We definitely save money at our Sam's Club, even with the $40 annual membership fee. I keep a price book for price comparisons, and I'm always amazed at how little I can pay for certain items at Sam's Club, compared to how much I pay at the grocery store. I try to follow the advice from The Tightwad Gazette: never assume that any one store has the cheapest price on everything.

I've always been happy with Sam's Club's generic brand products.

Our Sam's Club has gas pumps, and members get a discount on gas. When I originally purchased a Sam's Club membership, I was able to get the cheapest gas in town there. Although it's still worth the membership fee even without buying gas there.

I didn't want to purchase a membership until I saw what products they carry, and made sure that I would actually be saving money. I explained this to someone at the membership desk, and they said I was free to walk around. So I spent some time at Sam's Club writing down prices and quantities in a notebook, and decided that it was well worth our money to shop there.

You can also buy groceries in bulk at Amazon.com, without a membership fee. Orders over $25 qualify for free shipping. I haven't tried this yet, but plan to.

I shop at Sam's every couple-of-months. It's a 40-mile drive, so I usually carpool with my sister. There are some really good deals on certain items. I think it's worth it.

Just last week, I started ordering some groceries from Amazon.com. It's a good place to find things I can't find around here. ie: I just ordered Lyle's Golden Syrup to substitute for the Karau's high-fructose stuff, but Amazon only sells it in 6-bottle lots. So now I have enough golden syrup to last me a LONG time.

Amazon has a lot of "spend $59 on a certain brand and get $15 off" type deals. Good if you need a lot of a particular thing - or if you have a lot of storage space.

Our Sam's Club has a service called "Click & Pull".. You go on their website, click on all the stuff you want, they pull it and you pick it up the following day. A nice perk that keeps you out of the store if you're prone to impulse buying there.

We have a membership and I go now and then, but I have always felt I could get better prices if I had the time to scope prices & unit sizes to compare. I never realized I could go online and find the specs (prices/unit sizes) for a lot of things. I did that today and found that they have 3 months of Prilosec for the price of one month at the grocery/pharmacy. That's a $20 savings! And Claritin is half the price of grocery/pharmacy - another $15 savings. Shredded mozzarella/cheddar - $14/5lbs, which averages out to about $2.75/lb - you can't buy that in the local grocery here even with sale/cpn combo. The cheapest I've ever found is $2 per 8 oz pkg, which still comes out to $4/lb. Sliced american cheese is the same price - at the deli here, sliced american is $5.99/lb. Sometimes it goes on sale in little premade packages, but you can't find it or sale/cpn combo it to that price. Sam's wins. Dial bodywash, 50% less - I get twice the amt of what I buy monthly at the grocery, for the same price.

The thing for me is finding balance of convenience/stockpiling (& less stress) vs. savings. There are some things that if I buy individually at the grocery store when on sale and with a coupon, I can get it for cheaper, but I have to take into consideration that the timing for that is a very small window, as my coupons in the paper are worthless and I order all my coupons online. So, I have to order them, wait for them to come in the mail and manage to get to the store, hoping that they still have the item in stock, to get the deal. In those cases, it's worth my money to buy it in a big pack, getting more at once for the same price I'd get if I waited for the sale/cpn to line up perfect at the local grocery and stocked up. Also, there have been times (like this morning, for instance) where I had to make a special trip to the store to get something we ran out of.. like Prilosec, bodywash, and tampons. Having that stuff on hand means less extra unexpected trips to the store.

__________________

I buy in bulk at Costco, and when I get a chance, at WinCo. Having an extra freezer is fantastic! Keeping a price book truly helps me save money because there is no way I could remember every store's price on every item otherwise.

__________________
Attaining financial freedom is like eating an elephant . . . it takes one bite at a time.

I do...I think mostly because it saves me trips to the grocery store if I buy in bulk, and therefore cuts WAY down on my impulse buying, which I am VERY guilty of!

I think it's easier to buy like that too. Then you can freeze the extras and save unnecessary trips to the store for odds and ends.

I buy things that I know I am going to use at Cosco. I get canned items, toilet paper, and paper towels. Meat is often better quality than what I find in the grocery store and cheaper too. I buy things like salmon and ground beef, break them down to family size servings, vacuum pack and freeze. The last time I bought lean ground beef, it cost me about $2.30 lb.