<strong>Dear Jill:</strong> I know you have not been a fan of warehouse clubs in the past. Have your views on them changed since this horrific inflation has hit? <strong>— Anna S</strong>.

It’s true that I’ve not been a huge fan of warehouse clubs throughout my coupon career. I have nothing against them at all – but for well over a decade, I proved week after week that I could get better prices on the same items the warehouse club sold by watching supermarket sales and using coupons.

Warehouse clubs sell bulk – large-sized items – with the understanding that you are saving money over buying those same items at full prices at retail. The key concept to grasp here, again, is “full prices at retail.” Retail prices fluctuate on a pricing cycle where the sale price of the same item might be 20, 30, or 40 percent off the regular, non-sale price.

While buying a 12-pack of paper towels at the supermarket costs more than the warehouse club when the towels are selling for full price, the supermarket may become a better per-role deal when those same towels go on sale.

Full disclosure: I do have a warehouse club subscription, because there are other items I like buying there – everything from books to clothing to gasoline. I also only keep my club subscriptions when they are effectively free. In the past I’ve rotated between different clubs based on their annual subscription offers. My current subscription was purchased during a promotion where it cost $45.00 to join, but I immediately received a $45.00 gift card for signing up. If the membership price is effectively reduced to zero, why not?

That said, having the club subscription allows me to price-compare the grocery items I see there and the ones I find in my local supermarkets’ circulars. I continue to be surprised that staples like bread, eggs, butter, and milk at the club are priced nearly equally to, or at times higher than, the supermarket. Meats per-pound prices are consistent at the club, although my local supermarkets’ sales often bring better per-pound pricing over the everyday-low-pricing of the club.

That said, I’ve noticed more instant-savings and club-specific coupon offers this year at my club – more than I recall seeing in previous years. When I see these, I do calculate the per-pound or per-unit price of the warehouse clubs’ items and see if they’re also a good deal. I’ve been pleasantly surprised as of late to see that sometimes, they are.

I recently bought two large 208-ounce liquid laundry detergent bottles at the club because they were having both a $5.00 instant savings promotion on each bottle, as well as a “Buy 2, Save $10.00” offer too. Putting these together made the detergent a better deal than it currently was at my local grocery stores.

In the absence of low-priced sales and with continued rising inflation, I think it’s wise to keep our shopping options open to wherever we might find deals. That said, if you’re not certain whether or not you would frequent the warehouse club, I recommend visiting one as a guest.

Take a look around at the products stocked there and the pricing. If the annual fee is prohibitive, wait until a promotion comes around that makes joining more financially attractive – and these offers do come around frequently! You can use an internet search engine to search for the name of your club and “membership deals” to see what might currently be available.

Just as I don’t recommend buying all of your groceries at the same time at the same store, I also don’t recommend buying everything at the warehouse club. To be price-conscious means timing purchases around sales cycles and promotions, and part of that strategy often involves visiting different stores to seek out the best pricing possible on what we need to buy. While my usual routine involves doing this at grocery stores and drugstores, adding a warehouse club into the mix does also give lower-priced shopping opportunities to us too.