My household is perilously close to running out of toilet paper and has been in that state for numerous days. I even had the past two days off from work, yet the supply closet is down to one roll.

My problem? I typically buy my toilet paper at a warehouse store and I haven’t made it there yet.

We usually go on a weekend morning. Yes, it’s crowded. But believe it or not, my kids enjoy going and sampling most everything- from smoked salmon to granola bars.

This behavior has led us to purchase our share of not-on-the-list prepared meals, but I figure it’s cheaper than eating out on a weekday.

And if the samples aren’t enough to fill you up, who can beat $1.50 jumbo franks and a drink?

There are some things I almost always buy at a warehouse: Razors, diapers, dried fruit, socks, cheese and organic meats.

But other items I’ve found to be a bad deal, especially if you shop the sales and clip coupons at grocery stores. Pop for instance. Cereal too. And after drinking our fair share of slightly stale coffee, we also stopped going for the big bags and buying less from our local coffee shop more often.

In the long run, I’m unsure whether we save money. I, too, succumb to the impulse buy from time-to-time. And we may eat more pretzels out of a gigantic barrel than we would out of a standard bag (those barrels can be put to great use after the munching is through).

But I enjoy the shopping experience and the products. And I figure my 2 percent cash back membership easily eats up the annual membership fee (I’ll let you know if that’s truly the case in November).

The gas prices are competitive too, although when I drive 20 miles round trip to get there, that probably uses up the discount (not to mention I can’t use my 6% rewards for gas card there– AmExp cards only).

I must admit that my toilet paper hang up is based in emotion, not fact. I am not sure if buying the store brand bulk paper is better than buying whatever is on sale at the smaller big boxes or is featured at the dollar store.

But I’m about to find out.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 6:15 pm and is filed under spending. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.