Costco - do you go?

[NorthEastNancy]

Tempted to get a card - I've never been!

We (me, dh and ds 14) shop in Tesco mainly. I love a big shop mooch and feel like it's somewhere I'll go on my own if I ever pass my test (currently having lessons at the grand old age of 48!)

Do you go? Would you recommend it?

People can be funny about Costco, i guess the membership costs put people off, but it works out to be a couple of pounds each months so i don’t think it’s that bad.

The membership is worth it, if you can find ways to make it work for you. for some people, it’s the petrol (our Costco doesn’t have a petrol station). for us, we buy non perishable items like like loo roll, washing up liquid, laundry detergent, bin liners, foil. we go little and often and buy 1-2 items a month to keep it affordable.

We also go to the food court after shopping -a hotdog and a drink for £1.50!!!

Remember that the prices don’t include VAT (the vat price is below) to train your brain to look at the price below the big price - so you don’t get a shock when you get to the till.

Yes a Costco run every month or so, their cling film, foil and sandwich bags are great, also toilet roll, kitchen roll & water! Some things are hit and miss, their dishwasher tablets are awful! Some of their bakery products like the muffins freeze well but some fridge products are just too big so things go off/dry or you don’t fancy it. Some of their ready meals are good for a quick meal. I haven’t had the cooked chicken but heard good things. I bought a fab cool box from there & some other household bits which you don’t see elsewhere!

My children love it too!! So strange children who don’t like supermarkets love Costco 😂

We go about once every 6 weeks (when the toilet roll stocks run low usually).We tend to find that things sold in bigger containers are better value e.g. a kg jar of mango chutney is similar to two small jars of the same brand in a supermarket, but buying the same individual size in multipacks doesn’t usually save much. I just like the convenience of stocking up and doing a smaller weekly shop, plus I enjoy mooching around. We have evolved a list of about 20 regular things we usually buy, then stock up on others occasionally, usually get a giant pizza for tea that night.

So butter has found it’s way onto our regular list now as it’s £5.49 for 4 x 250g of a good quality brand, compared to around £8 to £10 for the same amount in a supermarket.

It gets VERY busy at peak times but they manage the queues/tills incredibly well.

Been members for 30 years and go once every couple of months. Love a Costco shop.

It's definitely not cheap crap sold in bulk. It's good quality but enormous. It's not particularly cheap.

We go. We’re a big family and have lots of storage so it works for us as we buy things that are already cheaper in Costco when they’re on offer there so save even more.

We don’t buy meat as we have an excellent butcher in the village and I really don’t want him to close!

We buy toilet rolls, dishwasher tablets, washing powder, toilet cleaner, beans, chopped tomatoes, spices, breakfast cereal, soft drinks, wine, cider crisps, nuts, wraps, and cheese.

Fuel also saves a fortune (DH does 20k miles a year with work and luckily the four places he travels between are all nearish to a Costco).

We call it the £200 shop because you never spend less than that.
I buy all the usual stuff, but would like to give an honourable mention to the organic tinned tomatoes, which are excellent and work out the same price as the cheap and nasty ones from the supermarket. I go through loads of tinned tomatoes in curries / chilli / spag bol etc and you can really tell the difference.
Also get trays of tinned chickpeas for humous and curries.
I tend to find I can spend the same money but buy an 'upgraded' product (not always, but often enough to make it worth going).
I've also got shelving in the garage and like having a good supply of non-perishables in stock so I don't have to shop as often week to week and can always find the basics to knock a meal together.

We love Costco too. We buy non-perishables eg tinned tomatoes, rice, noodles and household stuff. They’re good for just having a bit of a mooch but set yourself a budget or you’ll bankrupt yourself.

I probably do two/three costco runs per year. Typically I load up on cleaning products, toilet roll and basic household staples, coffee, pasta, tinned tomatoes, olive oil, frozen blueberries, chicken and beef. Some savings are considerable, others less so, for me the attraction is the bulk purchases that frees up the weekly shop to a handful small items.

