Back in the day we had Costco, Sams & Price Club(which merged into Costo), and and memberships to all three! Costco won out for us. We could do more of our food shopping at Costco and shop less at other drug stores & supermarkets.
Costco has gas! (live in CA, 2.01/gal last weekend)
On the credit card issue, Costco will take your atm card.
Should read “and had memberships”
Just got back from Costcos…
Great meats selection. The steaks were not only cheap, but of a nice quality. I was expecting some sort of ‘Grade X’ rejects, but no. Good chicken and lamb as well. (I don’t dig on pork, but I suppose that was good too.)
I was suprised to see that Costcos also had cheaper gas and cheaper cigarettes. Not a huge amount cheaper, mind you, but for the same product, heck…
Overall, it was a well-spent $45.00. I didn’t know that they had such a wide selection of stuff.
I agree, but I will still be hitting Trader Joe’s for some items, and the pittance of ‘fresh’ produce that I consume negates Trader Joe’s higher prices.
Must…resist…temptation…no…dirty…comments…
Costco, hands down.
Started going to them when we lived in Washington State. Pouted when we moved to Hawai’i and there wasn’t any there. Cheered immensely when Costco managed to move into Hawai’i. (Not counting military personel, we were probably one of the few people there that had an active Costco membership and so didn’t have to spend time in the Membership line when they first opened up.) 
Costco generally has the items that appeal to us, both in thems of quality and what they are. Sam’s Club is hit-or-miss most of the time, and they seem to vary their stock more by the area they’re in. (The closest Sam’s Club to us is in kinda a run-down area, and seems to specialize more in what I’d call ‘light industrial/food service’ kinds of items. The Sam’s Clubs further out are in more ‘trendy’ areas, and have more of a generic selection.)
We keep membership for both, because a lot of them have discount gas stations now and the amount we save in gas at Sam’s Club justifies the yearly membership fee for us.
I do reccomend the Canberry Mac-nut cereal from Costco. (I forget who makes it for them: Quaker?) Nummy.
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Costco indeed pays really well. I know a guy who works in the butcher/meat department at one Costco and he gets, I think, around 20 bucks an hour.
Sams is currently in a battle with the CC companies, so I expect the customer inconvience factor to be an issue for some time to come, along w/ walmart.
I have had a membership to Costco (and price club) and now BJ’s. I found Costco better then BJ’s but not that much, and the BJ’s I go to has very short lines compaired to the Costco, which is a big deal to me. Also BJ’s has gas, Costco doesn’t.
Since I moved none of the 3 are conveinent, but BJ’s has the closest 2 stores that I do pass every now and again.
Try both stores, look at prices of itmes you buy, and the lines, then decide.
Got free memberships to both through my employer but didn’t renew Sams. Costco is brighter and the products are nicer. Costco also accepts AMEX, which is convenient for me since I did the great credit card purge a few months back and cut up my Discover.
The DVD prices are great. And for $5.99 they sell 20 pounds of the most enormous potatoes imaginable. I buy the bag and split it with my neighbors because I can’t eat them all in time and it STILL saves me money from the local grocery store.
The only problem with both stores is that I can’t walk out under $200!
Even better is the Kirkland (Costco store brand, I believe) Fruit & Nut Medley. At one point, I had an almost bag a week addiction!
Yup, Kirkland is their in-house brand (since they are based in Kirkland, WA).
Their house-brand ‘fud in a can’ (diet shakes) are pretty good as well. (I prefer their vanilla to the chocolate.)
The one thing I don’t like (both Costco and Sam’s) is that their discount gas stations carry either the low-grade or the high-grade gas only. Not the mid-grade. And usually the high-grade there is the cost of the mid-grade elsewhere. Grr.
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Costco was founded in Seattle and I often shop at store no. 1 in a beat old warehouse south of downtown. Though there is at least one Sam’s Club around here, I have never had the desire to even check it out. Perhaps because Walmart is so downmarket or just obnoxious. In contrast, Costco pay their workers quite well in both salary and with excellent benefits. The company also contributes a lot to our community. I also happen to know one of the founding families and they are quite generous with their charitable contributions and are extremely unpretentious people if that matters to anyone.
Costco sells pretty decent stuff. Some suprisingly upscale, but there is shlock. Their return policy is the greatest–even computers can be returned within a reasonable time. The food is very high quality and several organic items are now available at Trader Joe-level prices and quality. I heard that they will be testing out a speciality store that offers a large selection of natural and organic foods soon.
The wines are very popular and provide good value–I think Costco is one of the largest wine retailers in the world. Regarding alcohol sales, Costco is also actively suing the Washington state liquor control board and its wholesalers for essentially racketerring. Washington demands that retailers purchase all wine through a very small number (maybe 2) of licensed wholesalers who pretty much fix the prices. Thus, Costco cannot use its volume purchasing power to offer us boozers lower prices. Costco warned the state several years ago that they would do this but tried to negotiate a new deal instead. Alas, the state wouldn’t budge. Just about everyone is rooting Costco on, including me.
I can’t put my finger on why, but I prefer Costco as well. We have a newly remodeled Sam’s that is comparable in price and selection to Costco but something about Costco makes it just a nicer place to shop.
You can mix the 2 yourself, take equal parts of 87 and 92, and you can make your own 89.5. Just estimate how many gal. you will need, fill up 1/2 with one grade, then end the transaction, then start a new one and fill up the rest of the way.
If there are lines however, you may want to call for medical assistance a head of time because the other people wait for your pump might get a bit hostal due to the delay.
I tried (and obviously failed) to find the article, but I recall reading not too long ago that the gap between Costco CEO Jim Sinegal’s annual income and that of the average Costco employee is something like 1/5 the national average (and 1/10 the gap on the higher end of the scale).
I did find this article, which contains the following charming statement:
I don’t think anyone except december or those of his persuasion could consider me a raving commieliberalpinkofink; still, I can’t help thinking that this country would be a lot better off if we had more people like Jim Sinegal, and fewer Wall Street analysts.