[Basil Ransom]

What do you buy at Costco?

I'm always looking for ideas.

Fats
Coconut Oil - $17 for 54 oz
Kerrygold Grass-fed Butter - $7 for 24 oz (tastes much much better than non-grass-fed butter)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (hardly ever use)

Starches
Kirkland White Basmati - 11lb for $10
Long Grain Rice
Jasmine White Rice
Potatoes
Yams
Sweet Potatoes

Fruits
Bananas - $0.25 a lb
Frozen berries - ~$3 a lb
Carrot juice - 3 1 QT bottles for $7
Frozen peaches; frozen tropical mix

Vegetables
Frozen Spinach - awesome with butter or cream
Garlic
Normandy & Stir Fry vegetables, frozen

Dairy
Goat Cheese - 20 oz for $6
Organic Cage-Free Eggs, 2 dozen for $7
Feta
Sheep Feta (going to try this soon)
5 year aged Gouda - my favorite cheese ever, flaky with a toffee nutty flavor, but they seem not to carry it anymore.
Pre-sliced Havarti & Gouda (though limiting my non-aged cow dairy now, except for heavy cream)

Meat
Verde Farms Charbroiled Grass-fed patties, $15 for 2 lbs
Boneless leg of lamb - $5 a lb - awesome, one of my favorites.
Korean-style Galbi Flank Steak - $7 a lb
Ground Beef - $3 a lb. Too lean at 90% to be tasty.
Organic Ground Beef - $4.25 a lb, 85% lean. Good taste.

Fish
Frozen wild sockeye salmon ($9 a lb?)
Sardines, Wild Planet, $2 a tin (haven't bought in a while)
Steelhead thawed
Farmed Salmon thawed

Nuts
Almond Butter
Almond Milk Unsweetened

Seasonings
Pink Salt
Tellicherry Peppercorns

Condiments
Jack's Cantina Salsa - amazing, tastes like someone just chopped it up in front of you. Has a slight sweet citrus flavor but low in sugar. May find yourself eating chips just to have the salsa.
Guacamole - comes in those plastic containers, two pack, great taste.

Alcohol
Wine, especially the cheap Bordeaux, and the Italian, Chilean reds. Also some good magnums for $10 or less.

I tend not to buy fresh produce because it's hard to finish before it goes bad. Spices also go stale before you can finish them.

Wish they had: duck, grass-fed tallow, plantains, Bragg's ACV!

One thing I like about Costco is that you almost never have to worry about quality (aside from things that are inherently shitty, like hot dogs). Like CThunder says, frozen produce is a great choice. The frozen blueberries, once thawed, are easily the best blueberries I've ever tasted.

I went to a Costco Business Center and was dying to buy a lamb carcass:



If you like Costco you have to visit a Business Center one sometime, it makes a regular Costco look normal.

[Cattle Rustler]

(08-24-2013 07:42 PM)basilransom Wrote:  

What do you buy at Costco?

You forgot baking powder! lol

What the rustler routinely buys from Costco: Toilet paper and electronics. Their computers are pretty darn cheap, around 350+.

Edit: After seeing many guys vouch for Costco's produce, I'll start buying produce from there too.

[Mentavious]

Solid buys are the frozen fruits and vegetables. Good bang for your buck.

I also like to get their chicken and steak. Freeze whatever I need.

They also have a very good selection of cheese as stated above.

Never tried the lamb leg but I will have too.

I had the Sams Club membership before and I am much happier with Costco for those considering between the two.

I also like to hit up the sample gauntlet. Sometimes I may only buy a few things but at least I get a free meal.

[MikeCF]

Organic salsa. Add that to eggs, black beans (which they also sell) as a way to get more veggies in your diet.
Black beans.
Eggs.
Greek yogurt.
Wild Alaskan salmon.
Grass-fed steaks.
Seasonal fruit (great buys on Watermelon).
Bananas.
Manchanego cheese.
Wine.
Kirkland brand vodka (same as Grey Goose).
Hot house English cucumbers (same as organic as they are grown in a greenhouse with no pesticides).
10 lbs. organic carrots for juicing.
Organic baby spinach.
Paper towels and toilet paper.
Got a nice 2-piece luggage set.
Bought a GPS system.

It's a great store and guys should be buying in bulk to save cash.

[Teddykgb]

Sometimes I just go to costco and get the $1.50 hot dog and pop.

Usually there is always some decent clothes there as well for a good price.

Only downside is I can't use my credit card with good rewards because they only accept American Express credit card.

[ms224]

New York Steak

Get the whole one, make sure it says product of USA (sometimes they say product of Canada or Mexico, or sourced from all three, avoid those).

My experience has been the bigger ones taste better.

If you ask at the meat counter, they have prime beef, its roughly double the price of the regular stuff. The local one here had porterhouse once. It was amazing but we wound up chopping it up with a sawzall, so not doing that again.

Then---

And you have steaks at half the price of the cut ones

Right now about $6/lb

You can take an end of it and roast it to make a small chateaubriand.

[EisenBarde]

Hummus, soo much hummus.

