costco vs supermarket own brands ?

JillD_2

We've been using Costco for about a year now, the membership fee is £30 odd pounds.
Wondered if anyone has done a cost comparison with Supermarket own stuff ?
I mean to every time I go but with 2 kids under 3 I have to whizz round, if I produce a pen and paper to write down prices they try and wrestle it off me.

I'm sure they are cheaper like for like i.e. Ragu pasta sauce in a rack of 6 jars will be cheaper per jar than say at Asda, but is it cheaper than Supermarket own brand stuff ?
I am not a label snob.
I can't decide whether or not to renew membership. Clearly we need to save £30 a year for it to be worth it.

Thoughts ?

recovering_spendaholic

I don't think that Costco is necessarily cheaper for any packaged food items - you can almost always find own brand or bogofs around which are better value. Where they are cheaper I think is for toilet rolls, kitchen rolls, bin bags, Tubbit type storage tubs (for freezing stuff in), apples, baking potatoes, oranges, bananas, bagels. They also have a wide variety of household stuff - I got a Silentnight pillowtop double divan over £100 cheaper than anywhere else and I had looked everywhere. Their electrical stuff isn't all that cheap but they do sell good quality stuff and you can take stuff back without even having the receipt and get money back without question, even if you have had the item for longer than a year. I took a microwave back after 18 months and got a full refund. I think the membership is worth it and you can always ask them about the two for one membership offers - that's what I got.

melancholly

i also love the gifty things they have near christmas - things that you can't get anywhere else and look a lot more expensive than they are!
i also use their multivitamins - about £10 for a year's supply vs. £5 for 3 months in supermarkets.

for me it's also about convenience - i probably could get a BOGOF that's on for a limited time in a supermarket that's as good value, but i get that value every time in costco. (and i've bought some coats from there where i spent as much as i intended to anywhere else, but got a much nicer quality item!)

recovering_spendaholic

Oh yes, I forgot about the coats - the kids duvet coats for £10 are amazing!! I get one for DD2 every year! I also got a musical crib there last year for about £15 and it is just lovely!

saving-grace

I agree with recovering spendaholic.
Also if you need glasses/contact lenses they are way cheaper than high street opticians.
Digital photo processing is also cheap there.

HalfPint

I'm a rival macro shopper lol. I've certainly found that for certain items, macro is very good value, i.e. toilet rolls, napkins, meat and also for their bargain reduced stuff (I got a large 25kg bag of dog food for £4 because the bag was damaged. Ok there probably wasn't still 25kg left in the bag cause some must have spilt out but it was still fairly full and has lasted me months!) I would imagine Costco to be the same (but I refuse to pay their £30 fee).

Having said all that - there are items which do work out more expensive than in a supermarket. I buy value branded things like beans, spaghetti, pasta etc at my supermarket as it works out cheaper.

I know its a pain with 2 kids in tow - I've got 4! but it's well worth doing the sums and working out which things to buy at costco and which to buy at the supermarket.

Cheers and good luck working it out.

Loz xxx

pollyanna24

I know some of the stuff in there is cheap and others not so cheap, but I was in there last night and made a note of the price of the meat that I would buy by the kg, just so I could try and compare with Tesco.

Braising steak - £6.49 per kg
Beef mince - £3.99 per kg
Leg of lamb - £7.79 per kg

I also saw their 1kg tins of coffee for £15.99.

Are these prices better than Tesco or should I not bother. Haven't actually bought any meat or coffee as budget for food is up this month and have to wait till 1st October.

squeaky

Hi pollyanna

I've added your question onto a recent thread which is discussing various cost comparisons of costco with other supermarkets. I hope you find it helpful.

JoeyEmma

I find it useful for certain things. Batteries and light bulbs work out cheaper. Contact lens solution is £17 for two big bottles in ASDA, them same stuff is £17 for four big bottles in Costco.

The annoying thing is the limited choice at times. They don't sell Sultana Bran cereal which always bugs me.

We definitely get our moneys worth from it (especially seeing as though my Dad's business pays for my card!)

Keep an eye out for the passport deals. The start of next week, they have 5x12 double velvet loo rolls dirt cheap (really good quality and work out about 17p each) and 40 Gillette Mac 3 razor blades for £18+ VAT

dannahaz

Do you know anyone else who uses Costco that you could shop with?

Reason for asking is that I find that Costco often has reasonably priced stuff, but it the "bargains" often come in the form of multuiple packs/jars. The price per jar/pack works out very reasonable, but I have to ask myself how long it will take me to use that many jars of stuff... Sometimes it's a false economy, and I end up spending a lot of money on "bulk packs" which then sit in my cupboard for ages. I don't just mean food, I mean their health and beauty products as well.

Last time I was there I realised that if I had someone to go with - who liked the same things as me - we could split these packs between us and get genuine bargains.

I'm hoping to get a Makro card soon, as there is a Makro very close to Costco. If I can get what I need there, I won't use Costco anymore and at least I'll save myself the membership fee.

purpleimp

Where I live there is a Sommerfield and a coop, that's it, no aldi, lidl, adsa, sainsburries, morrisons, tescos, macro, costco,farmfoods, iceland, nothing, so the shop about factor is very restricted, the same with clothes outlets, there's a few over priced, undersized, god help you if a size 10 is too small type private shops but no high street stuff other than a mackays, so more often than not clothes shopping is left for trips to the mainland and a visit to H and M or primark, even including the ferry fares it's cheaper to do a shopping spree that way, I know a lot of folk that take the car away on the ferry once every few months and load up in liddles and come home again because it works out so much less, grumble grumble grumble, it's the star drops that's annoying me just now though, every one raves about how wanderful they are and you just can't get them here.

Can you buy them online anywhere?xxx