Where do you get price books?

Though the bags are bigger in size, the flavors don’t go off if I look after them, and use them quickly. We now supply our office coffee needs courtesy of Costco. Alternatives are either horrible or horribly expensive where we live.

So for that I’m happy to pay because even if I don’t buy anything else in a year: the Costco membership means I get great coffee at home and at work for prices that Starbucks would be happy to charge me four times more!

I do find a quality difference between those private blends and the kirklands blends, too. So I prefer to buy the private blends as I perceive a better quality at a reasonably good price.

Anyway, we do enjoy Costco, though we are mindful that not everything represents a bargain there. The price isn’t the only determinant of bargain or not: it’s how much you use, how much you throw away, and how much the quality is different from what you would normally buy.

If you can factor all those in, then you’ll be able to determine whether it represents a good choice or not.

For me, the coffee’s worth it: I buy it less expensively, much better quality than local equivalents, hardly throw any away, and use it as a replacement for buying coffee in a store/restaurant.

Hence, for me: it’s worth it.

Kenneth

I recently bought bulk disposables for Passover but they’ll last us for several more months. No, it’s not as economical as washing and drying dishes, but we’re talking about several meals in a row (dinner, lunch, dinner, lunch) where we might have as many as 14 people for dinner. The big stack of dinner plates at Costco has about 3 times as many as the large pack at Safeway, for less money! Same for the other items I buy.

And their toilet paper is a way better deal than any other toilet paper I’ve tried. But I wouldn’t buy a lot of their bulk items because I couldn’t use them up before they went bad or it would take too much space to store.

Philip’s point about their return policy is one that my daughter has mentioned before, though. Apparently, you can take things back that fail somehow and they’ll just give you a new one right away. For example, the kids bought an air mattress (when they didn’t have a guest room) but it leaked after being used a few times over several months and Costco just replaced it, no quetions.

Unlike #1, I think it was a HUGE win, if you made yourself put back all your nonimpulse stuff.. It was a good exercise in self discipline, if nothing else.

I’ve also found that if I buy or make “a lot” of something, we tend to eat more/go through more–faster. Not sure why, but when I talked with another mom about this, she said the same thing. Mostly I don’t shop at those places anymore.

In the states, definitely using coupons and local store sales is going to result in lower prices than your local warehouse club, with few exceptions.

That said, the only things I regularly get there are milk and tortellini. All the other food and non-perishable items I can usually get cheaper when they’re on sale at the grocery store or CVS (like diapers).

We’ve definitely been going less often since our daughter became an active toddler – there are just too many temptations for her in a warehouse store. At a regular grocery store, I am better able to stick to my list and keep her under control.

But I just love the hot dog and pizza combos at the front. Can’t beat eating lunch for under $2. Sure, it’s not healthy, but once in a while, it’s great.

i’ve posted here before about the real estate referral program we used when we bought our house in june of 2008- we got about $1500 in a check, as well as a gift card for either 250 or 400 or something- i can’t remember.

and we do the $100 membership that gives you 2% back- then our membership is free or almost free.

my FAVORITE thing about costco is their vendor conduct policy. if you go to the website you can read it- for example they require their vendors to no use child labor, prison labor, etc. the whole policy is at their site under the investor relations section.

Unless you have twenty kids, I don’t see the need for buying most of the stuff they have there.

I think some of their “deals” aren’t really deals at all.

One of my friends like this literally does ALL of her grocery shopping at Costco (bulk, produce, everything), and she can’t figure out why she spends so much money. Um, because you buy more food than you need to eat?

4 years later and I still have stuff I bought in bulk and its sitting in my basement.