Costco membership

UserX

I went to Costco a couple of times a few years back, helping a friend when she was doing up a house. So I'm only vaguely familiar with it.

Is there any value in having a membership? I'm not really sure what the savings are like. If it helps - we're a 3 person (2 kids and me) family with pets. Cook everything from scratch. Not big consumers of anything in the sense that I don't go shopping as a hobby IYKWIM!!!! I try to just buy what we need and not be wasteful - old-style I guess!

Have limited fridge-freezer space but excellent walk-in pantry by way of the integral garage :rotfl: (Don't try telling me it's supposed to be for the car!)

And the downsides..... Reasonably limited budget so true bulk-buying at present can be tricky. And nearest Costco is 35 mile round trip. So, I'd need to be quite confident we can make some savings before I join.

What are the real bargains to be had there? And the stuff to steer clear of.

Sui_Generis

I go along with a friend once every 5-6 weeks. I could save a lot with membership but only if I had a huge freezer. For example I bought 8 packs of bacon recently for I think £7.50 ish. Contrast that with £2.80 per pack at Sainsbury. I can give other examples like that but you get the idea - you need a lot of freezer space. I buy almost nothing that's fresh as we can't use it fast enough because of the large quantities. (Bought bacon at a Lidl recently and it was so superior to Sainsburys...)

So in your case you'd need to buy in bulk, freeze it and buy enough to justify the journey. I'd say do it if you have the freezer space, otherwise its a very marginal question whether you'd save anything. Makro (which I haven't used) at one time had a day pass you could buy to try it out - maybe look at that as an alternative? HTH.

UserX

Thanks Sui_Generis I think that's as I suspected.

I did wonder about things like pet food, cleaning materials, cat litter, loo roll....all of which I have ample storage space for. But I guess I'd have to go some to use enough of those things alone to justify membership.

Makro is more difficult for me to get to, but thank you for the suggestion. That would have been a helpful compromise!

Sui_Generis

My friend has pets but I can't recall any pet related purchase there, they have sacks delivered to home. Lots of stuff is cheaper but its down to storage which sadly I don't have. They have seasonal stuff obviously but its not a guarantee you'd like what they're selling. Clothing isn't really much cheaper there.

missprice

Costco have a website you could have a look at prices on there see if its worth the trip.
http://www.costco.co.uk

I don't buy much fresh stuff there, however I think they are fab for coffee, tinned tomatoes, tuna, toilet paper.

Oh and they def do sell cat food, have seen it but not aware what kind.

shoppaholic_returns

Depends on the pet food you use, very limited choice, kitekat biscuits, whisk as pouches and gourmet pearle pouches, gourmet is very cheap £3.50 as opposed to £4.95 in some shops.
Catsan litter I think £8.50 for a large bag.
Good quality pigs ears too.

They do excellent pasta sauces, cheap, good quality scampi, Haagen daz is cheap, etc.

You have to pick out the items you personally use and compare them, we stock up when they have a special offer on the things we buy.

sjlou

I was in there at the weekend and the cat food sachets were about £11 for a box of 48 was checking for a friend so don't know whether that's a big saving or not.

It's around £20 for a card per year, so you'd have to deduct this from your savings too.