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I want to live like Costco people

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Re: I want to live like Costco people

#181

Post by abfan1127 »

gruez wrote: post #179
hparadiz wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The basic membership is $65. If all you do is get a year's worth of detergent, toilet paper, and cleaning supplies chances are that will already pay for the membership. They also have grocery items that are kinda wholesale but not really. Pantry stuff like a bag of nuts that you can go through on your own in under a week that is marked down significantly from the grocery store. Oh also olive oil is another big one fo…

>The basic membership is $65. If all you do is get a year's worth of detergent, toilet paper, and cleaning supplies chances are that will already pay for the membership. Maybe savings are that large if you're comparing against regular prices at retailers, but if you wait for sales, they're as cheap, if not cheaper than Costco.

you could get the annual supply, then cancel your membership and get the membership refund. then repeat next year. Its within their rules.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#182

Post by jedberg »

hn_acc1 wrote: post #126
throw0101c wrote: post #118

Always found Costco's largest source of profits interesting: > Revenue from membership fees accounts for the majority of the company's profits, accounting for over 72% of the company's net operating income in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, and 65.5% in fiscal year 2024.[115][a] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Business_model

I always found that weird because we get like 5x our membership dues back in rewards every year, so I guess we're the exception, rather than the rule?

If you have an executive membership they guarantee that you make back your membership dues. If you fall short you can just ask them to give you the difference (and then they will downgrade you to the regular membership).

But also remember regular members don't get cash back. The ratio is about 50/50. So about 40 million people pay for membership and don't get cash back.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#183

Post by tekla »

jldugger wrote: post #157
legitster wrote: post #29

I grew up in a post soviet country. To me Costco, has perfected the soviet ideal of shopping more than any soviet economy ever could. In a Costco, we are all equal. I could be shopping for the same set of beige slacks right next to the CEO of a multi-million dollar company and never know it. We'll own the same Waterpik. Identical towels. Our lawn furniture will look the same. Everything is purchased at a fair price.…

Interestingly, my local subreddit loves to describe Costco as a late stage capitalist dystopia. - fighting for space everywhere: fighting for a parking lot, avoiding people seeming to ram you with their shopping cart, waiting for the extended family of seven in front of you to pick a cereal so you can leave the aisle, waiting for traffic to clear so you can _leave_ the costco - you have to pay to get in - and then yo…

It's wild that you can look at a physical testament of the sheer abundance and affordability that capitalism has created for almost every consumer good, and people will call it a dystopia because they experience traffic or fight over the right to buy cardboard childrens toys

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#184

Post by Animats »

senkora wrote: post #171
yabones wrote: post #137

I get the allure, but it's not for me and my partner. We live in a small apartment. We drive a small car. The pantry has a good amount of dry bulk & canned food, but we largely shop one week at a time. Sure, we could "lock in" on two or three foods, buy weeks worth of them at a time, and save some money. But like most people we like a bit of verity. It's just not possible to buy such massive quantities of things with…

Trader Joe's is probably closest to what you want. It targets single shoppers with small quantities and low prices, and it rotates products frequently to keep things interesting. Anecdotally I feel like a lot of TJ's shoppers shift into Costco shoppers as they age up.

The nice thing about Trader Joe's is that you can be in and out in 5-10 minutes if you're just buying weekly food items. The store is modestly sized and the checkout lines are short. I'm in there about once a week.

I go to Costco once every three months or so and buy paper towels, detergent, and other consumables that have long shelf lives. I don't feel drawn to it; it's just the warehouse for boring items to buy in bulk. Their hot dog is OK. But a lifestyle? No.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#185

Post by tardedmeme »

tekla wrote: post #183
jldugger wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, my local subreddit loves to describe Costco as a late stage capitalist dystopia. - fighting for space everywhere: fighting for a parking lot, avoiding people seeming to ram you with their shopping cart, waiting for the extended family of seven in front of you to pick a cereal so you can leave the aisle, waiting for traffic to clear so you can _leave_ the costco - you have to pay to get in - and then yo…

It's wild that you can look at a physical testament of the sheer abundance and affordability that capitalism has created for almost every consumer good, and people will call it a dystopia because they experience traffic or fight over the right to buy cardboard childrens toys

Would the world really be worse off without cardboard children's toys but also without people fighting over cardboard children's toys?

