Sam’s Store

It seems that many people we know have a membership to Sams Club. Friends, relatives, and mere acquaintances all casually mention their trips to that place. Earlier this year, I had a homeschool mom friend say she picked up a math curriculum book at a great price for her daughter. Emboldened, I asked another HS mom friend to pick up a “K” or 1st level math workbook for Child #2. She found a “complete curriculum” book which has been a huge hit with my “color, write, draw” etc child.

My spouse is the one who started asking questions. How much cheaper is it? How many cans in a flat? How is the selection? What is it really like? With the economic downturn, we wanted to explore a possible cost-saving option.

We were unable to get satisfactory answers from those who have been there, so we set a date to go take a look ourselves. After following correct procedures for our trial visit (we were guests of a current member), we embarked on our first foray, all four children in tow.

My impression
It wasn’t what I expected. This one seemed smaller than a normal (non-Super) Walmart. Higher ceilings, yes, but not as big as I expected. It reminded me of the warehouse of the manufacturer for whom I used to work except that it lacked the large dock doors. In selection, it reminded me of Alco (i.e., none).

Lessons learned:
- Sam’s only carried name brand labels. In many staples, we buy generics. Thus, there would be no savings or it would actually be more expensive to buy the same type of item. (Canned vegetables like corn & green beans or liquids like lemon juice and oil fall into this category.)
- Where we buy name brand of something (some canned fruit, Cheerios, tomato sauce, diapers), the price versus previous (recent) Wal-Mart trips was comparable – plus or minus only a couple of cents per item. Even diapers were less than fifty cents cheaper on a huge box. The one exception was on Bisquick. Sam’s has a five pound box vs. Wal-mart’s six pounder and when you adjust for that, Sam’s is cheaper by over a dollar.
- The bulk packaging (smaller size cans packed together) would be more convenient than a bunch of individual items when handling in the quantities we tend to buy.
- Sam’s often didn’t carry the usual size product we buy. One example is baked beans. They had them in smaller cans 18 oz(?) vs the 26 oz(?) we purchase. This wouldn’t make it a good buy for us as we would end up using two cans or ‘short’ everyone some in order to use the smaller can.

Overall, I wasn’t very impressed.Except for the fact that some of the items were bulk-packed together for easier handling, it wouldn’t be much of an advantage for us. It is a longer trip for us and prices for the items we would be purchasing were definitely in line with Wal-Mart (where we usually go).

We would still have to make a trip to Wal-Mart to fill in the gaps of the items we couldn’t get at Sam’s. Definite thumbs down on the value for us. Other people obviously have come to different conclusions for themselves. This is just my opinion based on our situation.

Tax Cuts for the Wealthy

Again, not sure who to credit this one to. A different take on tax cuts for the wealthy:

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Every night, ten men met at a restaurant for dinner. At the end of the meal, the bill would arrive. They owed $100 for food that they shared. Every night, they lined up in the same order at the cash register. The first four men paid nothing at all. The fifth, grumbling about the unfairness of the situation, paid $1. The sixth man, feeling very generous, paid $3. The next three men paid $7, $12, and $18, respectively. The last man was required to pay the remaining balance, $59. He realized that he was forced to pay for not only his own meal, but also the unpaid balance left by the first five men.

The ten men were quite settled into their routine when the restaurant threw them into chaos by announcing that it was cutting its prices. Now, dinner for the ten men would only cost $80. This clearly would not affect the first four men. They still ate for free. The fifth and sixth men both claimed their piece of the $20 right away: the fifth decided to forgot his $1 and the sixth only paid $2. The seventh man deducted $2 from his usual payment. The eighth paid $9 and the ninth man paid $12. The last man was left with a bill of $52.

Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings, and angry outbursts began to erupt.

The sixth man yelled, “I only got $1 out of the $20 and he got $7!” pointing at the last man.

The fifth man joined in. “Yeah! I only got $1, too! It is unfair that he got seven times more than me.”

The seventh man cried, “Why should he get $7 back when I only got $2?”

The first four men followed the lead of the others: “We didn’t get any of the $20. Where is our share?”

The nine angry men formed an outraged mob, surrounding the 10^th man. They carried the tenth to the top of the hill and lynched him.

The next night, the nine remaining men met at the restaurant for dinner. But when the bill came, there was no one to pay it.

Economy

For the last few of years, I have been worried about the direction our beloved country is headed. Morally, economically, politically, and spiritually. I won’t go into politics in this post (perhaps another time), but I have definitely been aware of the problems our government has with spending (and promising to give away) more money than they take in. It appears, from some of the information I have been finding here & there, that the Federal Reserve has been printing more money than they should be. The money supply goes up which is their way of keeping the economy going. The problem is that the increased money supply also creates inflation.

The same inflation that we are all seeing each week at the grocery store. (Don’t get me started about what we are seeing at the gasoline pumps.) While the government’s COLA (Cost of Living Allowance) doesn’t take into account gasoline or food, the rest of us know they are going up. And going up A LOT.

I’m getting derailed from my topic. Let me re-focus. Anyway, I have read a lot about where this country might be headed economically and what a big recession (depression) might mean. However, nothing had very much to say about how I could plan ahead to protect my family. The advice was usually something like this:

Get out of debt.
Buy gold.
Hope for the best. and/or Pray.

Um, yeah. Okay. Not overly helpful. If I could store gasoline and somehow protect my rather large storage spot, I think that will be more helpful than gold as a bargaining chip.

Finally, however, I read a series on getting ready – just in case. It was in Glenn Beck’s free email newsletter. Most of it went over my head (like investing in foreign currencies – I’m not sophisticated enough to figure it out), but the section on storing food sunk in. Have enough food for your family for a year. Wild concept for me. Apparently, the Mormons are heavily encouraged to have a year’s supply all the time.

So, we’re looking into it. Probably a year or two late in terms of prices of some of the staples. But, we are looking into it. Baby steps. At least I can feel like I’m doing something to plan.

Just in case.