Does a SQL Server bit column really use a whole byte worth of space? I was poking around SSMS and noticed the "size" of my INT columns were 4 bytes (expected) but I was a bit shocked to see my BIT columns were a whole byte. 

Did I misunderstand what I was looking at?
How many bit columns do you have defined in the table? I found this on MSDN, it says 8 or less bit columns are stored as one byte.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177603.aspx