Why is Costco so expensive?!

[MooFroo]

I know I probably am BU but went to Costco after ages, and it’s insanely expensive 😳

I was walking around and comparing the prices to Aldi, Lidl and B+M bargains where I normally shop and didn’t find anything cheaper! And because everything is larger sizes or multipacks, it costs even more!

The tills all had queues and lots of people with full trollies - what am I missing??

Is there a hack to Costco shopping for normal households and families or are people happy to pay more for convenience of bulk buying/larger packaging? I know their electrics etc have longer warranties and they have some cool random stuff, but I am talking about every day food, drink and household stuff like cleaning items and pet food.

thanks!

Well you clearly feel there is something wrong with it and don't understand the solid reasons Americans have for shopping the way they do.

Also, stereotypes never tell the whole story and are best avoided.

@mathanxiety Maybe I still don’t understand the solid reasons Americans shop the way they do (do I need to?) but I appreciate that consumer habits are different in different countries. I stayed with a host family in California for three months when I was 18. They didn’t live far from the shops, but still bought huge stocks of things. Their washing machine and dryers were each big enough for me to get into (they had two children). There were huge jugs of juice in the fridge and, at breakfast, syrup was poured over everything. They ate every meal off of paper plates. Even the cars were so much bigger. I was going around to other houses where school friends lived and this seemed to be the norm in other houses too. I was sort of impressed at 18, I’d never seen anything like it.

Now, when I go to Costco, it reminds me of that experience I had in California and it wasn’t for me. It’s all too excessive for what I want or need now. But, as already said, I’ve taken on board that I shouldn’t have said ‘too American’ in a way that sounded derisive.

Depending on what you are buying, definitely cheaper. We get almost all our laundry stuff from there as I’m allergic to most things but fairy, so we just stock up and it lasts ages. Crisps, bottled water for one of our hobbies, pastries again for one of our hobbies, blue roll, baking soda, plus we have bought some luxuries from there that we might not have otherwise bought but we’ve felt able to justify at Costco price that have been well used. We are lucky because we’ve got a bit of storage but it’s definitely saved us money.

I am hoping to see Costco in my city, it’s going through planning atm, hope it happens never been to one before, so liking reading the tips.

Also spotted bought 3 black short-sleeved mens tshirts for just under £12 last week. Next have the same for £43

If you have the space to store it and it's cheaper, why not? There's only two of us and we have a fairly small house but we buy in bulk when we can and it's cheaper. It doesn't take up that much space and the savings can be significant.

I find the norm of buying a week's worth of groceries at a time from the same shop quite odd, but we've had times when we've not been able to afford to shop that way, so have had to find other ways to buy what we need within budget and the habit has stuck.

Not that everything in Costco is in massive bulk quanties, eg twin packs of pizza, Lavazza coffee or milk.

Yeah this is a good point, I think it depends how you shop too. I don’t do a weekly grocery shop at a supermarket, I buy things from different places according to preference. Most of our meat and veg comes from a local farm shop weekly for example. I tend to do a quarterly Costco shop to top up on things like washing powder, dishwasher tablets, kitchen roll, toilet roll, tinned tomatoes and other non perishables (have a double garage so plenty of room for storage). We have a milkman a couple of times a week.

You have a milkman??? 🤯

Yes, is that shocking? 😁. Loads of people on our street use the same one!

@Bjorkdidit never heard of those pizzas, but actually saw them for the first time the other day. Are they good?

Yes! I'm in Vancouver, CAN and I think that stopped here in the early 90's. I was just googling to see if home delivery from a dairy still exists. 😂

I agree I never found it cheaper, also I developed a serious scone habit during the time I had a card......

@MereNoelle I don’t use him but there is a milkman who delivers to neighbours all week on my road.

I have 3 friends with Costco cards so go very occasionally. I was there 2 weeks ago and bought very cheap dried seaweed and chicken which was very good quality, better than M&S higher welfare which I usually buy, I froze loads of it.

My sister has a milkman 3x a week , but they don’t use much milk , in our house we need a cow or two !

I have a milkman - started during Covid & just carried on. You can get lots of other things from them as well & can change your order up to 9pm the night before which is really handy!