At my parents' home we were a family of four members, but my dad used to say that buying in bulk was helpful for saving money, while my mom used to buy in bulk meat and produce for a whole week or two, confident to keep it in good conditions being refrigerated/frozen. However from those habits they had, I learned that buying in bulk may not save but waste your money no matter how big or small your family is. I'm actually living alone, so buying in bulk is not really an option to me, but back to my parents home, I used to say my dad "what is the sense of buying a large can of tomato puree if we only use a small portion, the rest is put into the fridge but may not be issued, and therefore having to threw it because turns putrid" And this is it; you can buy in bulk a dozen cans of tomato puree (or anything else) but if you are going to use very little every time, you save more money by buying a random small can when needed than getting large amounts of food if you are unsure on how to get the most from the money used to buy foods.
Not a good practice from my experience, but quite common where I live due to the discount. I have got a freezer, but where to put all of it? That freezer isnt what you would call a "bottomless" one, so I'm stuck with small quantities, ha, ha. No, but really, even though you freeze the respective meat or vegetables, you can't keep them fresh forever, and the longer you keep them frozen, the more the quality will decrease.
I think it depends on the product. I like to buy nonperishable items especially if my household goes through them quickly. I find I save a lot of money this way. However, a lot of times when I buy fruits and vegetables they go bad before I can eat them. Therefore I think it’s a waste on my end to buy produce. I also buy a lot of cleaning supplies in bulk. I find these don’t expire for a long time and I typically go through them before they do.
We buy most of our dry goods in bulk. I’d like to buy my milk in the glass jars, but that’s also tough to do all the time.