Warehouse stores, are they worth the trouble?

VS

Yes! For our little family of two, a warehouse store pays for itself over the course of the year. Our first two years of marriage we were members at Sam's Club and have just switched over to Costco. Is there a difference? yes and no. The prices at Sam's Club are still slightly lower, but the stores are not as new and the brands are mostly generics. Costco on the other hand has more organics, and name brands. Why did we switch, location. Though we are moving back to Prior Lake and the Sam's is right down the street, it's worth the trek to Eden Prairie due to the fact that we are hoping to be back in St. Louis Park soon! What do you buy for a family of two? We tend to fill our cupboards with staples from these stores, so it is probably a good thing if you have some freezer bags and some storage space. Some things are better than others, but in the end we are saving money. Brogle Top Ten 1. Gas (Alex filled up a couple weeks ago 25 cents lower than the others) 2. Flour (25 lbs. at $6.99 vs. 5 lbs. at $2.50, 28 cents a lb. vs. 50 cents) 3. Chicken (averaging $2.99 a pound at Costco vs. $6/lb. at the regular store) 4. Ground beef (12% fat content, 6 lbs. @ $2.21/lb. vs. $4/lb. at the grocery) 5. Toilet Paper (36 rolls comparable to Charmin $19 vs. $24 for comparable amount) 6. Diswashwer Detergent (2 giant bottles (250 oz. total) $8.50 vs. $13 for generic equivalent 7. Romaine/Mixed Greens (huge bag for $4 vs. individual bags at $2/5) 8. Ziplock Bags ($7.87 for 216 vs. $25.86 for the equivalent) 9. Milk ($2.25 a gallon, cheapest otherwise is $2.99 at Walgreens) 10. Vanilla Extract (16 oz. pure vanilla for $6 vs. $5.60 for 2 oz, that's $44 for the equivalent) Other bonus buys: FRUIT, VEGETABLES, Laundry Detergent, Diapers, etc. These are just some areas we save in. Cost to join Sam's Club ($30) and Costco ($50). Not only are these things cheaper but how valuable is your time. It is so worth my time to spend an hour at Costco three times a year buying staples than it is to do it monthly or more at the grocery store. How do you budget for these items if you are on a tight budget? Well, Alex has set our budget up on Excel with a category that we save monthly for, for the quarterly trips to Costco. That way our food and staple budget will not get blown in the first week. We will be posting a generic budget form to illustrate this next week. If you are interested, let me know...I'd love to give you a tour!