Sam's or Costco?

I’ve mentioned before that we are seriously taking a look at ways to save on our grocery budget. For the next step, we’re considering either a Sam’s Club or Costco membership since we will be near one once a week. From what I’m hearing from folks, it is worth it.

I was discussing this with my friend Gina (Cat Nap Inn Primitives) and she suggested I ask about this on my blog to get opinions  (Why didn't I think of that?)  So, I am.  Actually I’m asking more than one question.

Are these two stores really similar? Any notable differences? Which one do you use and why? Can you tell me which one saves more, if that’s the case? If there are certain things that you really find to be a great deal there, will you share those? Why should I choose one above the other?

Okay, frugal shoppers, I appreciate the feedback! It would help so much!

And as always, thanks so much for stopping by! Have a great day!  :)

Homemade Dishwasing Detergent (& Shaving the Grocery Budget)

Last night we mixed up a batch of homemade dishwashing detergent from a recipe we found (from where else but Pinterest).  :)

I’d seen a couple of different recipes floating around there, but since I had the ingredients here left over from our batch of laundry detergent that we made, we opted for that one. And since we ran completely out of dishwashing detergent this weekend and didn’t want to buy more, it was time!

And talk about simple. It truly was! You only need two ingredients: Borax and Super Washing Soda.

The recipe reads:

Mix one part Borax and one part Washing Soda.

We used:

2 cups Borax
2 cups Washing Soda

We put these together in our Pampered Chef mixing bowl and mixed them well, making sure to dissolve any clumps (the borax is bad about clumping). After it was mixed thoroughly, we just poured it into our quart mason jar.  It was exactly enough to fill that jar.

And of course, I had to spruce it up a little.  :)

Use 1 Tablespoon of the mixture per load. We also used a little vinegar in our rinsing gadget part of our dishwasher which helps to make those dishes sparkle.

I’ve already used it once and the dishes came beautifully clean and those glasses did sparkle.

And let’s see, I figured it up. It looks like this jar of dishwashing detergent will last us about 64 loads. Since we normally only turn on our dishwasher once a day, that will last us for a little over 2 months. Not bad considering we are still using the ingredients that were left over from making the laundry detergent. And we still have more left!

As I said before, I had already shopped around for the best price on dishwashing detergent and the best deal I found was at Walmart - a box of Sun dishwashing detergent for 97 cents. This usually lasted me for 2 weeks. So the way I have it figured, this has saved me around $1.00 a week on groceries just on dishwashing detergent. Every little bit helps, right?

There are a few things we found at Dollar Tree that save us a little money as well. We found it worth it to stop by there to pick up these few items since they are a dollar each.

Flour tortillas
13 gal drawstring garbage bags (pack of 8, but that lasts us a week).
Wheat bread
Palmolive soap (3 bar pack)

Have you noticed the prices of flour tortillas lately? Ouch. Well it seems like they are on our grocery list (which is every other week) and Dollar Tree’s price sure beats the price I’ve seen anywhere else!

I’m always on the lookout trying to shave dollars off our grocery list to stay within budget. We are seriously considering a Costco or Sam’s membership. I use quite a bit of shredded cheese in recipes so I really need to find that at a better price. I think we’re going to try to visit to see if it would be worthwhile for us.

So what about you? Have you found ways or places to shop to trim your grocery budget? I’d love to hear about it!

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great week!  :)