Sam’s Club can be a great place to save money and stretch your budget. But not everything it sells is going to be a winner for everyone.
The key thing to realize is that bulk buying isn’t ideal for every product. Here are just a few of the items I think the average shopper should steer clear of at Sam’s Club.
1. Most fresh produce
As with most things at Sam’s Club, a lot of the fresh produce comes in big quantities. Unfortunately, fruit and vegetables also have the shortest shelf life of just about anything we buy, with some things lasting only days.
Anecdotally, produce from warehouse clubs, like Sam’s Club and Costco, seems to go bad faster than grocery store produce. I think it’s likely a problem with age at time of sale — who knows where it had to travel from to get to your store in bulk year-round — as well as non-ideal storage conditions.
Before you pick up any fresh fruits or vegetables in bulk, consider if you’ll be able to eat (or, at least, process) the produce before it goes bad. You may actually be better off picking up produce at the grocery store and saving Sam’s Club for less perishable goods.
2. Olive oil
Olive oil is fat, and fat goes rancid over time. Olive oils can go rancid in just 12 to 18 months (and even faster if it’s exposed to light or heat). While not necessarily dangerous, rancid oil is not good eats.
When you buy olive oil from Sam’s Club, you get a good per-unit price because you’re probably buying at least a couple liters at a time. But the majority of us are actually using olive oil a tablespoon at a time.
A two-liter bottle of olive oil holds about 135 tablespoons. So if you’re not using it at least a few times a week, there’s a good chance it’ll go rancid before you hit the bottom of the bottle.
3. Flour
A lot of folks tend to think of pantry staples, like flour, as something that lasts forever. However, despite being called a “dry good,” flour is actually full of fat. And as we explored above, fat goes rancid over time.
Due to it being highly processed, basic all-purpose flour has the least fat and longest shelf life, typically around a year — provided it’s stored correctly (tightly sealed in a cool, dry place). Other types of flour can go downhill much faster, with fat-heavy flours, like whole wheat, going rancid in less than half the time.
All this to say, if you’re not much of a baker, maybe avoid buying 25-pound bags of Member’s Mark flour on your next Sam’s Club trip.
4. OTC medications you don’t use often
All medications have an expiration date. Once they expire, over-the-counter medications can range from simply less effective to potentially dangerous.
If you take a daily allergy pill, then getting them from Sam’s Club can be an excellent way to save a ton of money. Member’s Mark allergy relief tablets are a fraction of the cost of name brands.
However, Sam’s Club isn’t the place to buy over-the-counter medication if you just pop an Advil a few times a year when you have a headache or sneeze wrong and tweak your back (based on a true story). You’ll end up throwing much of the container out — or using extra to make up for less-effective meds (don’t do this) — eliminating any potential savings.
Bulk is only good if you use it
Pretty much everything you buy will expire at some point (except maybe properly stored honey and maple syrup). When that happens, what’s left is rarely worth salvaging due to quality declines or safety concerns.
Don’t buy in bulk anything you can’t — organically — use up before it expires. Waste is rarely good for your budget.
