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Trip to Sams Club

Last night we made a trip over to Sam’s Club in Concord (www.samsclub.com) because Cindy’s parents told her there were some major deals there to save on food. There were visiting, and Cindy’s mother has a Sam’s Club card. So we decided to go and take a look. But before heading over, we picked up a copy of a flyer from our local Hannaford and Shaw’s grocery stores so we could compare prices.

At Sam’s, you need to buy in bulk, so it’s not always easy to know if you’re getting a good deal. And we certainly can’t afford to spend a lot of money if it isn’t going to save us any in the long run.

Once we got to Sam’s club, Cindy’s mother flashed her card and we walked right in. 

The first thing I noticed when we walked in was that Sam’s is, by far, not just a grocery store. This place is literally a warehouse completely packed with electronics, furniture, jewelry, clothing and all kinds of other goods on one side of the store, and food on the other. We didn’t spend much time on the non-food side, so there might be some deals there – but we can’t afford to buy furniture or electronics at the moment, so there wasn’t much point browsing.

On the other side of the store, we started walking up and down the food and home supplies isles. I was just shocked at the enormous size of the isles and how big this place is.

As we walked up and down the isles, we did find a lot of amazing savings. You have to be willing to buy a large quantity to get the savings. For example, a box of Cheerios is only $2.11 per pound at Sam’s, but about $4.00 per pound at the grocery store. The catch is that you have to buy two one-pound boxes of the cereal.

Some other amazing deals we found (and bought):

Glad ForceFlex kitchen bags – saved $12.

Tylenol – saved $2.80

Skippy Peanut Butter – Saved $0.63

Maxwell House coffee – Saved $0.13

Tropicana Orange juice – Saved $1.07

Nature Valley Granola bars – Saved $14.22

Thomas English Muffins – Saved $3.39

Boneless Pork Tenderloin – Saved $16.50

Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice – Saved $6.39

Obviously – there are a lot of fantastic deals to be found from large warehouses like Sam’s and Cosco, but shoppers really have to be careful and make sure to bring local ads from their own grocery stores. There were some items like peanuts and ketchup that I noticed were actually either the same price, or slightly more expensive at Sam’s. So people should never assume that prices are automatically lower just because it’s at Sam’s club. But I’m definitely convinced that these large warehouse stores can save people a lot of money.

We bought so much our trunk was completely packed!

Needless to say, it was a great trip. We won’t have to buy groceries for a very, very long time!