Is it Cheaper to Shop at a Warehouse Club?

"You've got to sit down and do the math," says Steve Economides, coauthor with his wife, Annette, of Cut Your Grocery Bill in Half. "In one year, you'd have to spend a heck of a lot of money to make back $45."

And third, these warehouse clubs lure you in with a great price on chops, but the entire store is designed to encourage you to spend more than you intended in the form of "impulse buys."

"The warehouse clubs encourage impulsiveness, and that's one of the things we hate," says Annette Economides. If you impulse buy a magazine at the grocery store, you've only set yourself back a few dollars. But warehouse clubs are known for their big-ticket items. "With clothes, furniture, appliances — you could easily spend $300 more than you had planned," she says.

So how can you save money? Here are four tips from Steve and Annette Economides:

1. Shop grocery store sales. "When you've got a sale at the grocery store, it will beat the price at the warehouse club," says Annette Economides. The Agriculture Department report showed, for example, a mere 3 percent savings on Tropicana juices. If you wait for the grocery sale, odds are you can do better. Also, most warehouse clubs don't allow you to use coupons, which grocery stores do — another saving not reflected in the report.
   
   
2. Don't assume everything at the warehouse club is cheaper. Some items have been proven to cost more. The report cites Oscar Mayer bacon as cheaper at the grocery stores for two of the three years examined. Warehouse club prices were also consistently higher on apples, dark green vegetables, tomatoes and avocados. And then there are items where the prices are nearly the same, including — in the Atlanta market — eggs, bananas, cheese, yogurt and milk.
   
   
3. Know your prices. For example, if you know you can buy bananas at your grocery store for 59 cents a pound, then you won't be so easily lured by the three-pound bag for $1.99. (That's 12 percent higher.)
   
   
4. Split your membership. Share the annual fee with a friend, and split your purchases, too. It might be hard for you to eat five pounds of chicken legs before the freezer burn sets in, but if you divide the purchase among a few friends, then you avoid throwing out unused food. And you still get to brag about getting chicken legs for warehouse club prices.