Costco

[malkin]

Glasses, gas, coffee, Perrier, tomatoes, frozen blueberries, almonds & pecans, kleenex, generic allergy meds...

It's worth it for me.

Storing the TP in our little place is kind of a joke, though.

[sbctwin]

I like Costco, if, for nothing else, the gas price is at least 10c/gallon cheaper than anything closer. I live next door to a gas station! and Costco is near Petsmart! a weekly visit (for birdfood) and only 2 miles from the house. We don't buy much in bulk, but we do have a freezer in the garage and I like their frozen veges in the winter. You don't need to buy bulk to reap the savings, in my opinion. Maybe it is the convenience, but there are certian things my DH and I like that are way cheaper at Costco than we can buy at my favorite market, Harmons

[msincredible]

I used to be a Price Club member years ago and I wouldn't do it again.

[Tuckervill]

No Costco near me, here in Sam's Club's back yard. If there were one, I'd be a member, of both Sam's and Costco.

I buy organic milk at Sam's for about .50 cents a gallon less than Wal-Mart. Where I really make my membership money back, though, is on meat. (This may not be the case at Costco..) Sam's puts all their due-to-expire meat on clearance every morning. I have a business membership so I can go in at 8 a.m. Once a quarter or so, I go in and stock the freezer with very many expensive cuts of meat (yeah, in bulk, but we divide it before we freeze it) and we eat good meat for a long time. My husband likes to smoke meat so we always have something good to eat.

I used to buy Sam's gasoline, but since it has ethanol in it now, I refuse. I pay extra for the non-ethanol gas closer to Oklahoma. It is not cost-effective for me to go to Sam's for gas, anyway, but their prices are always lowest.

Karen

[roadie gal]

We had a membership for about 5 years and finally decided that it wasn't worth it for us. Neither one of us is on any meds and we don't have kids. They don't carry the pet food that I like. The only advantage would be my glasses. But it just wasn't worth it.

[Irulan]

What is your issue with ethanol gas? Up here, they only sell gas w/ethanol, during the winter months. There is no other option. They do it to improve air quality in winter, and that has certainly improved over the years. We don't find it affects our vehicle's performance, either, so what's the problem?

[Tri Girl]

Like Karen, we only have Sam's club here. I used to go to Costco when I lived on the east coast. I think I like them better.
We buy some things in bulk, but don't go there very often. I buy laundry soap, gum (we are big gum chewers), bisquick, toilet paper, slim fast, and a limited selection of canned goods. Most anything perishable goes bad before we have a chance to use it.
I still like to go there, though, as it saves me money overall- and it's not any further than my favorite grocery store.

[Tuckervill]

What is your issue with ethanol gas? Up here, they only sell gas w/ethanol, during the winter months. There is no other option. They do it to improve air quality in winter, and that has certainly improved over the years. We don't find it affects our vehicle's performance, either, so what's the problem?

My Honda Element gets 4-5 mpg less on ethanol than it does on plain gas. I can prove it, as I document every single tank and I've plotted many of them on a graph. I can also prove that my car* gets much better mileage in the Northeast than it gets between here and Nashville or in Indiana, Illinois or Missouri. I haven't figured that one out, yet, but I'm thinking that it has to do with emission standards in Northeastern states that we don't have in this part of the country.

Also, if you use ethanol in your gas powered tools (weed-eater, lawnmower, chain saw) the ethanol will separate and will begin to create pits in the sides of the cylinders, thus rendering your power tool inoperable.

Karen
*A 2000 New Beetle and a 2007 Honda Element where both used in this experiment.