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I want to live like Costco people

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Re: I want to live like Costco people

#61

Post by BoneShard »

b450 wrote: post #19

I've become a Costco person in recent years. At least in my perception, inflation has affected grocery stores unevenly: Whole Foods: eye-bogglingly expensive (and no, I don't think it always was) Wegmans: substantially more expensive than a few years ago, and a noticeable decline in produce quality Trader Joes: incredible value on many prepared foods, but not the best source for staples like rice or paper products. C…

I was a coffee snob, but now I'm buying coffee in Costco, you just have to do it online:

https://www.costco.com/p/-/kirkland-signature-organic-ethiop...

https://www.costco.com/p/-/mayorga-buenos-das-usda-organic-l...

I have no idea why do they not sell these(light roast) ones in warehouses.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#62

Post by OkayPhysicist »

b450 wrote: post #19

I've become a Costco person in recent years. At least in my perception, inflation has affected grocery stores unevenly: Whole Foods: eye-bogglingly expensive (and no, I don't think it always was) Wegmans: substantially more expensive than a few years ago, and a noticeable decline in produce quality Trader Joes: incredible value on many prepared foods, but not the best source for staples like rice or paper products. C…

Whole Foods started wildly expensive, toned down a lot after the Amazon bought them, and then creeped back up to wildly expensive the last few years.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#63

Post by gdulli »

tetromino_ wrote: post #7

Part of growing up is realizing that the places where a person eats or shops, what music and entertainment they consume, what clothes they wear - are entirely uncorrelated with their personality and character and worth. And cringing hard at your own past teenage past self who confused such superficial identity markers with personality. Unfortunately, it sounds like the article's author is only on their first step of…

Right, I noped out of this article when I realized it felt like a guy making up a whole population he could do some elevated punching down at to offset some ostensible self deprecation. What a chore.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#64

Post by weirdindiankid »

silisili wrote: post #13

I've only been to Costco a handful of times in my life. It seems like each time, there were hordes of people standing lifelessly in a huge line waiting to check themselves out(sometimes with help from an employee), which took longer than it should. Then, once that task was accomplished, they'd then stand in another huge line waiting to leave. Is this the typical experience or did I just happen to pick the worst times…

This was my experience, too. I have tried going at noon on weekdays, as soon as the store opens, and every other time folks on the internet have recommended. Every single time, it was an absolute slog to get through aisles full of oblivious people blocking areas with their carts and (hilariously) getting mad at you for asking them to move their cart.

Also, this may be my own bias coloring my perception but there was a palpable undertone among some of the shoppers of “at least we’re not Walmart customers”.

I’m sure quite a few Costco members enjoy the treasure hunt model they offer but I’d much rather have an option to order online and go pick up what I need or, failing that, labeled aisles.

To Costco’s credit, though, they refunded my membership fee in full as soon as I asked to cancel. And their return policy the one time I had to use it was exceptional as well. It’s a shame the rest of the experience has to be such a sensory overload.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#65

Post by stantaylor »

add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #36
Aurornis wrote: post #8

> Something about the whole thing always registered to me as, like, lame—too normcore, too boring, perhaps even too cheugy to an informed and taste-driven millennial ur-consumer like me. The kinds of brands I like to buy aren’t what they sell at Costco Good example of how people can build identities through their brand choices and purchasing habits. It’s a foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product…

> Some people are proud of their Audi or designer bag, but I rarely run into situations where I’d be judged for arriving in a sensible Subaru instead of a Mercedes. I agree. You can go into Costco and see a store full of individuals who happen to be shopping at Costco that day, or you can go to Costco and see the same people as slaves to an imagined Costco lifestyle that you can then write about for 800 words. It say…

I would agree. The implicit (or actually pretty explicit in a couple of sentences) class disdain is so tiring.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#66

Post by jerf »

SoftTalker wrote: post #11
Lucent wrote: post #9

Costco's gimmick is relieving you of choice and price shopping. They find the best stuff and don't mark it up. If Consumer is your identity yet you fear executing its labors, let Costco step in and become your denomination of consumerism, complete with tithe, proscribed usury, and communion hot dog.

