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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I've never bought anyone a gift from Costco. Different class/wealth circles, I suspect.[/quote]

When I was teaching at a boarding school in the UK, I had a student who was a titled aristocrat.  She was literally a "Lady."

I bought her mother a hot water bottle she found at a local grocery store for Christmas.  At her family Christmas, her parents gave her a set of cooking items from Amazon (not particularly high end) and a large gift card to Asos, which is a cheap, fast-fashion online platform UK kids use to buy (cheap, fast-fashion) clothes.  The girl loved Asos and that was what she wore on weekends/non-uniform times: cheap polyester fast-fashion items, and she just threw stuff away instead of laundering anything, since as she observed, "It just falls apart if you try to wash it one time."  Another teacher remarked that the girl "looks homeless" sometimes, which was accurate.  Friendly, intelligent, popular girl with zero regard or care for "status items" or concern with what anything she did signalled about her social class, because, well, nothing she did or said or wore had any impact on her social class.

We had two other aristocrat families (as in, actual titled aristocrats), and they and their parents put zero effort into fashion or clothing at all.  One mother (titled aristocrat) wore a tattered sweater with a small hole in the shoulder one Friday when she came to pick up her son for the weekend, and rubber wellies.  Their car was covered with mud.

My experience with them changed my understanding of what "old money" looks like.  They truly do not care about impressing anyone.  Sometimes they look almost deliberately shabby. [/quote]

It's one of the reasons Costco is so successful. There are a BUNCH of well off people who don't care about impressing anyone. They're happy with something that is total junk, but also not paying extra for some high end name brand that's marginally better than the next option. [/quote]

I think you’ve missed the magic of Costco and why it is so popular with rich people.  It’s not that we’re happy with junk.  We are happy with someone doing the work to narrow down options to save us time.  I don’t really want to spend a lot of time trying different items, but am happy that someone at Costco has done so to present me with a relatively curated selection of items.  I can easily ignore the items that are more junky (the fast food crap and the kitchen appliances from Samsung) while I’m grabbing things like the pesto, nuts, coffee, wool socks, jogging gloves, etc.  Prices on things like Apple products or Pyrex or mattresses will basically match the prices other retailers have for basic sales, so it saves me trying to shop sales — Costco prices will often be a bit higher than the mega sales at other retailers, but that’s okay if it saves me time and effort.  I love Costco!  [/quote]

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