We went this morning. We get toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, dishwasher and laundry detergent and cleaning products…all name brands. We do have a lot of storage space though so we only go once every three months or so. Fresh food wise we often get British Aberdeen Angus beef, large packs of Parma Ham, proper Stornoway Black Pudding and MacSween’s Haggis. The fresh fruit and veg are often good value but the packs are large. Fuel is currently at least 10p a litre cheaper than generally available locally.

When we lived in the UK we bought our solar panels from costco, they were the exact panels we had recieved quotes from elsewhere, buying the panels and fitting service from costco was £1,300 cheaper than our cheapest quote and everything had a ten guarantee apart from the panels that were 20 years.

We’ve had panels put on our current house and a battery, again cheaper than any other quote we could find and better guarantees than elsewhere.

Its one of the few places round here that sells Pakistani rice

We had executive membership but didn't go often enough to make it worth our while. So, we downgraded, and we go enough to use the lower membership tier. We bought 6 large bottles of good-quality olive oil last time we went for 19.99, which we thought was a real bargain, as our usual shop sells them for 9.99 each.

What I find hilarious about this thread is the amount of people who say their teens love going. We've been members for about 15 years and it's always been one of the kids' favourite places to go. They are 18 and 20 now and still ask to come with us! You'd think it was the last place on earth a teenager would want to go, but apparently not!
You do have to check the prices, but the quality of the meat, fruit and veg and the bakery stuff is fantastic. We also like buying the charcuterie, pate and hummous etc. They also have fantastic wine deals. Food tasting round the shop is great too, and we always go in the cafe for the extremely tasty, and ridiculously cheap, hotdog and drink offer.

Love a Costco , at the moment our closest is 35 mins away on a good traffic day but they’ve put in planning for one locally so I will use it a lot more , at the moment we go every 3/4 weeks .

Id go as far to say its a life style choice!! Op

We have two close by a normal one (that's nearer) and a Posh one with different (more expensive) stuff . I went for a birthday present last night and did £160 in, the present was £12 😀

Suspect I live near you.

I wouldn't go to save money but I do like looking about and I love the margarita mix! We get fajita spice in a big tub and some other bits that we like. We don't spend a lot but it's good to have.

Bloody love it. We go about once a fortnight. Always check the prices vs Tesco but there's 6 of us plus pets so yeah, we go through a lot. My parents love a day out there as well - they start off all pooh poohing it and next thing they have eaten all the samples and are debating whether they really need a new shed and 96 bread rolls.

Costco is great if you stick to a list of mostly essentials and don’t come home with a gazebo and hot tub you dindnt know you needed. Toilet paper, detergent etc are all great value but you have to have space to store. Most prepared foods, cakes, ready meals etc are poor and full of additives. Fresh fruit and veg is good but quantities are large. The wine is very good value as is is gin etc. it’s easy to compare prices of branded goods. We only live twenty minutes away so it’s easy but I doubt I’d drive an hour or more as many seem to

We buy bog roll, kitchen roll, laundry powder, dish washer tablets, washing up liquid, batteries.
Also fresh chicken breast and thigh fillets, beef mince, pork belly and loin, frozen tuna steaks. Watch the pork though because they do get US imports.
The fresh fruit and vegetables are excellent quality but the pack sizes are too big for us.
Bags of raw nuts, seeds and dried fruit. Tortillas, bread rolls. They stopped doing the gingerbread muffins 😭. Blueberry muffins, Danish pastries and croissants are good, but as per PP, the cake, especially the big celebration slab cakes, are awful.
Diesel is much cheaper.

I think the point is generally better quality produce for the same price as the supermarkets.

Wish I could get a card to go, seems it’s only in the uk where you need to work in a certain industry

Oh, and big tubs of ground coffee.

Kirkland products (Costco own brand) are generally really good value. DH bought some sheepskin slippers and some jeans there a couple of years ago which have been really good quality.

Does anyone's local Costco still do the big lemon cheesecakes?

I've never tasted anything as delicious sigh

I’m surprised by so many people mentioning kitchen roll, we probably go through about 3 rolls a year, am I missing why people need to buy it in bulk?!