In the recent past, I mentioned that our new home’s location has a Sam’s Club and a Costco almost the same distance apart, and now that we will finally have storage space, the opportunity to really take advantage of warehouse shopping became clear.

To decide which one we would go with (a significant decision, because both have membership fees in the $40 range), I took a trip to both stores in the last week, mostly to mill around, see what was available, check prices on some specific items I know we’ll buy in bulk, and then use that information to make a decision. Although Costco had some advantages (better electronics selection, somewhat nicer layout, and fresh produce while Sam’s had none), the advantages of Sam’s Club were too much to overcome. Here are seven reasons why I chose Sam’s Club over Costco.

Location, location, location Although the two stores are roughly equidistant from our future home, Sam’s Club is much closer to my daily commute. This is a significant advantage for Sam’s Club, though not a deal maker.

Diapers, diapers, diapers Sam’s Club has better diaper prices than Costco on the brand that we use (Pampers Swaddlers and Cruisers), but both are far better than the local department stores and also better than Amazon. Given that we have a child still in diapers and another one on the way in September, this is a very important factor for us.

Item selection I made a list of fifteen specific food items that we regularly buy that aren’t obvious common ones, ranging from specific fruit juices to our preferred brand of oats in bulk. Sam’s Club had a higher percentage of the specific items, and on the ones that they both had, the prices averaged out to be almost exactly even (Costco was cheaper by one cent on the total of seven items).

Help The help was highly variable in both places (depending on the person). I asked three questions of three separate people at each location. The best person at each one walked me straight to what I needed. The worst person at Sam’s Club got me to the right area quickly, then radioed for help. The worst person at Costco walked around in circles for a while, basically said that she couldn’t help me, then wandered away.

Distractions How many times did the store distract me into considering another item? This is mostly a way of seeing how the store’s layout convinces me to strongly consider items I wasn’t intending to buy or even look at when I came into the store, and the fewer such items, the better. Aside from the entrance area where I was distracted by a big screen television, I basically wasn’t distracted in Sam’s Cub - everything was spread out and open and sorted in an obvious enough fashion for the most part that I quickly found what I was looking for. In Costco, I was distracted several times - not good.

Checking out Since I was only in each store as a “guest,” I watched the checkouts for a bit and timed how long it took a few people to get through the line (I had time to burn when I made the visits, but when we have a house and another child, time will be important). The Sam’s Club checkouts were much busier (many more customers), but more checkouts opened quickly and the overall average time for both stores wound up being about the same.

Cleanliness Surprisingly (because I expected it to be the other way around), the Sam’s Club store seemed much cleaner than the Costco. Neither one was what I would describe as dirty, but the Sam’s Club had more of a “freshly-scrubbed warehouse” feel to it, whereas the Costco did not. Although this seems like an aesthetic choice, it does matter at a place where you may be buying foodstuffs.

While Costco did have a few specific advantages, Sam’s Club was the clear winner for me. Considering the membership fee is $40, the time spent figuring out which was better for me was worth the effort.

Where I live, there are no large grocery stores in a twenty mile radius (there are two small “town” groceries that are fine for incidentals, but their prices are rather high and their selection is limited). However, right outside of that radius are several different options for grocery shopping. When I first moved to the area, I more or less picked one of them at random, started shopping there, and never really looked back.

A few months ago, I decided to actually pick out the store that offers the best prices on the staples that I buy regularly so that I didn’t have to worry about always digging for bargains - I could be confident that my store had the best prices for the things I often buy. I wound up moving my shopping to a different store (a smaller chain) after doing the comparison, and I estimate that by making this change, I’m not missing out on anything at all, but I save $5 to $10 a week on groceries now without thinking about it.

Here’s the exact process I went through to figure this out. It’s pretty clever and quite simple, and you can do it with a spreadsheet program very easily.

For about six weeks, I went to a different grocery store each week. These trips were completely normal: I bought all of the normal things I buy on a grocery trip (lots of produce, meats, milk, and so forth). Even if an individual price made me cringe (this happened more than once), I would just buy what I needed anyway, because I found that almost always there was at least a handful of items at which the store was competitive. If a store didn’t have a large number of the items I wanted, I immediately decided I wouldn’t go there again.

Here’s the kicker: I saved the receipts from each of the trips. I usually enter the receipts into a money management program as soon as I get home (I use Microsoft Money) and then toss the receipts away, but instead I saved these receipts in a shoebox for later.

