I'm single and I have a Costco membership. I occasionally will buy produce and vegetables. I consider my Costco membership to be worth it just for the gas. Gas prices are about 20 cents cheaper at Costco. I also let my friends fill up whenever I'm with them. Costco used to be a great place to buy DVDs, books and software, but not so much anymore.
I have had a Costco membership for many years and over the years I have been using it less and less. It really depends on the type of food you shop for and if you have a large family. Otherwise it may not be worth it. I have found that Costco is not big on organic products and some of their specialty foods and frozen foods are not so healthy. So, since we have stopped buying that kind of stuff, we have not had much use for out Costco card.
Parker, why do you say Costco isnt a good place to dvds and books? I believe that is still the case. They have some pretty recent movies and books for reasonable prices. I'd definitely recommend checking that section of the store out. A lot of the political books are on sale there. Much cheaper than barnes and noble.
I would say yes it is worth it. I have a family of five and we save lots of money, especially on bulk items. We all eat a plant base vegan diet, but we still find lots of options for us. We also got a membership discount from work. We have a Costco's and BJ's membership.
Nope I honestly don't. I was doing some price comparisons between Sams club and Costco, and Wal Mart, Winco, Grocery Outlet, Foodmax, and the 99 cent store. I found that you aren't really saving money buying in bulk from these big super centers. The bulk items in fact were more expensive most of the time. I guess it also boils down to how much you care about name brands. The generic brands in some of these other stores always ended up cheaper than both Kirkland and Members Mark. But perhaps they aren't as validated.
I agree with Brink916. I have a pretty good memory with prices and where the lowest ones are. Every time I divide the cost of packs into individual prices, it is always the same, if not more than Walmart prices. It actually even angers me they charge a membership, when I think a lot of it is clever advertising. The only deals I think they consistently have is on some of their jewelry. Jewelry is so marked up in retail stores, so you can usually get a good price on gold, diamonds, and gemstones at BJ's.
I guess it would come down to personal preference. I think that having a membership club account with places such as Costco or Sam's Club can come in handy but there could be some factors involved. First of all do you have need to buy in bulk, such as having a large family or need it for some other purpose such as running a boarding house or something along those lines. Second do you have the place to store the products when bought in bulk. We can all say that we don't have a large family so why bother but there are some things that we always are in need of such a toilet paper, napkins, laundry soap, dish soap. and shampoo. Buying these sort of things in bulk could save money in the long run, but do we have to room to store it before using it that could be the question.
It all depends really. We are a family of three (for two years so far) but when it was just me and my partner we had both Sam's and Costco. After a while we let the Sam's expire and kept the Costco. After we had baby expenses we let the Costco expire, but we renewed a little later. Sam's is basically of grocery store items in bulk. So if you have a huge family it's great. The prices are marked down sometimes a lot more than regular store prices. BUT, Sam's belongs to Walmart and for certain items the Great Value brand is the same quality for even less so may be better off buying those items instead of the Sam's bulk. Costco (at least in my area) sells bulk, what I call "mini-bulk", and loose items. The great thing about our Costco is that a lot of things are not things you can find in the regular grocery store. If you're into eating organic, you'll find more things at Costco. Cuts of meat and seafood are less expensive and have more variety. So do the breads and pastries. The veggies and fruits are much fresher and less beaten up. The eggs, milk, and flour are items that are bigger than the store (except the milk) and per unit are less expensive. When we reactivated again I did the calculations and we saved what we spent on the membership fee within the first three or four visits. PLUS, something we noticed when we went last time, LOLOL my king loves sample days. He will kick until we let him out the shopping cart and then start looking for the sample carts. LOLOL At first we wondered where he was of to because he ran past the toy section (which also is great for when you need to buy a gift - beats Amazon sometimes - beats Amazon and Ebay in cameras too). He beelined for a sample cart and just stood in front of it smiling. We almost died laughing.
