photo credit: xcode
My wife and I always look for the best bargain on prices when we shop. Some people may say that we are stingy or cheap, but I prefer to think of it as shopping smart and making educated decisions. This is our frugal way of life that we choose to live by. Even if we had an unlimited amount of money, we would still always look to shop smart. Discount shopping is how we are able to make ends meet from living off of one income. We live off of one income by choice and not by necessity. In order to balance our family budget, we have adopted a frugal way of life. That is the #1 reason why we can live a very comfortable and modest life with two young boys and one income.

While discount shopping is a tactic that we use to make ends meet, it does not always save you money and isn’t necessarily the best thing to do. The following list are reasons why discount shopping is not always perfect -

• Safety – I will just go back to what happened at WalMart during Black Friday. A worker was killed when an angry mob rushed the store just to get discounts. This is not the first time this type of thing happened and won’t be the last.
• Misleading Sales – This is something that seems very common these days at retailers. I have seen many stores who seem to market their items as always being on sale. I think Kohl’s is a perfect example of this. They seem to mark up their items just so they can mark them back down as being on sale for 50% off. It may seem to the buyer that they are purchasing something that is on sale when it really isn’t compared to a competitor.
• Clearance – I have also found that some stores will label items as Clearance, when the marked down price is really not that great of a deal. Not to pick on Kohl’s, but I see this happen all the time there. My wife and I like to buy clothes for our boys at the end of a season for the next year. There are many times when we find items (at Kohl’s and some other stores) that are on the clearance rack that are actually more expensive than when they were on sale a few weeks before. Shoppers need to be careful of misleading sales or discounts.
• Buy One Get One Free – Another tactic by retailers and stores to make you think you are getting a good deal. I always use the example of shopping for soda (I call it pop). Grocery stores often mark 12-packs of Coke or Pepsi products as buy one get one free. However, the price of one 12-pack may be over $6. You may think you are getting a good deal, but when you do the math, you could probably save more money at a different store.
• Buying the Discount – I have seen many people fall into this trap. My sister use to love to shop for discounts. I remember one time she called me up and told me a store had unbelievable discounts on winter ski jackets. She also said she bought 3 for herself. While she did ski at the time, it was only a few days throughout the year. There is no way that she could wear 3 coats at the same time. She may have gotten some incredible deals, but she also spent money on 2 coats that she probably wouldn’t ever wear. I am all for stocking up when things are on sale, but there are times when it just doesn’t make sense.
• Buying to Buy – We were very close to falling into this trap for Christmas this year. We had a set budget for our boys this year for Christmas gifts. Our oldest son is five and the youngest is almost 18 months. We overbought for our oldest son many years ago. He had every toy imaginable up until he was about three years old. Not only did my wife and I over purchase items, his grandparents and aunt went way overboard. He was our first son, as well as the first grandchild on both sides of our family. Let’s just say he was very spoiled. So now we are trying to shop for our youngest son and we have found there really isn’t much to buy him. We have made some purchases so he has some things of his own and items to unwrap. However, we have only spent about 1/2 the money on him as we did for our oldest son. My wife and I struggled with this and felt awful for a while. Then we realized that we can take some toys that were packed away from our first son and give them to our youngest. He doesn’t really understand Christmas presents yet anyways. We are going to take the rest of the money we would have spent on him and put it into his 529 College Savings Plan instead. We almost decided to buy discounted toys just to buy them. Instead we thought about it and made a frugal choice.
• Liquidation Sales – We were shopping at Linens-N-Things the other day for their liquidation sales. All items in the store were up to 70% off at the time and we found a blow up air mattress that seemed to be a decent deal. We almost purchased it, but then realized that we may have only been saving a few dollars compared to purchasing the same item at a different store. The key here was that we may have gotten a slight discount on the item, but all sales were final. Basically if we took the item home and it had a hole in it, we were out of luck. While you can get some great deals from stores that are going out of business, you need to be very careful.

Shopping for discounted items takes time and patience. You are bound to find some incredible deals and savings if you shop for discounts. However, you must be cautious and educate yourself so that you don’t overspend on discounted merchandise.

Related posts:

1. Take Advantage of Discounts for the Best Shopping Buys in January
2. How I made money Shopping at Pharmacy’s

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Last week, my wife and I had to make a frugal decision. Our membership at BJ’s Wholesale Club was set to expire at the end of the month. Our choice was to pay the $45 yearly membership fee for another year, or choose not to extend the membership. This was a decision that I had been debating for several weeks. I was trying to justify how spending the wholesale club membership fee was worth the money. We originally joined the club last year after our 2nd son was born to purchase diapers and baby wipes. We also used the membership to make other purchases, but the baby products was the main reason.

Recently, I have been posting a lot about potential passive income opportunities by using coupons and shopping at pharmacy’s. As part of this experience, I have been able to work various deals to purchase diapers and baby wipes at the same price or better than BJ’s. Since this was the main reason to keep the membership, I began to question if it was worth the yearly fee to renew. Below is a breakdown of why I thought we should renew and why I thought we should NOT renew our yearly membership to BJ’s.

Why we should renew

• Meats – While our family does not eat a lot of meat, we have found that meats tend to be cheaper on average at wholesale club’s compared to grocery stores. For example, we typically purchase boneless/skinless bags of frozen chicken breasts for around $2.25 per pound at these places. On average, it is difficult for us to find the same value at our local grocers where we pay between $3.00 – $5.00 per pound for the same product.
• Coupons – BJ’s is unique compared to it’s competitors (at least I still think so). They send out their own coupon books every month to use and allow you to combine their coupons with other manufacturer coupons which increases your savings. We typically knock off several dollars in savings by combining both sets of coupons for diapers and baby wipes.
• Bakery – They have a good bakery and we have purchased several cakes from them for special occasions (i.e. birthday, baptism, etc.). We have also bought fresh breads and baked goods from them which have been cheaper in most cases then the local grocers.
• Diapers – You can still get good deals on diapers, baby wipes, and other baby products by shopping at these wholesale clubs.
• Gas – Many of these wholesale clubs have gas stations that offer gas a few cents cheaper than the local competition. I have never actually purchased gas at BJ’s but often would buy gas at Sam’s Club in the past.

Why we should NOT renew

• Membership Fee – The membership fee to renew at BJ’s is $45 for the year.
• Gas – As I mentioned above, many of these wholesale clubs offer gas prices that are a few cents cheaper than local competition. While I have found this to be the case most times, I have also found on more than one occasion that if you go a few miles further away from these stores, you can get cheaper gas than these clubs. I often find gas about $.05 cheaper a few miles away from the store.
• One Day Memberships – From time to time, BJ’s and other wholesale clubs offer one day free memberships to come and try out the store. Since we go to BJ’s about once per month and there are these offers on the same frequency, we can actually shop at the store without spending the yearly fee.
• Pop/Soda – I just had to include this one. I recently noticed that pop (soda as some call it), was selling for 2 12-packs for $8.00! This is crazy. Any given week, you can find pop cheaper in a pharmacy or grocery ad. I am amazed to see people stocking up on pop when we are at BJ’s.

In the end, we choose to let our membership expire. I could not justify spending the extra $45 yearly membership. Any costs savings on diapers and baby wipes would not equal the fees over the course of 12 months. In addition, using the free one day memberships from time to time will allow us to continue to shop at the store.

Do you belong to any of these wholesale clubs? Do you make up for the yearly membership fees in savings at the store?

Related posts:

1. Wholesale Club Membership – Update
2. Get Passive Income With Lending Club

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.