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I want to live like Costco people

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Re: I want to live like Costco people

#211

Post by crooked-v »

hparadiz wrote: post #176
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…

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…

For the kinds of people who post on HN, the real savings of a Costco membership is that they regularly have high-end electronics, appliances, and home furnishings at $50-100 or more off retail elsewhere. Get a robot vacuum or a couch or a VR headset for $100 off and your membership's already paid for itself that year. For several years, if you need to replace a refrigerator or washing machine.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#212

Post by hparadiz »

nostrademons wrote: post #205
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 issue for many apartment-dwellers is storage. You can't store a year's worth of detergent, toilet paper, and cleaning supplies in an apartment. Costco really incentivizes shopping in bulk, from the huge value-pack sized portions to the focus on frozen & dry goods to the super-sized carts to the anxiety-inducing shopping experience. My wife and I shoot to go no more than once a quarter, just because it's a hassle.…

Yes I'm cognizant of that. Not everything I get there is a large item. The dishwasher detergent for example goes under the sink. Bulk is basically a two pack. Coffee also just throw it in the pantry. Ditto for other drinks and food items. And electronics. I've gotten a MacBook air from Costco only for the extended warranty they offer. Another perk is free installs which I guess doesn't apply for apartment folks but I will say I got a dishwasher from them and the install being included was on it's own worth the price.

I actually only got Costco originally when I lived in Hawaii and it's kinda a requirement there but kept it cause it's actually really nice.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#213

Post by dylan604 »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #168
ASinclair wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is you can save a ton of money on a few non-food items to make it worth it. Just over-the-counter medicines save me a huge chunk of the membership fee. Then there are just random household goods: paper products, trash bags, dishwasher detergent, etc.

Renting a car once a year through Costco Travel is worth the membership fee.

I've been seeing more and more of these "weird" membership perks. I had not seen the car rental until now. I've seen the vacations and other home repair/upgrade things. I'm in a perpetual disagreement with Enterprise that makes them not allow me to rent a car from them or their sub-brands (which is most of them now it seems). I might check into Costco's offerings for this summer. Thanks for the reminder.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#214

Post by declan_roberts »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #166

I'm 43, own a home, live in Seattle, and feel attacked by this article. "every Costco shopper has a certain item or two they’re compelled to purchase on each visit" Organic, single-serving guacamole and Magic Spoon cereal for me. My toddler is obsessed with their mammoth two dollar slices of cheese pizza and talks constantly about wanting to go to Costco to have pizza with his little bestie.

Costco is such a family friendly place. My kids love going there.

They've made some deliberate decisions to make it family friendly:

1. The aisles are wide so the whole family can walk through the store together.

2. The kids love free samples

3. The food court is a great place to have an inexepensive dinner.

4. The store is designed so there's nothing really to grab at ground level if you're a little kid. Everything is up higher.

Contrast this with a standard grocery store: small aisles and tons of little things on the shelf at ground level (including random toys) that can get grabbed or knocked over. Every time I take my family to Albertsons I have to pick a dozen things off the ground that we accidentally knocked off.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#215

Post by jerlam »

queuebert wrote: post #108
giwook wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point. What about cars or houses?

A Tesla will out accelerate all but the most niche cars now. Even the cheapest cars can have giant screens and climate control. I don't think they are equal to a Rolls Royce, but extreme luxury has greater diminishing returns now than at any point in history. Where I live pretty much all new houses are being built with granite counter tops and hardwood floors. Whether that's a good thing is a whole other topic ...

> Where I live pretty much all new houses are being built with granite counter tops and hardwood floors. Whether that's a good thing is a whole other topic ...

When land and labor (and fees leveraged by the city, state, etc.) are extremely expensive, the additional cost for these "luxury" items is very low by comparison. The buyers for these homes are buying everything new and it makes little sense to save $10k or so on such a visible amenity that is expensive to retrofit afterwards, on a home that costs $500k.

It is the same reason why crank windows are gone from cars. They aren't really status symbols.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#216

Post by tristor »

BoneShard wrote: post #61
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.

My local Costco carries the fair trade artisanal coffee brand that is roasted in my city, just in a 3 pound bag of beans instead of a 1 pound bag of beans like at the bougie grocery store. I can understand not wanting the Kirkland brand coffee, but that is far from the only coffee brand for sale at Costco. I am a coffee snob of the highest order and I buy my beans at Costco.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#217

Post by arjie »

If I’m being honest I find a lot of this kind of stuff pretentiously performative. It’s a wholesale market with a membership fee. The food is nutritious and cheap and there are economies of scale to be had.

There are no Costco people. There are no Whole Foods people. There are no Gus’s people. In San Francisco, I live a block from Whole Foods, a block from Safeway and a block past that is Gus’s. Costco is six blocks away. We go to all of these places at various times. My gym is near Gus’s. Whole Foods has the biggest selection. Safeway has Envy apples. Costco is where we get the base load of stuff when we do weekly shopping.

As commentary on consumerism has filtered down from philosophy to the masses it really has become incredibly middle-brow. Copy-paste opinions about shopping substitute for any intellectual examination of food availability. Like LLM text the language is sound but the ideas are incredibly shallow shadows of the ultimate concept.

It really brings home the idea that if you can’t appreciate living in an era of abundance where fruit of high quality is available throughout the year and it has been bred to high perfection and eggs, milk, and rice are practically costless compared to the past, that perhaps there is nothing that can bring you joy. All the “this is late stage capitalism where you consume consume consume without thought and reason” takes have the shape of meaning but carry nothing. They’re some kind of cargo cult mimicry of some concept.

We have solved food. Costco is the solved form. $2.99/lb of chicken.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#218

Post by pembrook »

This could possibly be the most cringe piece of coastal elite content I've ever read.

Aesthetically-minded hipster writes a think piece on reluctantly aging out of high school fears of being "uncool," finally grows up and has a family, but 15 years too late.

Discovers the concept of economies of scale and also that families in the center of the country who spend their weekends at Costco instead of marching at pride events might not be nazis after all...and actually it's kind of convenient to go to a big warehouse full of curated bulk items and buy shit when you have kids.

I imagine its exactly the type of thing boomer hippies (the hipsters of their generation) wrote about in the 80s/90s after they realized dropping acid in nudist drum circles gets old after a while and that communes don't actually work. Just rewrite the title to "I want to live like Kmart people," and voila, you've got a New Yorker thinkpiece from 1986.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#219

Post by declan_roberts »

nostrademons wrote: post #208

It's interesting how Millennials seem to be embracing boring practicality as they get older. Brands like Costco, Toyota, Ikea, minivans, etc are all staging a comeback as middle-aged Millennials decide they don't have time to deal with hassles or money to pay for overpriced status symbols.

Indeed Costco is a very practical store. You can trust most of the food to taste good because they test it first, vs a throw everything at the wall and see what sticks approach to a standard grocery store. Trader Joe's is is probably the best in this regard.

The return policy also takes away a lot of concern. If you don't like it you can easily just take it back without any hassle.

Re: I want to live like Costco people

#220

Post by Exoristos »

hiAndrewQuinn wrote: post #69
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 thi…

Exposing my superficiality, perhaps: but it pains me that you don't wear pants.
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