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Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

Is BJ’s Membership Worth It?

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Is BJ's Membership Worth It?

BJ’s is a lesser-known warehouse store that competes directly with Costco and Sam’s Club. However, while the latter stores have many more locations throughout the United States, BJ’s has just 216 stores in 17 states, primarily located on the East Coast. If you have access to a BJ’s, you may be wondering, is a BJ’s membership worth it?

BJ’s Membership Costs

BJ’s has a tiered level of membership.

Inner Circle Membership

An Inner Circle membership is an individual membership and costs $55 a year. With this membership, one person in your household gets a complimentary membership, and you will receive warehouse coupons. You can add up to three additional household members for $30 a year.

Perks Rewards Membership

At $110, a Perks Rewards Membership gives you all the Inner Circle membership benefits plus 2% back on almost all of your purchases. In addition, you receive BJ’s travel benefits and double or triple back during certain special events.

Business Save

As a Business Save member, you can choose between an Inner Circle or Perks Rewards membership. You’ll also receive tax-exempt and resale privileges.

Note: Veterans and active military personnel and their families will receive 25% off the membership price. They can also receive a $10 coupon on their first shopping trip.

Get an Insurance Discount

Is a BJ's Membership Worth It?

BJ’s has partnered with Geico to offer all of their joint customers an 8% insurance discount. If you’re already a Geico customer or you are interested in switching to Geico, this discount, especially if it is applied to all of your insurance policies, could make a BJ’s membership more than pay for itself.

Try It Out for a Day

BJ’s offers a one-day shopping pass for non-members. Using this pass, you can shop BJ’s online for club member prices and have your goods shipped to you.

Can Use Manufacturer Coupons

Unlike other warehouse stores like Sam’s Club and Costco, at BJ’s, you can stack manufacturer coupons with BJ’s coupons, resulting in even more savings.

Is a BJ’s Membership Worth It?

The answer is, it depends. If you’re just using BJ’s to buy your groceries, you may find competitors Costco and Sam’s Club cheaper. This is assuming you also have one of those warehouse stores nearby.

However, if you plan to use BJ’s more extensively and don’t have a competing warehouse store nearby, a BJ’s membership can be worthwhile. With a BJ’s membership, you can get discounts on gas as well as insurance. You can also stack coupons leading to larger savings. These benefits are in addition to the already lower prices that warehouse stores offer.

If you plan to use BJ’s for booking a rental car or a vacation, the savings continue to add up. Don’t forget BJ’s also has its own optical and tire centers to save you even more.

Final Thoughts

Is a BJ’s membership worth it? That will depend on why you’re getting the membership and if you are located near any competing warehouse stores like Costco or Sam’s Club. If you’re not sure, consider getting a one-day membership so you can compare prices with your other local grocery stores to see who has the better prices.

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Good Alternative Markets to Buy Specialty Foods

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Good Alternative Markets to Buy Specialty Foods

In our family, we’re gluten free and dairy free due to food intolerances. Although we’ve been this way for about 10 years now, when we first eliminated gluten and dairy from our diets, I was shocked by how much gluten and dairy alternatives cost. Thankfully, in the years since, we’ve found good alternative markets to buy our specialty foods.

Save Before You Shop

Of course, if your grocery budget is tight and you’re on a special diet, the first way to save is to make meals that naturally don’t require substitutions. For instance, stir fries are meals that don’t require any gluten or dairy substitutes (except the soy sauce). An All-American meal of meat, potatoes, and a veggie is another one. Try to make the bulk of your meals the kind that don’t require any substitutions.

Having said that, sometimes you just want meals as close to what you used to have as possible.

Good Alternative Markets to Buy Specialty Foods

Azure Standard

Good Alternative Markets for Buying Specialty Foods
Photo by Alex Motoc on Unsplash

Azure Standard is a family run health food store that delivers food throughout the United States. You can buy food in bulk at significantly discounted prices.  (For instance, we buy gluten free oatmeal in 50 pound bags for $62, which is a price I can never match per pound in the grocery store.) In addition, each month, Azure has different items on sale.

