My 1st Million At 33

People are shopping more frugally as they should at Costco and Walmart, when the gasoline prices keep going up, and you can’t no longer charge everything on a maxed-out credit card.

But I must warn you that Walmart is really a better store to shop if your family is small, and doesn’t consume volume of (the same) goods. One of the things about shopping at Costco is that you can seldom walk out of Costco without spending $50 or more often $100. I mean, how many $100 bills can you spend without hurting your own budget? Anything that you buy will be packaged into a volume deal. Therefore, even if you just buy a few items, your pocket will be bleeding out with cash. That’s all good if you do need to spend that much. But that’s not so good if you don’t gather up a good plan on your own consumption. When you buy A LOT of anything, and you don’t have a good plan for it, usually you either over-consume, or have the items rotten and wasted, or you need to stock them up somewhere. Therefore, have a good plan for the consumption of the perishable goods before you start to buy. Splitting with friends and families is an excellent idea if it’s not too much trouble.

The second thing about buying at Costco is that they carry mostly above average quality goods at about the same prices at other stores. It means that you do pay for quality. If you can find items on sale outside of Costco, it’s possible that you will get a cheaper price on an absolute basis, although the quality may be slightly inferior. Shopping at Costco is really all about buying quality and saving time on finding good deals. That works out well if you’re middle or upper middle class. But if you don’t need the quality, and if your extra time cannot be converted into wage/money easily, then you could consider buying elsewhere. By the way, electronics items (especially computers and cameras) are NOT cheap at Costco most of the time. Don’t fall into their trap. Do always shop around a little.

Since people tend to over-spend when walking into stores, the best way is always to keep a buy list when you walk in, and try to stick to the list only. The list of the items should be based on what you need and what you have budgeted. That way, besides saving yourself from unnecessary buying, will also save yourself from forgetting to buy certain needed items. Save yourself from the second trip will save you both gasonline money and time.

And if you buy clothing, both Walmart and Costco have good prices, but very often, you can get good prices at Macy’s too for better styles. My wife seldom buys clothing at discount stores because she watches out for deals at the department stores.

My family has always shopped at Walmart frequently. And I can attest to the fact that every items is almost always cheaper at Walmart. We love Walmart better than Costco, only because the package size of Costco’s goods is too big for us very often.

In any case, if you don’t watch out for your own pocket, no one else will. Shop and make less shopping trips, so that you can leave more of the spare money for your own good.