Also the reason that small specialty shops, and mom-and-pop grocery, fruit, dairy, bakeries and butcher shops are largely gone. They just cannot compete with Costco and Sam's Club/Walmart's buying power.

A specialty shop can probably survive Costco much more easily than they can survive Walmart or any other conventional (American) grocery store. The grocery store carries 20 or 30 different olive oils, to select one example. Odds are all the snobbiest will find something they like... odds are even decent that in a blind taste test even the snobbiest would find something that they would be horrified to discover came from a normal grocery store.

Costco carries one or two options for a given thing, and are outright missing many things you might want. As nice as Costco is for buying things on a budget when you're going to use them up fully, I think it would be a bit of a challenge to make them your only grocery source. Doable as a sort of self-imposed challenge, no problem, there's certainly enough for that, but you'd be missing a lot of things, and/or wasting money on huge quantities of things you won't use. The quality is generally pretty decent (I may have more brand loyalty for "Kirkland" than almost any other brand) but not necessarily the most premium options. If you are the type to even consider the specialty shop in the first place you're more likely to be unsatisfied by Costco than a grocery store.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#67

Post by somenameforme »

tetromino_ wrote: post #7

Part of growing up is realizing that the places where a person eats or shops, what music and entertainment they consume, what clothes they wear - are entirely uncorrelated with their personality and character and worth. And cringing hard at your own past teenage past self who confused such superficial identity markers with personality. Unfortunately, it sounds like the article's author is only on their first step of…

I'm quite curious what initially instills this juvenile idea in us. I expect it's advertising which actively seeks to foment this nonsense by implying that if you buy this or that you will become this or that.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#68

Post by stantaylor »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #59

> The bakery muffins really are smaller now than I remember them being as a kid Costco bakery muffins are HUGE. If they're smaller now than they used to be, I'd argue maybe that's a good thing. > They’re always in far-off places My Costco is only about 1 1/2 miles away. Literally walked there for lunch once. > the building, an aircraft hangar–size warehouse spectacle operated very much in line with casino design: a p…

> They’re always in far-off places

That's yet another thinly disguised case of punching down: the author wants you to know that they are not the type of person who lives close to a Costco, typically in the suburbs. This author's attitude is so tiresome.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#69

Post by hiAndrewQuinn »

Aurornis wrote: post #8

> Something about the whole thing always registered to me as, like, lame—too normcore, too boring, perhaps even too cheugy to an informed and taste-driven millennial ur-consumer like me. The kinds of brands I like to buy aren’t what they sell at Costco Good example of how people can build identities through their brand choices and purchasing habits. It’s a foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product…

>build identities through [...] purchasing habits

> foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product or deals for each purchase and will change brands in an instant

But you are, yourself, defining yourself partially here through your own purchasing habits. In fact you are doing it to a far more universal degree than most of the ones you criticize.

Not that I'm immune to it, but nor do I claim to be. I think it's useful signal just like anything else. Watch: My quintessential American habit is that I wear roughly the same nondescript black T shirt, black boxer briefs, black socks, and maybe an unlabeled black hoddie that I purchase off of Amazon, mostly just sorting by ratings. If at any point I reach into my closet and the stock-flow system that is my laundry habits have deemed it such that I am actually out of stock of any of these items, I immediately go to Amazon and purchase another 6- or 4- or 12-pack. If you feel you understand me better as a person after reading all that, you probably do.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#70

Post by SoftTalker »

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #55
SoftTalker wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot dog and a slice? That's your calorie needs for the day.

Unless you are particularly sedentary, 1200 calories is pretty low for daily consumption.

I'm thinking their hotdogs are huge, like 1/2 lb?

And the slices are huge also.

And most people probably get a 32oz cup of sugar water with them.

Maybe I'm overestimating.

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