After the six weeks, I gathered up the receipts and did a comparison. I laid them all out side by side and looked for items that I bought at at least a majority of the six stops. This was a grouping of about fifteen items at the end. I then fired up Microsoft Excel and made a grid of these prices, awarding a score of 1 for the best price on that item down to 6 for the worst (and leaving the number blank if I didn’t buy it there). If two stores tied, I gave them both the “better” score.

After doing that, I just averaged the scores - and found a clear winner. It was actually fairly obvious as I was doing the receipts which store was going to win, but I ran the numbers anyway just to make sure.

Since then, I’ve been doing all my grocery shopping at Hy-Vee. In my area, for a married couple with a child who do a lot of cooking at home, they have the best all-around prices. The only other store chain that was even close was Fareway.

Give this simple process a try! It ended up shaving several dollars off of each grocery bill for us without any additional effort - if anything, Hy-Vee is actually slightly more convenient for shopping than our old place.

Recently, I received a lengthy email from a reader who had a ton of basic personal finance questions contained within. I thought it might be interesting to start an irregular “personal finance 101″ series to answer and explain some of her questions.

This question isn’t from the long email, but it is a great question concerning personal finance fundamentals that some of my readers might be interested in.

You keep talking about taking a calculator to the grocery store but I don’t know what to do with it or why it is useful. Shouldn’t I just buy the biggest one?

There are a lot of uses for a calculator in the grocery store. Here are three examples that shows how a calculator can be useful. Most of these examples are very basic math, but they show clearly how to use a calculator in a store to save a bit of money.

Calculating price per unit. Let’s say you want to buy Tide, but you want to get the best deal on it. One of the containers promises 52 loads for $5.99 and another one promises 96 loads for $10.99. Which one is cheaper?

This is a great time to break out your calculator. Type in 5.99, hit the divide button, type in 52, and hit the equal button. You’ll get a number that looks like 0.115192. That’s how many dollars you have to pay per load. In other words, with the 52 load container, it will cost you eleven and a half cents per load. Now, type in 10.99, hit the divide button, type in 96, and hit the equal button. You’ll get 0.114479. What does it mean? The larger one only saves you about a half a cent per load.

You’ll be surprised to find that sometimes the bulk offering is a great deal, other times it’s not much of a deal at all, and on occasion the smaller size is actually cheaper per unit.

Converting incompatible sizes. You’re checking out the toilet paper. One offers 9 rolls of paper with 150 sheets on each. The other one offers 16 rolls of paper with 88 sheets on each. Which one gives you more sheets?

Whip out the calculator and see how many sheets you get in the first package: enter 9, hit the multiply button, enter 150, and hit the equal button. You’ll see that that package gives you 1,350 sheets. How about the second one? Enter 16, hit the multiply button, enter 88, and hit the equal button. 1,408 sheets! The one with 16 rolls, even though the rolls are much smaller, gives you more sheets. You might want to compare the price per sheet to see which one is really the better deal, using the tip above.

Coupon math. I have a coupon for $1 off any package of Pampers Cruisers. There’s a 108 count box for $26 and a 144 count box for $34.50. I see that the larger box is cheaper without the coupon, and I can get another coupon for no problem. Which one is the better deal with a coupon?

Let’s figure up the first one. Enter 26, hit the minus button, enter 1, and hit the equal button. It costs $25 after the coupon. Divide that by 108 to see the cost per diaper: $0.231481. How about the other box? Enter 34.50, hit the minus button, enter 1, and hit the equal button. It costs $33.50 after the coupon. Divide that by 144 to see the cost per diaper: $0.232639. It’s actually cheaper to get the smaller package with the coupon!

Five Minute Finances is a series of tips on how you can save significant money or reorganize your financial life in just five minutes. These tips appear Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on The Simple Dollar.

Ever had to face down a $150 grocery bill? I have, and the reason was usually that I entered the grocery store without any sort of plan, wandered down every aisle trying to decide what we were going to have for supper, and ended up just buying tons of unnecessary stuff - including even some things I already had at home.

You can avoid that pain by starting a grocery list, sticking it on the refrigerator, and adding items to it as time goes on. Here’s what you do.

1. Get a magnetic note pad or make one yourself. You can get a cheap magnetic pad from Amazon, or make your own by gluing a freebie refrigerator magnet (or two or three of them) to the back of a normal pad of paper.

2. Attach a pen to the pad. Just take a pen with a cap, tie a piece of kite string around it, tape that string in place, then tape the string to the back of the pad. Done.

