all-purpose COSTCO thread (show your membership card and receipt at the door)

condo(m)

In the process of moving from this house to a new apartment, I may have to stage the bare mattress, jug o' lube and condom scene for a photo.

:D

should there also be a bottle of cheap vodka?

costco also apparently has a gel-foam-mattress-in-a-box as I learned today. It's probably like double king size though.

oreo guy was back, but today he was doing an elaborate spiel about some layer cake that all his customers have been waiting for since it last went out of stock. He's really quite a gifted sample barker.

Mine has those gel foam mattresses in all the standard sizes. I almost got one, but apparently they're miserably hot in Texas.

how much produce do they have there? is it good? trying to figure out if it's worth it for a single person to be a member. it's on my way home from work.

If you can get through a 4 lb bag of brussels sprouts or 3 lbs of asparagus or 5 heads of romaine before they go bad, it's possibly worth it. Ours usually has a good deal on avocados, but I have to eat one every day or they get gross. We have been going through their raspberries like nobody's business this summer though.

Have never seen fresh kale or collards at ours btw, nor zucchini. Lots of carrot and celery sticks, and various tubs of precut salad greens abound.

yeah super quantities of vegetables are not gonna work!

Green beans are good, or tomatoes if you can't get decent ones elswewhere. Otherwise it's kind of a miss, produce-wise

what about other foods? frozen meat/fish? not so interested in prepared frozen foods.

True, the only produce we buy on the reg are the campari tomatoes, romaine hearts, asparagus and mushrooms (which always go manky before we use them all). You can't rely on anything to be there, sort of like Trader Joe's. Also, I will never buy a giant bag of onions at Costco ever again - the last ones all rotted from the inside out and I have never dealt with anything so gross.

The meat is all good quality, and ours carries grass-fed pastured beef now - 3 lb minimum for ground though, so you'd probably need freezer space. Decent selection of fresh fish here, but again it's a side of salmon or 4 big halibut steaks.

They used to have good prices on boneless chicken breasts; red meat is usually a little on the fatty side & not alway much of a deal...but Aidells sausages are way cheaper than store prices, if you have occasion to buy them

Never even considered a membership here once my kids were out of diapers, but I've heard OK things about their liquor selection and prices.

i don't think they have alcohol in maryland. i started thinking about this because i want a new blender and some other stuff i could get cheap there and my coworkers keep talking it up. one is married with no kids and one is single and i think uses her mom's membership. she had a big container of seaweed salad in the fridge that was really good.

VG, I always think they trim the beef and pork way too close! But then I'm an oleophile (plus we are on the all-fat diet basically).

When I was making cat food, we'd get 20 lbs of organic boneless chicken thighs to grind up way cheaper than anything at the grocery.

Got a very nice wool/cashmere London Fog car coat for $99. Warm, water resistant, and feels very nice. Only drawback is that it's black, and I usually prefer charcoal or navy.

Just joined formally for the first time ever. That said every visit to my local one has been essentially terrifying.

How to be carless and take advantage of Costco intrigues me a little.

I don't think Ned is carless anymore

they sell those at costco now, really convenient

also the easy answer is: share the membership with a car-owning friend

:( a hero falls xp

To my eternal bemusement, I do now own a car, though I don't drive it.

how were you going to re-enact Tawny Kitaen's part in the "Here I Go Again" video without a car?

It's true I had everything else necessary.

How to be carless and take advantage of Costco intrigues me a little.

― WmC, Monday, October 15, 2012 11:13 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You could get a large foldable grandma cart.

You can also rely on a car service. The manhattan one has cars waiting at all times. You just have to I guess make the trips economical enough (i.e. buy enough stuff/save enough money) that the car service is worth it, which I've never tried to do bc we have a car (although I did figure out that the insurance and gas on our old, paid-off car is more than covered by our grocery savings)

To my eternal bemusement, I do now own a car, though I don't drive it.

― Ned Raggett, Monday, October 15, 2012 10:18 AM (16 minutes ago)

Ned and Not-Ned in one easy sentence.

I hadn't even thought of a car service. Still undercaffeinated.

i miss having a costco membership. a. and i let ours lapse because we just weren't going enough to justify the cost. but it is a good deal if you play your cards right.

yo, i seriously hate costco. but i love BJs. I got a pair of high index eyeglasses for $200, and a lot of cranberries for $7.99

i got my glasses at costco. their eye exams are cheap and i don't think you need a membership to get one. $50 plus $10 for high-res photos of your eyes.

ooh, maybe i can get a second opinion. i secretly enjoy eye exams a lot, except for the dilation.

well you can always ask for a condensed version

people who have memberships: how often do you go?

once every couple of months: whenever we run out of -
- toilet paper
- dishwasher detergent
-laundry powder
or if we need tritips for tailgating bbqs

damn, tri tip sounds good.

they're HUGE is the only thing - usually 3+ pounds per, either in a 3 pack or crazy cryo 10 pack which we've never bought.

but they're usually pretty well marbled and they barbecue up really good. great if you're cooking for a big group.

not super cheap, but a decent price for the quality.

I stop once a week for gas (it's right on my way to/from work). We have a chest freezer and a vacuum sealer, and are highly carnivorous, so we buy large quantities of various meats every few weeks as well as eggs, butter, cream, cheeses, and frozen broccoli. The only fresh produce we buy anymore from Costco is romaine hearts and campari tomatoes since we can get through them before they rot. An occasional case of wine (and now we can buy hard liquor there too! One giant bottle of Bombay Sapphire procured!) and numerous flats of diet Coke.

beer is sometimes good

our new discovery: wiper blades!

Alcohol never seems like it's a bargain there at all. At least compared to trader joes. And the kirkland brand beer is the same price and same thing (rebranded gordon biersch) as the trader joe's house brand beer, at least in CA. But then I guess according to CA law you can buy alcohol at Costco without needing a membership so maybe it's intentionally not discounted.

hard liquor prices are surprisingly lower on some items

yo, i seriously hate costco. but i love BJs.

well really, who doesn't?

right on TARGET.

Our Costco has 24-packs of Kirkland ales for $18.99, which is definitely cheaper than the equivalent TJ beers here ($6 per sixpack iirc), although both are reasonable and of similar quality.

We go once every two weeks - it really works out well as long as you develop a kind of routine and set of staples that you stick to. Costco we get meats, fish, a 24-pack of organic eggs, dried fruit/trail mix type stuff, fruits like apples, pears, bananas, almond butter, hummus, goat and feta cheese, any condiments, paper goods and cleaning products we're out of, etc. The weekends we don't do Costco we supplement with Trader Joe's and the farmer's market. This has kept our grocery bill pretty reasonable ($600-700/month for a couple and a baby in New York City) while keeping us well fed (good fish like flounder, prime steak, organic ground beef, organic chicken, etc.) -- and we barely eat any of our meals out and rarely get takeout.

ooh almond butter is a good call. and hummus too. I'll hve to check those out

Yeah they have a really good almond butter called Maranatha that comes in like a double-sized jar. It's a little hard to stir the tall jar, but once you get past that it's delicious.

weee that's the brand I use already! hmm. I might need to plan a sooner trip.

hummus they carry the sabra brand by us, which I find just ok. The pine nut one is good. The garden veggie one is kind of nasty.