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I just brought A fifty pound bag of food for petco.com for $52.00 witch seems to me to be a very good price.
How much do you guy's buy at a time?

For me, it's a matter of food quality and how long it retains its nutrients in the freezer. I'm feeding a large flock so I buy enough to last 3 months. Only a 4-5 day supply sits in an airtight container on the counter. The rest is in freezer bags in my freezer. Considering how little the daily cost of seed is for a tiel, the cost of a bag is completely inconsequential to me. So I go for high quality in hopes of keeping my birds healthy and avoiding the vet bills that can take your last penny.

I use Topper seed mix, which costs me $2 a lb -- that's 3.7 cents per bird per day. If I take a bird to the vet, the exam charge alone -- no tests -- is $85.

Think quality and good health versus seed cost and you'll save in every possible way. Of course, our birds also need high quality pellets and organic veggies and greens each day. If you calculate your daily cost on each of these necessary food items, you'll find that they too are CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP compared to vet costs and the emotional value of your birds.

I tend to buy 3-5 lb for one bird... it lasts a while, and is still manageable to fit into a couple gallon ziplock bags in the freezer. Funny though, in never had a problem with bugs in his food til I switched to pellets... strange, and I don't get exactly why! Anyway, I buy what I consider to be a pretty good amount, and it generally lasts a couple months. I live away from home right now, where I could get the pellets really cheap, somewhere like $1.75-$2.00/ lb at pet supplies plus, as opposed to more expensive at Petsmart. I go home and visit my parents and stock up on food for my baby for a while! The price you got was really good! But if you can't fit it all in the freezer, be careful about monitoring for bugs, they don't crawl into the food from outside--my food was in an airtight container and they actually hatched in the container... little buggers!

Seeds and pellets are just like storing flour - pellets are grain based so they will get buggy.

I buy small quantities - just one bird. I think the most I bought was 1 lb. of seed mix. I buy it from the bulk bin gravity feed. I know they go through it fast so I'm not worried about freshness. You could also sprout the seed to check on the freshness of it - if more then 1/2 sprouts - it's good seed.

Well, don't I feel like the little piggie..... the poor FedEx man brings a 25 lb bag of conure seed for Magellan, 25 lb for the tiels, 25 lb for the budgies, 25 lb for the canaries, 25 lb for the finches and 25 lb of niger for the wild birds. Then we start on the pellets.....buy a 25 lb bag for the tiels and IRN, and smaller bags for the budgies and canaries/finches. Take a quick trip to the local feed store to buy a 25 lb box of millet, off to Trader Joes to buy fresh veggies and cook up some birdie beans and rice.

What do I eat? Oh, whatever I find in the freezer...... (except the birdie beans, of course)

What brands seed you buy???

I stick with Kaylor of Colorado. I buy 20lbs for $1.35 per lb (including tax), or $27. It used to be a tad cheaper but ah well...

Most I've bought was 40lb's for about $47, or $1.18 per lb.

Although what I look into is on the cheap side, it's also a good mix too. I don't really trust most seed mixes in petstores.

My 2 tiels eat a combo of different seeds and pellets, they like them all so I buy them all. they get a seperate dish of everything they like every day. I would say I may have spoiled them, but they are my babies now so i am inclined to do what I can to spoil them.

I normally buy 10 pounds of seed and then I buy 2.5 pound of fruit flavor zupreem cockatiel, 2.25 pound bag of natural flavor zupreem parakeet, and a 44 ounce roudybush mini. I buy everything as needed, but the pellets last much longer then the seed does. Then I have been buying also 8 in 1 wild harvest bites which are made like nutriberries(only much harder), but after getting my sample and seeing how much more they love the actual nutriberries I will be buying those instead because it is the same price pretty much. I will also be buying the avi cakes for them since they are great too.

All this not counting the brocolli slaw and other stuff they love in produce, but that is also bought as needed.