[Amy8888]

This is a spin-off of the Food Finds thread. I didn't want to muck up that thread for people who don't use discount clubs. We have a membership to Sam's Club. The nearest one is about an hour drive and we go about once a month, so when I go I like to have a good list of things to stock up on when I go. Here are some things I've found that I use a lot:

-Orowheat sandwich rounds (1 point)
-Whole Wheat English Muffins (1 point)
-Mini-bags of popcorn in a 28 pack! (1 point)
-3 packs of Laughing Cow cheese wedges (1 point per wedge)
-Huge containers of Feta cheese (I always put that on salads-2 points per 1/4 cup)
-Pickles!
-Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches (2 points)
-Snickers ice cream bars (3 points-they are listed as much higher in the companion but I calculated based on the nutritional info on the box and they were only 3 points--I triple checked my math on these! Maybe what's listed in the companion are bigger bars.)
-Chicken Sausage-Seriously my best find so far I think. 120 calories for the mozzarella/artichoke variety, 3 points. They are so satisfying and definitely worth 3 points. Last night my dinner was one of these cut up on an Orowheat and a huge salad with feta cheese and salad spritzer--a 6 point dinner.
-Turkey mignon-So good. I don't have the nutritional info on these and I haven't had one lately but also pretty low calorie. The serving size is 1/2 of a a filet but IIRC a half a filet is only 60 calories so I just eat the whole thing.

So what have you found?

[Arkansas Kel]

Makes me wish I still had a Sam's membership? Do you really save enough to make it worth it? Just curious.

[kaplods]

My husband and I use Sam's Club as our pharmacy, we transferred our prescriptions from Walgreen's. The upgraded $100 membership was well-worth it, as we saved several hundred dollars in our first month of prescriptions.

Even without the prescriptions, when we had Sam's Club memberships in the past, some years our savings weren't as much as the membership costs, and some years we saved many times our membership costs.

One of my favorite Sam's Club items is the organic baby spring greens mix. It's a large tub of mixed leaf lettuces. The box is huge for between $4 and $5 about four times as much lettuce, but about the same price as a very small bag of similar lettuce in the grocery store. Since I buy a box about once a month, I "save" more than $125 a year - but it's not really a savings in the sense that without the Sam's Club membership I wouldn't buy that kind and quantity of lettuce. However, I would be spending $4 to $5 a month on some kind of lettuce, so for the same price I get much more quantity and quality of lettuce.

The Orowheat sandwich rounds (another favorite) cost about $1 more than a package half the size in our regular grocery stores. So nearly half price.

Probably the best way to decide whether a membership would be worth it to you is to go with a friend who has a membership or go to the Sam's club and browse the store. While they check your membership at the door, they won't keep you out of the store if you don't have one. Rather, you can tell them that you want information on membership, you go to the customer service desk and ask if you can have a free pass for the day (these are often available at Sam's Club and Walmart), or tell them you'd like to check out the store before deciding whether or not to buy a membership.

You can bring guest(s) on your membership (I don't know if there's a limit, but I've shopped with four to five family members, just using my card), so one way to save more is to share the cost of membership with friend(s) or family member(s). Only one of you can be put on the card, but if you plan on shopping together, this isn't a problem.