ccbreder said:
I don't want to "register", just to enter a store.
You shouldn't have to. You can't buy anything. You should be able to walk up to the greeter and say something along the lines of "I am considering getting a membership. I would like to look at the store to see if it is something I would use". You can do the same at Costco. One time we simply asked the question I posted and they let us in. Costco's are fewer and farther between. I do not know if they allow the overnight parking. They are geared more for the regular home consumer. Sam's is geared more for businesses. The membership is $45 and $100. If you get a
gift card from Sam's Club, the
gift card acts as a membership (temporary) allowing you to purchase items. You can put two people on your membership with no extra charge. My daughter is on mine. She was shopping in ABQ while I was shopping in Roswell. While I did buy my fuel from Sam's Club almost exclusively while living in Roswell, it was because they were either the cheapest place in town or darn close to it (Murphy Gas was sometimes the same price or cheaper). It is not why I got a membership nor the reason I keep renewing. Sometimes they are higher. They appear to change the price with each actual delivery unlike most who have to dip their tanks and then the price is recalculated. When fuel prices were fluctuating hourly in Roswell, Sam's Club stayed steady and only changed with a fuel delivery. If you can't tell, I love my Sam's Club membership. I'm thinking that my daughter who will be living with me for a while, will get a Costco membership and then I will get one of her membership cards. Then we can shop at both places. I have had a regular, business membership and a business Plus membership. I got my regular membership back in 2006 in GA, changed to a business membership in 2009 (used in NC, TX, NM and several states on the way out to NM). I upgraded to the Plus about 2 years ago because they were changing the benefits of the levels to what they are now. The Plus gave us a few more $$ off some of David's prescriptions.
David would "graze" thru the store too. Me, not so much. But I do like that I can taste some of the foods they have. I often end up buying the product that I tasted later. I do like the 90/10 rolls of beef (great for my meatloaf and I like my burgers very rare). Even the stew meats are pretty good.
Membership in Sam's or Costco is not for everyone. I dislike grocery shopping and tend to only do the bulk of it once a month. Then I do my version of Once a Month Cooking where I make several tripled batches of my fav (yet messy) dishes and freeze the excess. Like my meatloaf. I just cooked up a X5 version and made a pile of mini meatloaves, cooked and then wrapped them all in foil. Freeze and thaw later. Like I said before, I am set up for this. I have space to store the excess stock. But not all packaging is large, not is it the best buy (sometimes Wal-Mart has the same thing cheaper and in a smaller pkg). Pay attention to pricing. With food, you do tend to get a better quality than from Wal-Mart. I sat next to a co-worker one day and we both were having Marie Callendar Chicken Pot Pies. Mine was much meatier and had more veggies than his. The difference? He bought his from Wal-Mart. I bought mine from Sam's Club. I paid less per pot pie than he did. He bought his one at a time whereas I was buying them in boxes of 8. The Farm Rich fried mozzarella sticks are NOT the same as you buy at Wal-Mart or any other grocery store. The Sam's version is a much better mozzarella. This is something that David & I have found is often true. So I may sometimes pay a few cents more for a roast or a frozen pizza at times, but the product is of a much better quality. BTW, I also take things like the two pack of frozen Zatarain's Blackened Chicken Alfredo and remove the two 32 oz frozen casseroles from the box and place them in the freezer without the outer box. I have the directions saved in my recipe notebook. Unboxing saves me a lot of space. This is a trick I learned when I was buying from Schwans and had to squeeze two weeks of food for two into a 4.4 cf freezer. Boxes take up a lot of space. Fresh produce is the hard one. Although I'm sure you can often find someone to split that 10lb bag of taters with. Or use more taters. They have FRESH Brussels Sprouts for under $5 for a 2lb bag. And they are much nicer looking and better tasting than what we bought at Albertson's. The salad mix lasts longer for some reason. I assume it's because the stuff is fresher. Sam's is heavily organic too. This has been happening in the past year. More and more organic.
Sam's Club Membership details
