Do you have a warehouse membership card?

[katwoman]

I don't belong to any.

First, none are within an acceptable driving distance and second, I do fantastic with sales/coupons.

If one were within blocks of my home, I would join for the sake of convenience only.

[lrjohnson]

Oh, forgot to mention....my area has particularly high prices on gas (news will state the highest price in US and we'll match....or be higher). Costco gas is significantly cheaper....like 20 cents a gallons....

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

We buy wine and, once in a while, hard liquors at Costco. Before we joined, we figured the savings on wine alone would pay our membership. Which wines they have is variable, but there is always something acceptable and less expensive than anywhere else I know to buy the same product. Also I bake bread. The cheapest way to buy flour has been at Aldi's or in the supermarkets before the fall & winter holidays. But at Costco I get the high gluten flour (which I prefer for bread) for the same price per pound as Aldi's all-purpose flour. They have a really good price on shelled pecans in the fall.

[ski]

It is super easy to buy more than what you need.
We do have a membership to Sams and I think it helps for TP, papertowels, dishwashing detergent.
We went the other day to purchase things for my sons 1 year b-day party and we did really well. I wrote a list and stuck to it, a great suggestion from this website.

[elcheapo]

nope, it is not worth for my family

[flash]

We do, but it's the numbers thing. Rx is cheaper there, and we get 3% cash back. There are a few things we do use bulk in, too.

Absolutely never stock up at the warehouses for groceries, though! They are good solid get-you-through prices, but if you do the sale/coupon stockpile, you get much better deals. If the warehouse is the only place you shop, still, makes no difference to stockpile because the price probably is not going to vary much over a month.

[Bookie]

I have a Sam's card that came free as part of a workplace promotion.

Like others, I use it only for bulk purchases of easily stored items, paper good and the like, and only after careful price comparisons. For small households, it probably doesn't really pay. I know I won't renew when my "freebie" expires later this year.

[story3girl]

We got a sam's club membership from my future in-laws for christmas. We use it to buy certain things my fiance insists upon (like individual serving apple sauce), to get bananas and certain other fruit and vegetables when they're not in season here, and to stock up on things like gum, toilet paper, and paper towels when we start to get low and I can't find a sale.

We actually have the price point calculated for gum (which we go through a TON of), so that we always have a bulk box in the cabinet and then buy as much as we can whenever we can get it elsewhere for less than the bulk price. We go through periods where we have an entire cabinet full of gum, and then we go through slim periods and have to buy another bulk box.

[pyotr]

Costco, BJ's and Sam's are a waste of money for us. They cost us more than we can ever save because they tend to entice us into buying things in huge quanitities that we would never otherwise buy. Costco and BJ's particularly are good at enticing us into buying the brand-name luxury items like neutrogena shampoos and soaps in large quantities (with coupons) or brand-name cereals like LIFE in double packs with coupons. It's actually much cheaper to buy the generic Aldi cereals without coupons in small single boxes. This was based on a 3years of Quicken analysis of our spending patterns. Once we stopped paying into one of these and started grocery shopping at Aldi's and buying the few other household stuff at places like Lowe's, Target and Walmart, our expenses definitely went down by hundreds of dollars per year.

[lrjohnson]

I should be grateful for being untemptable. I may be one of the few people who routinely can go through the line at Cosco with less than $10 in purchases. (The bags of spinach are great deals in my area, and usually I'll get one other fruit or veggie thing-depends on season and freshness. For some fruit items Costco is a good deal, for others, very much not.)

[jaksilee]

I have a Sam's Club card. I got it before I had to move to a different area and now I don't have one too close to me. I used it for Meat, Gas, and spices because it is so much cheaper than my area stores. I do not use coupons (I know I should), and I only stock pile meat and tp (don't ask, a side affect of my childhood) so this is a good way for me to get good deals when I actualy have the money to spend (I work on commison, so I never know when I will have a "good" check)

[shengmei]

I got a Sams club membership card last year. It was not worth it. The Sams club store brand was excellent but I did not buy enough to justify the cost. The non-members pay 10% more and with memberships costing as much as $40 you need to buy $400 worth of merchandise from them every year to make it work. With coupons I can always get things cheaper than I get at Sams Club.

I got the membership because people told me their gas was cheaper. Well their gas was horrible and HEB gas is the same price but much better in quality.

Their pet stuff and tools, however, were reasonable. Their store brand cat food has way more protein than Meow Mix (though still not good enough for my cats, LOL). I always wished I brought some tools from them when I still had the membership card.

[bama20]

i have a sam's club card and it is worth the membership fee. i buy bulk toilet paper, paper towels, detergents, fabric softeners, dog food, gatorade, cheap clothing too, etc. etc. there are other things there that i will not mention that i have bought from there. they carry a lot of things that give people many choices.

[sakigt]

When I need to go I have a mental list of people who have a membership I can shop with.

Its not worth it for me.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Ah, yes, sakigt, we sometimes do take along a non-member friend to shop. Perhaps he ought to go in on the membership with us, all the moreso because he does not have a car and depends on us not only for the membership but for the ride to get there! But really, I don't mind helping out a friend like that.

[lillyb]

Nope, no membership card. Most of the places requiring one are a couple hours drive from where we live.