Their trucks deliver once a month at places called drops where several people help unload the truck and then pick up their individual orders.

Vitacost

Vitacost is an online retailer that sells both vitamins and supplements as well as food. They have a large specialty food section, whether you’re looking for dairy free, gluten free, vegan, soy free, Keto, Paleo, or many others.

If you place a $50 order or larger, shipping is free. In addition, if you sign up for their mailing list, they will frequently send discount codes, often for 15 to 20 percent off.

Again, when I use their discount codes, I find the prices lower than I can get at local grocery stores. Plus, you can’t beat the convenience of having food delivered right to your door.

Thrive Market

Thrive Market does have a fee of $5 per month, but the people who use the service say the fee is worthwhile, especially since shipping is free if you buy $49 or more in an order.

This online retailer has more choices than VitaCost, and your order is delivered right to your door. However, like Vitacost, there is no fresh produce available.  (You can get fresh and frozen produce from Azure.  Azure’s organic frozen berries are much cheaper than you can find in stores!)

If you’re not sure about paying the monthly fee, you can try Thrive Market for free for 30 days and cancel if you find it isn’t what you’re looking for.

Final Thoughts

If you have dietary restrictions, you may be frustrated because you can’t find the foods you need at a traditional grocery store. However, these three alternative markets for buying specialty foods will likely have what you need. I use a combination of all three throughout the year.

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Do Fitness and Frugality Go Together?

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Fitness and Frugality

Maybe it’s just because of the impending spring-like weather, but it seems like I’ve seen a large number of fitness-related posts on many of the personal finance sites that I read.  This made me pose the question, do fitness and frugality go together?

Ways Fitness and Frugality Go Together

The answer is complicated.  Fitness and frugality can go together.  Think about this–by its very definition, frugality is the rationing and careful spending of resources.  In being frugal, we carefully budget our money.  We carefully check over the fliers and find the best deals on groceries.  Eventually, as we continue doing these things, they become second nature.  We do them almost without consciously knowing that we are.  It becomes a way of life.

Fitness is very much the same.

Ration Resources

In being fit, we ration our resources, eating only what our body needs.  This can lead to a slimmer physique and a reduced grocery bill.  There are also other ways being fit can help us ration our resources

Not Buying Junk Food

Save on Groceries by Limiting Junk FoodJunk food is expensive, and it also can be a contributing factor for piling on the pounds.  If your fit and healthy, you’ll likely buy more natural ingredients like vegetables, fruits, healthy grains, and proteins.  These can help you stay fit and lower your grocery bill.

Not Going to Restaurants

Even if you eat what you think is a healthy salad at a restaurant, you’re likely consuming many more calories, fat, and sugar than you think.  Plus, restaurant food isn’t cheap!  If you eat at home more, you’ll not only save money, but you’ll eat healthier because you know exactly what is going into your meals.  As a result, you’ll feel better.

Track Our Progress

We frugal people keep close track of how we are spending our resources and are constantly trying to find ways to improve our outcomes.

This skill can easily translate to fitness.  We can keep track of our fitness progress while also trying to run a faster mile, bench press more, and do more sit-ups and pull-ups.  This drive can make us fitter over the years.

Lower Medical Costs

People who are frugal are patient.  They’re used to waiting for a good deal.  They’re used to waiting to see their retirement grow, knowing that each bit they invest will help secure their future.

Likewise, in fitness, each exercise you do and each healthy food you eat helps future you by reducing your long-term medical costs.  Ideally, the more fit you are, the less you need to spend on medical bills in the future.

Final Thoughts

Fitness can be expensive if you let it.  You can pay for a monthly gym pass.  You can buy the latest exercise equipment.  But you don’t have to.

If you are frugal, you can find ways to save money while getting fit and improving your lifestyle.  Simply improve your diet and find frugal ways to exercise like walking, biking, running, or lifting weights at home.

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Incidentally, if you want an example of a truly frugal person, check out Cleverdude.com’s article on if it’s cheaper to fill your own balloons. Most people would just go and buy the balloons if they were throwing a party, but this guy ran the numbers to see if DIY was better. Which is super frugal in an awesome sort of way.