BellaOnline Forums Family Work & Family Do you have a budget tip when shopping for food?

I use both Sam's and Costco! Sam's carries the one-gallon sized tea bags that I use and that's the only place I can find them. Everybody here and all our visitors drink iced tea constantly! Costco is closer and boyfriend buys gas there, so I go there most of the time.

You can get tires for your car, computers, DVDs & CDs, cameras, prescription drugs, tv's, mattresses, eyeglasses, (I get the cheap readers there--$18 for four pairs. They also have real eye doctors & prescription glasses) clothes & shoes, and of course I buy books there, too. (I buy books anywhere they sell them.) I get gifts there, too. They have pretty cool kitchen stuff--dishes & small appliances & such. Plus, both have bakeries and their cakes are delicious--a huge cake is only $14 and they will personalize for birthdays or showers for free.

I know Sam's occasionally sends out visitor passes in mailers around here, and when I worked at the hotel, both stores frequently offered one-day passes for my employees. They both have websites and you could find your closest ones & call their marketing reps & ask for a one-day pass to try it out. I think we pay about $35-$45 per year for membership and both include cards for me and boyfriend.

My mother lives about 80 miles away but comes here often and she has Sam's membership for the vitamins & OTC meds and just shopping, of course. She buys some beauty products there, too--I just don't remember what.

It's definitely worth looking into. I used to think I'd never spend enough to recoup the membership, but I definitely do and I think I've had at least one membership pretty regularly for about 7 or 8 years. When I was in the hotel business, we would buy snacks for sale calls and we'd also run there to get food for the restaurant when we were running low between deliveries.

Deb,

Thanks for this info. My mouth is open. I can't believe what I have been missing. I just checked and there is a Costco just 5 miles from where I live. It's so funny (or maybe not) I happened to see a large container of Nonni's Original Biscotti at Costo online for $8.41. I love these <img src="/images/graemlins/heart.gif" alt="" /> I have paid $15 for the same thing without whining. I feel as if I have found the pot at the end of the rainbow. And I need readers, I stepped on mine last week.

Cheryl

Cheryl, I am with Mary Ellen. How do you do all of this? My mom used to do the same because we were a family of 8. Whenever, I am asked who my hero is, I always say it's my mom. My guess is that you have the menu for the week thing down to a science. You and Jean have inspired me to make some changes to the way I shop. It will certainly be to my benefit to have some sort of menu, now that I am no longer salaried and working for myself.

I had to smile when I saw conniem's post. We always had home baked cookies and cakes also. However, my mom did buy Jello, sometimes she put fruit cocktail in it. Very good with pound cake. Once in a while when I need comfort food I will buy Jello and fruit cocktail. I shamelessly eat the whole thing in a day or so.

Vannie, there's NO shame in eatin' Jell-O and fruit cocktail! It's really not all that fattening and the fruit is good for ya. <img src="/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

I rarely have time to complete everything I'd like too. I'm usually the one runnin' to catch up with my tail. But - when it comes to food, that's one area that I just don't like to mess around with. 4 kids (3 are boys) can get pretty ugly, pretty quick when they're hungry.

I do make a lot of stuff from scratch too. I love to bake but I don't like to be interrupted when I do it, so I do it less in the summer. We make a lot of smoothies, our own popsicles and cake. My daughter makes great cookies.

Seriously though, a menu can go a LONG way to stretching the budget. When you make a menu and then make your list from the menu, you tend to spend less on items that go to waste or that you don't need.

Thanks for all of the positive feedback. <img src="/images/graemlins/kiss.gif" alt="" /> There is a lot of good, useful information here. Also, I can see that making a weekly menu and a shopping list can really help you to save money (and time!).

V~