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#186

Post by sidrag22 »

yabones wrote: post #137

I get the allure, but it's not for me and my partner. We live in a small apartment. We drive a small car. The pantry has a good amount of dry bulk & canned food, but we largely shop one week at a time. Sure, we could "lock in" on two or three foods, buy weeks worth of them at a time, and save some money. But like most people we like a bit of verity. It's just not possible to buy such massive quantities of things with…

> What I want is an anti-costco. More like a bodega. Still curated, maybe a larger mark-up, but smaller quantities of everything. Half loaves of bread, small bags of frozen veg, enough sugar or flour to bake just a couple batches.

This is becoming even harder to achieve nowadays, there is all this variety in size of products and more and more over the years(at least in the midwest) it seems that grocery stores want to take the small product and apply minimums to deals.

there will be an 8oz offering and a 14 oz offering, the 8 oz will be on sale but only if you buy at least 2 or 3, its incredibly frustrating.

It has incidentally made my junk food habits better though, If i see 2 for 5$ for a package of cookies with no minimum purchase, I'll likely grab a box. As soon as they apply that minimum, i am gonna be thinking "do i really wanna eat all those cookies?" instead i end up with 0.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#188

Post by elzbardico »

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…

> In some countries I had to make a conscious effort to try to wear clothes from acceptable brands and swap my functional laptop bag for something more stylish to avoid letting my purchasing habits become a point of judgment from others.

It is kind of fascinating, having come from such a culture, to realize that in the end, Americans, at least the average of the America I met, are not nearly brand conscious as I and everyone in my place supposed them to be.

Of course, America is a fucking giant and diverse place, and I think that even native born Americans have no fucking idea of how many different Americas exist, so, take my views of America with a giant grain of salt.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#189

Post by acheron »

Ifkaluva wrote: post #84

I will brave the downvotes and say: I don’t like Costco. It’s not out of snobbishness, their quality is excellent at excellent prices. My problem is that I find I spend more at Costco than at conventional grocery stores like Trader Joe’s. The paradox is, it’s cheaper, but I spend more. I buy things I wouldn’t normally buy, and ant higher quantities. Even worse, I somehow eat it all quite quickly. I spend more and eat…

We didn’t have Costco in our area when I was a kid, but iirc that’s why my parents stopped going to Sam’s Club: any money they saved on buying cheaper bulk things went into buying random extras.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#190

Post by don-code »

yabones wrote: post #137

I get the allure, but it's not for me and my partner. We live in a small apartment. We drive a small car. The pantry has a good amount of dry bulk & canned food, but we largely shop one week at a time. Sure, we could "lock in" on two or three foods, buy weeks worth of them at a time, and save some money. But like most people we like a bit of verity. It's just not possible to buy such massive quantities of things with…

There was a point where two friends and I each lived alone in an apartment, and I was the only one who had a (2-door) car. We still occasionally did Costco runs.

We'd go in and walk the store - the whole store - aisle by aisle.

If I saw something like a 2-pound bag of tortellini, but thought two pounds was too big a quantity for me, I'd ask, "does anybody want to split two pounds or tortellini?" One might say yes, so we'd throw the tortellini in the shopping cart.

At the end, one person (the membership holder) would pay, and we'd divvy up the result of our haul into reusable containers, in the parking lot. One of us would then take point on itemizing the receipt, and we'd pay back the person with the membership.

In hindsight, I think we did this more to socialize than to save money, but we definitely did save money. Even as a single apartment-dweller, I bought my fair share of 24-packs of yogurt and 5-pound bags of frozen vegetables.

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