pressure.)

On Saturday we ate breakfast at Broder in Portland (I had the Lost Eggs and Dave had the Solstice Bord) and then headed to Target to brave the Black Friday weekend shopping crowds. It was pretty busy there, but it could have been much worse. After only losing one another once, we ended up leaving Target with:

• 4 jars of pasta sauce ($1 each - should have bought way more!!)
• different kinds of pasta
• Annie's mac 'n cheese
• 20 hangers
• huge bottle of olive oil
• big jar of mayonnaise
• dijon mustard
• 2 boxes of chicken broth
• tons of canned beans
• "  "  "   tomato soup
• "  "  "   canned tomatoes
• plenty of taco seasoning (we like tacos)
• toilet paper
• paper towels
• cereal (you wouldn't believe how expensive cereal is in Vancouver)
• big bottle of ketchup
• coffee
• tshirt/socks/boxers for David
• ample face wash/face scrub for meee
• some nail polish (couldn't help it)
• a new blush brush (vital)
• soap (Dove Cucumber and Green Tea, IFYEWMUSTKNOW)
• Q-tips
• a plastic set of drawers
• Christmas lights
• Rubbermaid plastic food containers
• a REAL vacuum!
• some sort of Sony stereo system thing for Dave's birthday
• almonds
• peanuts

And since Target and Ikea are practically on top of each other, we scooted over to Ye Olde Swedish Home Furnishings Mega-Store for some goodies and meatballs. Just kidding about the meatball part. We had very specific things we needed to get there, so we did the fastest walk through Ikea that anyone has ever done. We left with only a few more items than we intended to get, but still kept things reasonable:

• a new end table (now the end table on the left side of our couch MATCHES the end table on the right side of our couch! #GrownUpSuccess)
• photo frames - if you need smallish picture frames, Ikea's are only $1.99-$3.99)
• a little shelf for plants in our living room
• welcome mat
• wall hangers for coats
• cutting board
• plastic food containers
• miscellaneous storage boxes

I love that everything at Ikea is sold inside of a tiny box. Does it remind anyone else of a pop-up book when the furniture items get put together and are suddenly WAY larger than their itty bitty boxes?

Needless to say, with our Kia totally packed full of completely useful things, I was feeling incredibly self-satisfied. I couldn't wait to bring it all home and spread it out on our living room floor and admire all of it and snap a picture... which I did as soon as we got back to Vancouver:

 

 

.  the one on the left is new, isn't that exciting?  .

.  new ikea piece! don't mind our sad-looking rose plant . 

. new tiny ikea end table . 

It wasn't all work and no play... I snagged these animal-printed goodies from a Buffalo Exchange in Portland as well:

.  i swear that "animal print cardigan" was on my list! $14.50 for a used cardigan, ay yi yi .

.  this was on my list too - animal print scarf, $8 . 

All said and done, we spent a chunk of money on all of this... but I know that it's so much less than we would have spent on the same amount of stuff here in Vancouver. We may eventually get ourselves a Costco membership and use it over the border in Washington, but I'm not entirely convinced that Costco is less expensive. We'll check it out and decide. Let me know if you have any spectacular bulk purchasing advice!