Everyone has an opinion on Costco but I’m curious how this community feels about it, considering we are probably more budget and value conscious than most.
There’s two reasonably convenient to us, being Moorabbin and Port Melbourne, but living in an apartment we just don’t have the storage space to make shopping there worthwhile. If you have the space to buy everything in bulk I imagine it’s both convenient and affordable but we only shopped there like 3 times and didn’t keep our membership past 12 months.
Good for a family or group. Bulk items available behind membership doesn’t appeal to me a single person.
I don’t have one near me yet but I’m told that the My Dog tins are much cheaper from there than Colesworth so I’d be buying that in bulk.
For me the main questions are: Do you have the space to store the stuff you get there, both pantry (toilet paper, soap, whatever), and fridge/freezer? Will you be consistently eating or using up the stuff so that it doesn’t go to waste or overwhelm you? Do you live close enough and have the patience to deal with the store?
For me the answer was no. I could certainly make space, but that would mean being confronted with a pile of soap or whatever when I opened the cabinets, when I only needed a couple backups. And while I certainly find stuff to buy there, I don’t go through it quickly enough to justify the time and effort of going to the store, and I’d probably just break even between savings and the membership money.
But I have a cousin with a large family who lives close and loves it, goes there regularly. Me and a couple of his friends worked out an arrangement where we pay for his membership, and he’ll either add our stuff to his monthly shop, or we can tag along with him in-store. It keeps his expenses down (he pays less at the store, and he doesn’t pay for his membership), and gets us our intermittent discounted items without the aggro, at a fair price.
If nothing else their pizza is goated
Catalog specials are great.
Fuel is great.
Be careful not all bulk buys are cheaper, play the stores off each other