My grandfather used to give us all a Sam’s Club membership for Christmas every year.  When he stopped bothering with that, we missed it and started paying the membership fee on our own.  The last few times we were there, though, we didn’t buy much, and actually thought the prices were fairly awful.  Our membership expires in March, so we decided to make one last trip this month to see if there was anything we would want to buy while we still could, and make sure we still wanted to cancel.

I could not believe how expensive many things were!  I saw people pushing their carts around, and they were packed to the brim with giant boxes of things that I knew were overpriced.  Cereal! You buy a giant box with two bags in it for $6 or $8.  That’s the same as or more expensive than regular grocery store prices.  Lay’s Kettle chips were two for $5.88–the regular price at Walmart is $2.50.  Diapers were approximately as expensive as regular retail at other places, when adjusted for buying a gigantic box.  (I might argue that diapers are one of the few places that a gigantic box purchase might be considered a convenience, though.)  Not just that, but I distinctly remember paying about $6 for a box of Rice Krispie treats two years ago. They’d raised the price on the box to $8.57 yesterday.  M’s favorite, though, is that you actually pay quite a bit more to buy a 25 pound bag of sugar as opposed to the 10 pound bag of the same brand sitting next to it.  And yet, people were pushing these buggies around like they had just found the deals of the century.

That doesn’t mean that there are no good deals to be found.  Yesterday, we bought three cases of bottled water. We drink filtered water as well, but like to have the bottles on hand.  They were about the same price as Walmart, but you got more bottles for that price. ($3.88 for 30 bottles of Nestle as opposed to 24 bottles at Walmart.)  They also have good prices on books and movies and electronics.  Individually packaged snacks (for resale) are probably a better deal than at the grocery store, though those are pricey to begin with, of course.  Meat is often a good price–we bought some fresh chicken last time we were there at a good price.  We live forty miles from our nearest Sam’s, so meat/dairy is not something that we routinely buy there for practical reasons.  I have some fantastic baking sheets from Sam’s, too.  They’re abused regularly and look almost as good as new, and they were pretty inexpensive.  My husband enjoys their selection of cheeses. Office supplies and children’s clothes are sometimes decent (if not completely overwhelming) deals.   The personal care items… well, honestly, I didn’t bother going through those aisles.  Shampoo is free or it isn’t a good deal. ;) Spices are actually a really good deal, in my opinion–you get giant containers for about the same price as you pay for little ones in the supermarket.  Of course, I’ve been buying them at CVS lately and working them into my ECB deals so I don’t really pay for them at all, so the only one we bought yesterday was peppercorns.  ;)

Of course, a large part of the problem here is that in the last year, I started couponing and watching the sales prices more carefully, so I am paying attention to these things more.  I can buy most of the food items for much cheaper with a coupon matched with a good sale.  I think that as a general rule, Sam’s is probably a good value for people who do not pay strict attention to the sales cycles, do not use coupons regularly or for stocking up on basic supplies.  It can pay for itself with a few larger-ticket items, certainly.  They have laminate flooring for a decent price, and of course, any electronic item.  I am guessing that for many people, a few items that cost a little bit more at Sam’s would be outweighed by the general savings on the other stuff.

So, we totally reaffirmed our decision to not renew.  If we want to go back sometime, I’ll keep an eye out for a free one-day pass, or we’ll wait until December. My husband’s employer gives its employees a $500 Sam’s Club shopping spree every December (which is loads of fun, as you can imagine!) You have to be there on a specific Saturday morning, and what you don’t spend in three hours, you lose.   There’s no way that we’re saving enough money on the few things that we buy to warrant paying $40/year at this point.  It might be different if there was one in town that we could stop in at more frequently–I don’t know.

If you want to try out Sam’s membership yourself, right now you can use a one-day pass and avoid the 10% upcharge that they usually give to non-members.  Print out the .pdf coupon found in this slickdeals thread.  Technically, I suppose you could print it out as many times as you wanted–it’s good until March 31.  It does specify that you can’t pay by check. Sam’s is just about the only place we always paid by check because they charge a fee for using credit cards, or at least they did the last time we tried it. That was several years ago, and I suppose it’s possible that they have changed their policy (though I wouldn’t count on it.)  Cash is always welcome, though!