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Friday, December 5, 2008
Are you choosing warehouse shopping over supermarkets?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
When pinching pennies there are two approaches to shopping. Hitting the warehouse stores to “buy big”, or, getting just what you need week-by-week at the supermarket.
For me, I have to weigh the greater initial outlay of cash when I buy in bulk. If I impulse buy at the supermarket, it’s usually just a few dollars. When I impulse buy at Sam’s its usually double or triple that. Unfortunately a lot of times when I go to the warehouses, my eyes are bigger than my cupboards and those “hard to resist” bargains take forever to use up. Hopefully the expenditure will be recouped over the course of the next weeks, but often it isn’t.
Case in point, I found myself at Sam’s Club just before Thanksgiving and got swept away with bargains on cranberries. I put two bags of fresh berries in my cart knowing the prices would be better than at the supermarket. I ended up only needing a fraction of them after choosing my recipe and discovering a hidden surplus in my freezer from last year. I also picked up a gigantic package of craisins to make homemade granola to use as holiday gifts. After reading the comments to my blog on homemade teacher gifts, and learning how undesirable they are, I have decided against it… but now have enough craisins to last a lifetime.
Can you limit yourself to buying just what you need? Is it worth it to you to spend more upfront to save in the future or are better off keeping a consistent expenditure week to week?
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