Single at Sam's

For the first time in my life, I'm working a full-time job without a college meal plan. I've had plenty of experience shopping and cooking over breaks and summers, and also during my most recent unemployment Winter-Summer 2010. Still, mixing it together with the job is...well, it's adult.

Anyway, after years of tagging along with my parents at Sam's Club and piggy-backing on their membership, I decided to take the membership dive. So, now come the two questions: will I actually save money, and can I make it worth my while as a single consumer. Answering the first question involves a boring spreadsheet, but I did save over $11 in week one.

As for the second question, I'm thinking there might be some writing material regarding my creativity with bulk foods. Keep in mind that I am currently living in a small apartment with a limited number of dishes, spices, etc.

Week 1: Pot Roast (sorry, I can't find a pic of the actual product)
This puppy is pre-cooked and serves 8 people. The first night started out as straight-forward pot roast with pierogies (I love pierogies). The leftovers were too plentiful for a storage container, so they went into the fridge in a cooking pot (for easy re-heating, too). After a few little snack nibbles, the next roast meal was a breakfast--pot roast omelet. Although it turned out more like scrambled eggs, mmmmm tasty!  The third roast meal was burritos--correction, fried tacos. I used flat tortillas and fried them in a skillet to make two very meaty tacos. Three meals down, more meat to use. Tonight (meal four) was beef and pasta--a variation on beef tips and noodles but using shredded beef and rotini pasta. I'm not sure I would have made it quite this way for guests, but I was very pleased! There's going to be a meal five, but I mixed all of the meat in with pasta, so #5 will be leftovers of #4.

Not very glamorous, but 5 single-person meals (4 unique) out of one Sam's entree that cost less than $12. If only it had less sodium.

Fortunately, the meatballs I purchased were packaged in two separate sealed bags ;-)