Hopefully you have now had a chance to look further into buying in bulk. I would like to spend a little time discussing whys to minimize the cost of the membership.
One thing you might want to consider is checking with your church or employer. Some churches and employers are able to offer their employees/members a discount on a membership. This is usually if your church or business has a business membership, but could possibly save you $5-$10 on your membership or a savings of 12%-25%/year.
Another idea would be to split a membership with a close friend who you trust to either shop for you or to pay you back or even start a buyers coop. The other day when I was doing some research to help maximize my savings when it comes to buying in bulk, I came across an interesting article at The Simple Dollar. What the author is suggesting is that you buy a membership to a warehouse club such as Sam’s Club and then offer to buy stuff for you friends, family and neighbors at a small mark up to offset the cost of your membership.
This idea actually works out great because smaller families can benefit from buying in bulk. If family 1 only needs 5lbs of rice and family 2 need 10lbs and you wouldn’t mind the additional rice, then buying 20lb bag of rice can save everybody money even if you charge a small mark up fee for your effort of shopping, weighing out the rice, bagging it and distribution.
If you still are not convinced, here are a few other articles:
This article from Mom Advice gives you some tips on how to make bulk buying work for you and your family.
The Simple Dollar also offers an interesting article on the great bulk buying debate.
Bulk warehouse clubs are not the only place that you can buy in bulk, you can also join a buyers coop which will allow you to buy directly from the food suppliers, it is best to do this with a large group of people in your community because the more that is bought the cheaper the items will be. Many times if our order is big enough we will receive as much as 18% off our all ready low bulk prices. UNFI and Frontier are the two companies which I am familiar with. I usually buy my rice, beans, dried fruit and spices though buyers coops because they are so much cheaper than even buying them from bulk warehouse clubs.
I hope that I have been able to shed a little bit of light on whether it is worth buying in bulk or not. It is different for everyone and their situation, but in most cases it is definitely worth it.
