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

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.

they used to have really good burritos 3-packs years ago, which were good when you were shopping after work and wouldn't have time to cook much by the tiem you got home.

bummed they don't have them anymore

I sometimes get these frozen burritos there called Don something or other, and they're good in that they taste nothing like a real burrito but like the absolute ideal cheesy salty mess of a frozen burrito.

Same with their quesadillas, whose name I also forget.

I had been skeptical of the Costco coffees, especially since buying 2-3 lbs of coffee at once is kind of yuck in terms of freshness (especially if you're the only coffee drinker in your house), but I couldn't really not try the whole bean colombian at around $5.50 a pound -- it was so cheap that even if I wound up not using half I'd be saving money over my fancypants coffee (stumptown, grumpy, counter culture etc.). It's actually pretty damned good!

we may have to resort to that. we're going through a pound a week lately, which is getting hella expensive

Mr Veg scored a jar of Maranatha Almond butter last week - AND a 6 pack of 32oz Almond Milk for $8.89 :D

Is that almond butter super watery for you? Even after leaving it in the fridge it is almost too runny to use.

Not for me. I have been buying the small jars for a long time I've never found it watery? the only tiresome thing is stirring in the oil that first time.

I must have got a bad one. It is way too oily to be normal.

Their organic peanut butter is good too, but they never seem to have it.

There's a lot of oil, def. I have found that an immersion blender helps. It's kinda messy but it mixes in the oil way better than a knife.