If you’ve read my other blog earlier this morning, I talked about shopping at multiple stores. This is a good strategy for us because we have a few grocery stores that we don’t have to drive to which would make us spend our savings on gas. This might also be a good strategy for you if you have grocery stores that are close to each other so that you’re not spending too much extra gas but can drive from one to another in one trip in a linear fashion. This is probably not a good strategy for you if you have to shop the sales at one store, come home, and then go to another store, or if the stores are far from each other.
However, with that said, I mentioned that we typically get our groceries from three different stores. They are in a line as far as traveling goes, and so I spend a minimal amount of gas to get there as long as I don’t have to stop at home in between. One of our typical stores is Costco.
There is much debate over whether or not bulk item stores like this are worth it. I have come to my own general conclusions which are:
A Membership is NOT worth it if:
*You are shopping for a smaller family
*You do not have enough storage space, possibly including an extra freezer
*You are able to cut coupons weekly and go to a regular grocery store weekly
A Membership IS worth it if:
*You are shopping for a larger family.
*Have some available storage space.
*Have children in diapers (note I said children and not child).
**A membership is especially worth it if your local wholesale club has gas.
How I Decided This
I am not a price book keeper in general. I don’t write everything down. In theory, to save the most on groceries, you should write down all your purchases (or at least the ones you use the most), where and when you got it on sale. If you do this, you’ll start to see a pattern. I have decided I simply don’t have time to pull all that off effectively (because in order for it to work, you do have to keep up with it) but I do keep a price book of sorts for Costco.
Actually, what I do is keep a shopping list with price information on it. The shopping list is for things that I generally only buy at Costco. I buy them there because of course, I’ve found them to be cheaper in general. Some examples are cereal, diapers, laundry supplies, tuna and macaroni and cheese. My list looks something like this:
Pull ups $24.99 for 88 .24 per item
Paper Towels $11.99 for 15 rolls .79 per item
. . .and so on. So what is the purpose of this list? I know that I can always get pull ups there for .24 cents per pull up. If another store has them on sale, it has to be for less than .24 cents per item, otherwise I know it’s not worth it. Same with paper towels. Some times our local store has them on sale for .99 cents per roll. . .but again, I see that it’s not worth it.
There are a few more strategies to saving money at Costco (or similar clubs) but what you have to remember is that your total savings has to be more than the membership cost plus the gas per trip to get there. If it’s not, it’s probably not worth the extra effort.