3. Put it on the fridge. Now, slap that pad up on the refrigerator door so you have a place to conveniently make a list.

4. Whenever you notice something you need, write it down. I often notice things we’re getting low on throughout the week, so whenever I see something that we actually need, I jot it on the top sheet of the pad.

5. Before you go to the store, think of a few meals you would like to make, see which ingredients you have, and write down the ones you don’t. This usually means planning your meals ahead a bit. My wife and I usually just identify three to four meals for the coming week and check to make sure we have all the stuff for them. Whatever we don’t have goes on the list.

6. Take the list to the store with you and stick to it as best you can. Once you’re in the store, you’ve already got a list of everything you need, so just stick with it. Don’t buy anything that’s not on the list - don’t even look at it.

This seems trivially simple, but very few people actually take a few minutes to do this and it saves a lot of money. How? By focusing on your list rather than the stuff on the shelves, you’re much less susceptible to the clever packaging and advertising of the products on the shelves - and thus you wind up with fewer unnecessary items in your cart.

Time spent: A minute here, a minute there
Money saved: $20 per store visit (that’s about what I save with weekly shopping trips, based on “before list” and “after list” comparisons)

Given the slickness of modern advertising, many people often view ads strictly as entertainment, when in fact they are intelligently packaged items designed to use various methods into tricking you into buying your product. I find myself often guilty of this, as I was during the Super Bowl this past weekend when I fell in love with the Emerald Nuts ad starring Robert Goulet. Here it is, in full YouTube glory:

Even though the ad is a solid little piece of entertainment, it’s also very well-designed to coerce you into remembering and buying Emerald Nuts. Let’s take a closer look at the ad to see how it works.

Around 3 PM, when your blood sugar and energy are low…

Familiarity The ad starts off in an office environment, a familiar situation for a lot of viewers. The familiarity of the office environment is why many ads are now using office situations - it allows the viewer to place themselves in the ad, and thus imagine themselves using the product.

The familiarity is even stronger, however, based on the premise of a sleepiness in the afternoon - again, a situation many can empathize with. Physiologically, most humans go through a period of drowsiness in the afternoon, so this ad uses this common experience to pull us in in another way.

some say Robert Goulet appears, and messes with your stuff.

Humor The juxtaposition of Robert Goulet in an office environment is humorous - two familiar things combined to make an unfamiliar situation is one of the basic tenets of humor. Humor grabs your attention, makes you watch, and creates a positive endorphin effect inside of you, making you feel in a positive fashion towards the product. A very similar logic applies when sex is used in an ad - it gets our blood pumping a little bit and creates a positive feeling.

A problem There’s also a problem - Goulet is causing chaos in the office. How can this problem be solved?

But the natural energy in just one handful of Emerald Nuts…

Introduce the product Emerald Nuts is a product that can solve this problem. It can cure an energy dip. How does that affect the humorous problem?

is enough to keep Robert Goulet away…

Solve the problem The guy eats some Emerald Nuts and Robert Goulet flees into the night. Thus, the product has solved the problem, both in terms of fixing the humorous situation (Goulet) and also fixing the “real” situation (the sleepiness). It’s a real problem solver, and in a situation that you’re already familiar with (the office), it seems like a great fit.

until tomorrow, anyway.

The big finish The ad finishes with a big display of the product itself at the point where your good feelings about the ad are maximized - you’ve laughed, the problem is solved, and you’ve subconsciously placed yourself in the situation. Don’t forget what created those good feelings - Emerald Nuts!

Thus, the next time you’re in the snack aisle and you see Emerald Nuts, you’ll have a faint remembrance of the positive feelings from the ad - and you just might toss a can in your shopping cart.

This is why many brand names have such loyalty - and why people spend their money to pay more for a product just because of the label. Their mind is littered with the remnants of positive feelings from advertisements, so they buy the product because they have a more positive feeling about it.

The next time you go shopping and automatically reach for a brand name, take a moment and really look at what it is - and what the competitors are also offering. You might realize that in fact the brand name is making you feel different for no tangible reason - that’s advertising at work. Remembering Robert Goulet can often help you save some money when shopping.

This morning, I went grocery shopping with my son and took my digital camera along to record the experience of grocery shopping with a penny-pincher. Let’s see how it went - maybe we’ll both learn something.

