Do you find Costco cheaper for groceries?

[Anonymous]

Too crowded.

[Anonymous]

No we don't think so. But if you want very high quality food at a good price, Costco is the way to go. We typically buy cheaper food when it's on sale.

Our local Costco is a disaster. You can go Tuesday morning at 10am and it will be slammed with people. It doesn't seem to matter. The gas line is ALWAYS 15 minutes long at least. People act like Costco is giving away food there and they have 1-2 completely full shopping carts each.

[Anonymous]

This has to be the most common recurring DCUM query.

We do a lot of shopping at Costco and I pay pretty close attention to prices and can't think of anything that isn't cheaper there.

Sure there are regular sales at the grocery store that get the prices close to Costco prices but on most things I think Costco is 24-40% cheaper than Giant/Safeway.

As others have pointed out you if you don't eat everything you buy you could end up wasting money but that mostly applies to fresh produce.

An example of something we buy at Costco and not at the grocery store is baby spinach - at Costco for $4 you get twice as much spinach as you get at Giant for $4. Sometimes we don't finish it because it is a lot of spinach but we are still saving money.

FWIW we've always found the produce to be high quality.

I don't think it is an exaggeration that we pay for our membership on every trip - we go about once a month and usually spend about $350 per trip.

I think where they get you is when you buy stuff you don't really need but are tempted because of the price - we almost always walk out with 2-3 things we don't need. As an example last weekend we came home with a pair of super soakers a couple of kids books we otherwise would not have bought.

The one variable in this is that Costco is really a trip for us - it is about 20 minutes extra each way over going to the neighborhood store we can walk to. But we almost always bundle the trip up with something else so it isn't such a loss of time - if we can't combine trips we often will go an extra month between visits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We save on these:
Cheese, jam, chips, protein bars, fruit (sometimes), hummus, the $5 rotisserie chicken, on sale Claritin, coffee, huge jug of vinegar, Better than Bouillon, nuts, organic sugar, cereal.

Every grocery store sells a $5 rotisserie chicken. Costco is not special there.

But they are old and dry and Costco’s are fresh out of the oven.

[Anonymous]

Ever since I discovered Aldi, I pretty much stopped going to Costo!

[Anonymous]

Frozen blueberries, maple syrup and nuts are much cheaper at Costco than anywhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Too crowded.

That wasn’t the question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We save on these:
Cheese, jam, chips, protein bars, fruit (sometimes), hummus, the $5 rotisserie chicken, on sale Claritin, coffee, huge jug of vinegar, Better than Bouillon, nuts, organic sugar, cereal.

Every grocery store sells a $5 rotisserie chicken. Costco is not special there.

But they are old and dry and Costco’s are fresh out of the oven.

They're all the same. The stores all cook them daily, then they sit under the lights until the end of the day. At that point, whatever is left is tossed or turned into chicken salad for the next day's salad bar. Costco might sell them faster so they cycle more quickly, but that would be the only difference.

[Anonymous]

Used to, but not anymore. We don't need huge sizes and storage is an issue. I think Aldi's is cheaper, especially the organic milk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We save on these:
Cheese, jam, chips, protein bars, fruit (sometimes), hummus, the $5 rotisserie chicken, on sale Claritin, coffee, huge jug of vinegar, Better than Bouillon, nuts, organic sugar, cereal.

Every grocery store sells a $5 rotisserie chicken. Costco is not special there.

But they are old and dry and Costco’s are fresh out of the oven.

They're all the same. The stores all cook them daily, then they sit under the lights until the end of the day. At that point, whatever is left is tossed or turned into chicken salad for the next day's salad bar. Costco might sell them faster so they cycle more quickly, but that would be the only difference.

Not sure about your Costco, but ours is constantly cooking them and they have not been drying out all afternoon like our local grocery... I always get mine cooked within the last hour.

Also, peanut butter.

[Anonymous]

Big tubs of baby spinach, raspberries, Mayoraga coffee, quinoa. We make back our membership cost in these items alone.

[Anonymous]

Chicken breasts are more expensive I think, like $2.99/lb at Costco vs $1.99/lb at Wegmans (or on sale at Giant)

Milk is cheaper and I seem to use 2 gal/wk these days

Cereal is usually cheaper than the grocery store (and the reason we are going thru so much milk I think)

Peanut butter, chocolate syrup are cheaper. Boxes of pasta are more expensive.

You have to go in having an idea of what the unit prices are at the regular grocery store and do the math to decide if it's a good deal for you to buy. I'm a sale shopper, so I know I can get a box of pasta for $.88 at Giant on sale and won't pick up the 7-pack of pasta that works out to $1.15/box or so.

[Anonymous]

Cheaper for canned, jarred, or boxed groceries and paper products. Really don't like their produce. The bread is ok. We have space to store the bulk items.

[Anonymous]

I do. If I find a product/brand I use in Costco, I start buying from costco.

[Anonymous]

Executive membership is $120 but comes with 2% cash back. If you average a bill of $500 per month, the rebate pays for the membership.