I shop for our family of 4. Here are the things I buy in bulk to fight inflation.

I don't buy much fresh food in bulk but will indulge in the meat section. This only works well if you regularly feed an entire football team or, in our case, you have a vacuum sealer and a large freezer.

As for the prices, I have found that ground beef is always cheaper at Costco, although sometimes I will find a better price on other meats, like pork chops, at my grocery store.

And if you want to go big, ask one of the butchers for a 10-pound "chub." This is how the meat is delivered to the store before it is packaged. They will often sell this to you for an even lower per-pound price and is leaner than the stuff on the shelves.

Fresh foods like meats tend to act more like commodities, and their prices can often be less impacted by inflation and more susceptible to things like weather.

From my experience, those price fluctuations tend to be felt more at local grocery stores while Costco is more consistent with its pricing. But because of that, in recent months, I have been finding chicken to be a lot cheaper at our grocery store, where it is often on sale.

This seems to be a controversial choice, but I have always found paper towels and toilet paper to be a better deal in bulk at Costco, compared to my grocery store.

A nearly identical package of the store brand paper towels at HEB costs about 20% more. Meanwhile, the HEB toilet paper is even worse, costing more than 35% more for the same amount.

Of course, this only works if you have extra room in your pantry or garage. If I were still living in a New York City apartment, these would have to be my bed.

If your family is into cereal and if Costco has your favorite flavor, bulk is the way to go. The same amount of Honey Nut Cheerios would go for more than $12 at our grocery store, about 30% more.

The nice thing is that it comes in two boxes. The second half stays fresher longer if unopened, and eating it all has never been a problem in our family.

I am sure there are a lot of great deals on snacks. However, too many times my kids have been into a specific snack, and just when I decide to save a little by purchasing it in bulk, it is precisely when their tastebuds change or they get bored with it.

At that point, I have to leave it on the shelf, taking up space and hoping they eventually come back to it, or I have to throw it away or donate it somewhere. Either way, we are no longer saving money.

One of the common problems with buying in bulk at Costco is that the items are often in variety packs, so the deal is not worth it if you are not into all the flavors. And even then, you have to be careful, because some items are not a better deal at Costco, like the Annie's Mac and Cheese variety pack.

However, in my case, I love all the flavors in the Chobani zero-sugar pack and it makes for a perfect high-protein breakfast when I am in a hurry.

If you shop at Costco often enough, you notice that certain items regularly go on sale. That includes many household cleaning solutions, like detergent and dishwasher soap.

The laundry detergent is already a better deal than anything I can get at the grocery store, especially if you don't mind getting the Kirkland brand. And when it goes on sale every few months, I buy two or three.

Produce in bulk always scares me. This feels like the best chance to buy something that will eventually be thrown out before we eat it all.

Produce might be cheaper at Costco, but unless you are making fresh lemonade for an entire Girl Scouts troop, I'm not sure why anybody would need five pounds of lemons.

The prices for pet food at Costco are not as great as they used to be, but they are still pretty impressive.

Not only does the food seem to be better quality — you can tell by how it comes out the other end, sorry — but you can get 40 pounds for about $34. That same size bag of the store brand at my grocery store goes for $55, a whopping increase of 62%.

One of the hidden costs of having a pet or three is treats. They are ridiculously expensive, so buying them in bulk at Costco under the Kirkland brand has saved my budget.

For example, you can get 72 Kirkland dental chews for $27 at Costco. The more popular Greenies brand at our grocery store costs $35 for 36 or nearly $1 per treat. The two brands appear to be similar; the dogs love both equally, and the vet always praises our dogs' chompers.

I will sometimes buy Dave's Killer Bread, which is cheaper at Costco than at my grocery store, and I don't mind freezing one of the loaves since you have to buy two. However, my kids are not thrilled about the seeds or thawed bread.

Like the snack foods, our children seem to go through phases of using lots of bread and then spending weeks acting like it is made out of brussels sprouts. The safer bet with them is sticking to one loaf from the grocery store at a time.

You can't beat Costco on a price-per-bagel basis, but you must buy two packs of six. They also seem fresher and taste better than most national brands.

But 12 bagels is too much for a family of four when we only eat them once or twice a week.

Like the meat, if you have the storage space, the frozen fish — especially the salmon — is a good deal at Costco.

The salmon in Costco's freezer section is already about 15% cheaper per ounce than the equivalent at our grocery store. As a bonus, it occasionally goes on sale, although not as often as I would prefer.

Another plus is that the fish filets are individually sealed, so there is no need to pull out the vacuum sealer when I get home.

I love a good protein bar and $1 per bar is at least half the price you are paying at most other stores.

Like the protein bars and the yogurt, this is just simple math if you don't mind the different flavors.

At our grocery store, these are about $2 per can and only come in a 4-pack. At Costco, I can get 18 of them for $1.33 per can, and they come in one box with a handle.

One caffeine fix I won't buy at Costco is coffee.

We grind our beans, and I prefer them fresh. It is hard to justify the savings I might get if I also have to buy a 2.5-pound bag. We would probably have to go through eight cups a day to have fresh beans at the end.

One of the cheapest dinners you can make for a family of four is good ol' spaghetti. And one way to make it even more affordable is to make your own sauce.

Not only can you control the flavor and chunkiness — an important detail for many kids — but it is easy to make if you always have some sauce and paste.

While the trash bags are a little cheaper at Costco, the real benefit here is that there are some things that I don't want to worry about buying very often.

In one box at Costco, you get 200 trash bags. For our family, that will probably last about 18 months.

One snack I do reluctantly buy for my kids at Costco is Nutella.

Nutella is still not cheap at Costco, going for about $7.25 per jar in a two-pack, but the same amount at my grocery store is about $9.

So if my kids are not going to eat my homemade peanut butter mixed with some melted chocolate chips — which tastes better, by the way — I might as well save a couple of bucks.