Welcome to Hy Vee! I went shopping at the Hy-Vee grocery store in Ankeny, Iowa, a northern suburb of Des Moines. Hy-Vee is a midwestern grocery chain that is almost ubiquitous in Iowa. There are many, many Hy-Vees in the greater Des Moines area; I like this one because it’s fairly new, very clean, and the prices are competitive right now due to a new Fareway that opened up about two blocks away. Generally, stores where a new competitor is opening nearby are a good place to shop because they trim their prices quite a bit so that when people inevitably try the new place, they’ll remember the lower prices at the other, more familiar store.

On grocery lists I prepare a grocery list before I leave the house. In this case, the list roughly matches the route I’ll take through the store, except for two items that I’m unsure about (I guessed where they were on the list). I usually head to the farthest point from the checkouts immediately and then work towards the checkout. Since the milk is in the back of the store, I head there first.

On comparing generics to name brands The first purchase I want to look at is Crystal Light, which is what my wife and I used to replace soda in our diet. It’s healthier and cheaper for us. I need to buy a variety of flavors, though, so we have enough to last a while and don’t get sick of the same flavor. Quite often, we will buy the store brand of Crystal Light, Hy-Vee Thirst Splashers, because most of the time it’s a lot cheaper per quart. Today, however, the eight quart containers of Crystal Light are on sale! The Crystal Light containers are $2 a pop, while the Thirst Splashers are $2.33 a pop. Clearly, the eight quart Crystal Light is a better deal here (and the flavors are better, too). But what about a size comparison?

The larger twelve quart size of Crystal Light is almost double the price of the eight ounce size. Clearly the eight ounce name brand is the best choice here, so I stock up on them, particularly on the flavors that we don’t usually buy because they’re not available in the generic brand.

On size comparisons I used to be of the belief that the larger size was always cheaper per ounce, but in fact this is not true on a pretty regular basis. Here, I’m shopping for Life cereal (my favorite cereal which I eat for breakfast multiple times a week). Here, you can clearly see that the 21 ounce box of Life cereal costs $3.88. I happen to have a coupon for fifty cents off, but I’ve bought Life pretty often, and I know even without calculating that it’s pretty high per ounce, even with the coupon, so I keep walking.

Not much further down, things get better for me and my Life cereal. Here is a 15 ounce box for $2.00. With my coupon, that makes it only $1.50 for a box. I pounce and toss a box in my cart, even though I find the child on the box somehow vaguely disconcerting.

My wife, on the other hand, insists on Special K cereal. Here, I have a 12 ounce box of Special K for $3.66. That comes out to $0.305 per ounce. However, I also have a coupon for 50 cents off a box of Special K. With that coupon, it’s $0.263 per ounce. Is that better than the larger size?

Right next to the first Special K box, we have a 16.7 ounce box of Special K for $4.98. That makes it $0.2982 per ounce, cheaper than the smaller box. With the coupon, though, it’s $0.2683 per ounce, which is more expensive per ounce than the smaller box. So which do I choose? I go with the absolute cheapest rate I can get per ounce, which happens to be the smaller box with the coupon. If I didn’t have the coupon with me, it would have been the larger box.

In short, a pocket calculator can be really really useful at the grocery store. I usually make several such calculations on a shopping trip, ones that are close enough that I can’t quickly determine with just a glance which is the best deal.

On shopping with children Near the end of the trip, I was walking down an aisle toward the checkout when my son spotted his favorite snack in the whole world: goldfish crackers. He nearly dove out of the cart reaching for them. He doesn’t eat them at a very high rate, though, so the big packages get stale before he gets through them. Thus, we buy small packages of them. We also buy him the whole grain kind because it’s better for his digestive system.

Of course, the problem is that he wants something that’s not necessarily a need. Although he’s young enough now that he doesn’t realize that there is a cost for these items, I do want to teach him that just because he wants something, he doesn’t always get it, either. This happens to be about the twentieth thing he’s almost dove out of the cart for, though, and when I’ve walked away from other things, he has been perfectly fine with it. He also happens to be nearly out of goldfish crackers; we have a plastic goldfish container in his diaper bag, which I checked and saw that it was empty.

After picking up the goldfish, he’s distracted for the rest of the shopping trip just by playing with the bag. Was it a good choice? He was out of crackers, after all, but I still felt like I bought him something he didn’t need. I suppose, though, if my biggest guilt during a shopping trip is buying a bag of whole grain goldfish crackers that cost less than two dollars for my son when he’s out of crackers … well, I must be doing something right.

