Week 39: Sam's Club

I've been a member of Sam's Club for nearly 20 years (Wow, now I feel old!).  My parents added me to their membership when I left for college because I would drive through a town where Sam's was and frequently Mom would want me to pick up this or that.  In my 20's, I shopped there more for myself and found that I bought numerous items, many of which I didn't need.

Today, I still make a once a month trip to Sam's.  However, I'm finding that I buy less and less there.  Where at one time I would have my cart loaded down, now I buy the same two dozen items in alternating months.  I buy Finish dishwasher tabs, Oxy Clean powder, nuts, spices, maple syrup, milk, cheese and frozen veggies and fruits.  This last time I also picked up a few packages of medicine (Benadryl, Tylenol, Prilosec-except Sam's brand).  I no longer buy the paper goods, chips, bread, fruit, etc. that made Sam's prices such a good buy.

Last Friday, I picked up my first order from Azure Standard.  I got coconut oil, GMO free canola oil, coconut, walnuts, vanilla beans, salt, carrots, potatoes, and oranges.  Most importantly, I got a catalog.  Going through it, I found that I can get most everything I can get from Sam's and it's only slightly higher priced, and much of it is organic, which Sam's is not.  Over the next month or two, I plan to phase out Sam's completely and order my bulk items through Azure Standard.  I will pay a little more in up front cost, but I don't have to drive 40 minutes to Sam's and spend 2 hours walking the aisles.  With Azure Standard, I can order online and just go to the drop site and pick up my boxes of already packaged items.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about my Finish tabs or Oxy-Clean yet, but I think I might just ask Mom to pick me up some when she goes for her big trips and I'll pay her back.  That seems the easiest.

So far, I'm really impressed with the products I got from Azure Standard.  So much so that I think I'll try to do the bulk of my shopping from there and fill in with dairy and eggs from a local farm.  I'm sure that toward the end of the month I'll need fresh produce, but I'm thinking that this might be the best way to stay within my budget.  It keeps getting harder and harder to do that.

Week 11: Buy in bulk when possible

I'm always on the lookout for ways to save money on our food bill.  I don't want to sacrifice quality, but I want to get the most I can with my food dollar.  Buying in bulk can do just that.  This past Saturday I visited a local Dutch Bakery and picked up a few items that I hope will last 2-3 months.  I purchased 50 pounds of Wheat Montana Prairie Gold Whole White Wheat, 50 pounds of old fashioned oats and 50 pounds of Wholesome Sweeteners Evaporated Cane Juice (a little healthier sugar).  Those were the big things.  Then I also got 5 pounds of brown rice, a pound of steel cut oats (to try, if they work for our family, I'll buy the 50 pound bag of them next time), a brown and wild rice mix (no seasonings, just the rice), 1 pound of raw sunflower seeds, 32 ounces of pure maple syrup and some chocolate turtles (a healthy lifestyle is a work in progress).  My total came to right around $122 and I'm thinking that while I might have to buy more flour in a couple months, the oats and sugar should last 4 months or more.  I'll keep track of how long it takes me to use everything. 

My ulitmate goal would be to have a rotating stock of bulk quantity items so that each month I may spend $50 to build up what I'm getting low on.  I would eventually like to keep 20+ pounds of brown rice, pinto beans, flour, sugar, and oats on hand at all times and smaller quantities of a few varieties of beans, wheat germ, seeds and nuts, etc.  If I did this consistently and also purchased our meat direct from the farmer and had it locally processed, I can see our overall grocery bill dropping considerably while maintaining, or even increasing, the quality of our food. 

The bags lasted in my kitchen about 3 hours before I tore into them and started cooking.  I have already blogged about the 100% whole wheat bread that I made (delicious!).  Last night I made squash mini muffins, and chocolate chip cookies.  This morning I made a batch of whole wheat waffles and honey wheat bagels.  Everything has turned out very tasty and I'm excited to share the recipes with you!