Warehouse Club Face-Off: The Overall Savings

[wackymother Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close wackymother]

Eyeglasses. Oral-B toothbrush replacement heads. Best-sellers. Gift certificates to restaurants and Starbucks at holiday time.

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Can you use any AMEX, or just theirs? A Costco is planned to come into our area, but if I can't use my Hilton HHonors Amex, I'll probably pass.

Kurt

Kurt, I know that the costco in Miami only takes American Express and I have a bank of america worldpoints one and they took it without a problem.

[longtimer Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close longtimer]

We have BJs and Sam's here and I belong to both (I get BJs for the coroporate membership through work, so it's not that much extra money). No Costco yet, though I'd love to see one come here. I've found there are some price differences between the two, but it isn't that much. Most of the paper stuff is cheaper at the grocery store (I buy store brand or generic). It also helps to know about how much things cost at the grocery store. Often, you can get items for much less by purchasing them on sale and combining that with coupons.
Check out is faster at BJs. They have the self check-out aisles, which really speeds things up. There always seems to be long lines at Sams.
When I shop at either BJs or Sams, I check the ads and then take a list with me. I've found that if I don't, I end up spending two to three times what I had anticipated. My daughter and her very hungry boyfriend are in college. So I end up buying alot of bulk items and food for them to stock in their dorm rooms.
A local food chain offers discounted gasoline based on the amount of money you spend for groceries (.10 off a gallon for each $100 spent). There are often purchase incentives to add to that amount and increase the gas savings. So I have been spending more money at the grocery store lately.

[barndweller Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close barndweller]

I've never heard of BJ's. Maybe it's an east coast thing. I don't patronize Sam's Club or Wally World...personal choice. Nearest Costco is about 75 miles from my house so we go twice a year to stock up on meat & seafood and some liquor. We always stock up on "stuff" when we go, too. Batteries, light bulbs, printer ink, socks, paperbacks, aspirin, cleaning supplys, etc. We even bought a nice little freezer there awhile back. We no longer have any pets but used to buy dogfood. I do like the quality of the produce but can't use up the huge packs of stuff since the kids are all grown & on their own now. I'm not crazy about their Kierland brand paper goods so we just buy toilet paper, tissue, etc. locally when it's on sale and get a better deal than Costco price.

We use our plain old AMEX we've had for years or cash.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

We belong to both Costco and Sam's club. We buy far more at Sam's because it is less than 10 minutes away vs 15 minutes for Costco. I often buy ribeye steaks at Costco because of the quality and price. My wife prefers Sam's club and seeing as she does all the shopping, they get most of our business. We joined Costco because my Doctor gave me a list of "Nature Made" supplements to take and told me Costco was the best. Sam's doesn't carry that brand. So when we go for our diet supplements, we buy other items such as the steaks etc. at Costco.

My wife is very price and quality conscious and shops at either Sam's, WalMart, Costco, or Stater Bros ( supermarket ) depending on the items and which store is best for that item. She only buys what we need or want. We are fortunate in that all of the stores are very convenient to us. There is no BJ's in our area.

[Ann-Marie Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ann-Marie]

I am 15 away from a BJ's so I mostly go there. However, Costco, 30 minutes away has much better frozen shrimp than BJ's, and better prices on advil, vitamins etc. I pay at Costco with my airline miles AMEX card.

[Elan Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Elan]

No BJ's here, and Sam's is too far away, so we shop Costco. I've never been in love with Costco, as a lot of their items (electronics in particular) are being cleared out via a "warehouse" for a good reason (missing a common feature, etc). Not that I haven't bought that type of stuff there, but I do a lot of research beforehand.

What we do buy at Costco is meat. Their NY strip steaks (my personal favorite) are always excellent and their ribs and hams are good too for the price. We also tend to pick up cheese, salsa, avocados, Cameo apples, granola bars and paper goods there.

It's very easy to impulse buy at Costco, but we're pretty disciplined when we go. We have the Costco Amex, and just upgraded to "executive" level, since we spend about $300/mo there.