Hopefully, you learned something from this trip. Let me know if you enjoyed it, or if you have any ideas for future photo diaries.

Over the past few months, I’ve discovered an amazing correlation between my debts and my waistline: they’re both shrinking.

Here’s how it happened. I started making a monthly “food budget,” where I decided to cap my monthly spending on all food, whether it be eating out or eating at home. Each month, I’ve tightened the screws on it just a bit to keep me thinking on my toes and planning ahead. This has had a few interesting effects:

First, I eat at home way more often. I rarely eat out any more. Instead, I prepare my food at home. The stuff I prepare at home isn’t necessarily healthy, but it is more healthy than pretty much anything one can get eating out without spending good money.

Second, I take my lunch to work. I used to eat out with coworkers almost every day, and it was almost unhealthy. Now, I bring my own lunch, consisting of leftovers or of foods I’ve already prepared for myself

I also buy much less prepared food at the grocery store. With a well-stocked kitchen full of basic staples, it becomes easy to prepare your own meals instead of relying on meals that are prepackaged. Most of my shopping now happens in the produce and fresh foods section of the grocery store, meaning I’m buying stuff that already has much less fat in it than I was buying before.

In the last three months, I’ve lost about ten pounds, with the only changes in relation to my diet and exercise being the food budget. A real interesting side effect, if I do say so myself.

So how does one get started? Many people are quite scared of cooking real meals for themselves; it seems messy and time-intensive and so they order take-out or make prepackaged meals. The amazing part is if you do it right, cooking at home can be very non-time intensive. I recommend reading How To Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. It’s a long book, but one that starts off with almost no assumptions about you and the kitchen; the first recipe is popcorn, for example. It’s also full of instruction on basic techniques.

Don’t worry about choosing recipes that are “healthy,” especially if you’re just getting started with the transition into making your own meals at home. Most home recipes are better than the average prepackaged meal and almost all of them are better than the average take-out meal.

If you make a few basic things, start saving some money, and start feeling good about yourself, I’d recommend a stocking your kitchen well and moving on to more complicated recipes. There will eventually come a moment where it begins to seem easy, and you’ll eventually find some recipes that just make your mouth melt that just don’t take very long at all (like my rosemary-encrusted chicken breasts). Plus, since you’re doing it at home, you’re in control of what it costs and how healthy it is.

One of the greatest money savers is cooking at home. You can often prepare tasty, simple foods at home very easily and quickly and with minimal cost; I regularly make meals that take less than ten minutes of preparation time, feed the whole family, and cost only a dollar or two.

Disclaimer: One of my greatest passions (besides personal finance, of course) is cooking. Please, don’t encourage me to start a cooking blog, too, because I just might do it and then my family would never see me.

The biggest problem is that many people do not have a well-stocked kitchen that is geared toward this purpose, so they often end up having to buy a lot of ingredients when they decide to actually try cooking something at home. Not only is it a new and challenging experience, it also seems very expensive because one has to buy so many ingredients.

Now, if you ask me, a well-stocked kitchen should include an incredible amount of staples (and that’s not even a full list of what I’d want on hand - think more herbs and spices). But let’s face it: that’s just not realistic for a lot of people who are just getting started with cooking at home. They want a small investment and the ability to turn out tasty meals without too much concern.

How does this save money? Each time you prepare a meal at home, it is less expensive than eating out. When you have staple foods on hand, it is much easier to prepare a meal at home, and thus you are more likely to prepare something at home than to eat out. $100 is actually a very small investment in your kitchen, since it only takes ten or so meals at home instead of eating out to make up for the cost of the staples.

Here’s my shopping list for bare-bones kitchen essentials. If you have these on hand, you should be well-prepared to produce many dishes, and your food shopping should be reduced to buying perishables, including meats and cheeses and fruits and such. Plus, you’ll discover before long how much tastier home-prepared food is.

Baking
Baking powder
Baking soda
Brown sugar (actually useful in many things)
Corn meal
Corn starch
Vanilla
White sugar
Yeast

Herbs and spices
Basil
Black pepper
Cayenne pepper
Cinnamon
Garlic
Nutmeg
Oregano
Rosemary
Sage
Salt
Tarragon (maybe not essential, but my favorite spice)
Thyme

Oils, Stocks, Condiments
Beef stock
Chicken stock
Lemon juice
Mustard
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese
Red wine
Sherry
Soy sauce
Tomato paste
Vegetable oil
Vinegar
White wine