[Eddie Morra]

Sometimes clothes. Most are pretty cheap(but a little cheesey). However, last year I bought 2 100% merino wool, Calvin Klein V-Neck sweaters for just $20 each. Usually there's some decent wine and seafood that can also be had for good prices.....

[VincentVinturi]

Perrier
Kirkland brand wine (highly rate in wine magazines)
Fresh blueberries
Wild Sockeye Salmon (this stuff is flash frozen and tastes freshly caught!)
Manchego!

Costco is an amazing business. You gotta hand it to those guys.

[poledaddy]

I recall reading on WSJ a while back that all Costco's profit comes from membership fees, as all products are sold at break-even. However I don't go there as often as I used to as I find better deals online and other stores. Especially for stuff like paper towels, ziplock bags - I priced them out and found that I was paying more in bulk from Coscto than I would by buying individual units from Shoppers or Walmart.

The main thing I still buy at Costco are almonds. I can't find a better price than kirkland almonds 3lb bags - I use a food processor to make my own almond butter. While I'm doing an almond-run I'll pick up organic chicken thighs at $4/lb. Their frozen salmon patties are great too. I used to get Quinoa at Costco but I found it's cheaper in to get Quinoa bulk from Nuts.com.

They used to sell grassfed organic ground beef in the Costco near me $5/pound a couple years ago but they shifted to grain fed organic; pissed me off. Now I hit up trader joes for their grassfed ground beef at $6/pound, cheapest source of grassfed beef I can find.

[wi30]

What everyone else said.

Their pre-workout and protein powder are about half the price of GNC.

Also dog food.

[Hencredible Casanova]

Good thread. Which type of Costco membership do you guys have, business or gold star? I need to get on board.

[MikeCF]

(08-25-2013 03:48 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  

Good thread. Which type of Costco membership do you guys have, business or gold star? I need to get on board.

I have the one that costs $110. With that one, you get cash back based on some small percentage of your purchases

I spend enough cash there that it's worth it. I got my BlendTec there, some electronics, luggage, and some Dom for a NYE party. (Costco has great prices for when you want to "pop bottles.")

If you're just buying groceries, the $50/yr. one is fine.

[Basil Ransom]

(08-25-2013 03:48 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  

Good thread. Which type of Costco membership do you guys have, business or gold star? I need to get on board.

Gold Star. The Executive one costs an extra $50 for 2% cash back. Unless you're spending more than $2500 a year, it doesn't make sense. Although when I got it, they offered to pay me the difference, so that didn't matter.

The Costco credit card could make sense. Gives 3% cash back on gas.

I was excited to see cooked beets at Costco today. But I tried one out of the package, and it tasted funky in a bad way. It said to boil it in the plastic wrapping, but I already opened it and try to avoid cooking in plastic (I don't know how safe this plastic is), so I boiled the other two in the opened package. Those didn't taste great either. Going to return the rest.

Had the Costco tri-tip, pre-spiced. Tastes good, but pricey and has the fat trimmed off. Vastly prefer the untrimmed, not to mention that it's cheaper.

Didn't see the grass-fed patties at the Costco I went to.

[Mentavious]

(08-25-2013 03:48 PM)Hencredible Casanova Wrote:  

Good thread. Which type of Costco membership do you guys have, business or gold star? I need to get on board.

Gold membership. I usually only buy groceries.

[Balkanite]

Cashews and Salmon. Pizza is also pretty solid for lunch if you're hungry.

[Major Tom]

Where I'm at (Orange County) my local Costco carries a brand of oatmeal called Coach's Oats, sold in bags of ~50 servings (1/3 cup dry per serving) at a price of $5 or so each. Texture is somewhere in the middle between rolled and steel-cut oats, but in my opinion, it's better than either of those. I think it might be a local thing at least in SoCal because they didn't carry them when I was living in DC at the Costco in Pentagon City.

[Akula]

Great thread idea!

I friggin love Costco. Whenever I come back I buy a ton of stuff from there and bring it back to Russia in one of my big suitcases. I go for things that are really expensive here that I can get cheaper there, like big bags of pistachios, cashews, energy bars, vitamins, etc. In May I eneded up buying about 50 lbs of that stuff plus a new camera and big bottle of whiskey too.

Usually go with my Dad around lunchtime and we just eat all the free sample foods they have, which are usually pretty damn good. It's pretty hard to escape a Costco trip without spending at least $100+ I'd say.

[redwoodsandwaves]

Find a friend or family member that works there, and you can get a Costco card for free. Workers get a certain amount to give out to family/friends, with no annual membership free. I've had a business account for like 13 years now, never paid a dime as my buddy works there.

Their organic extra virgin olive oil has done very well compared to other more higher priced oils in reviews, and it tastes fantastic. They also have some great, higher quality canned tuna fish.

[PoosyWrecker]

Rotisseried Chicken $5
Cooking oil in big jugs

Motor oil. Tires. Gas

Costco Biz center: vacuum pack beef cuts weighs about 10 - 15 lbs. Best tasting steaks by value, about $80 - 110 IIRC if you love red meat and don't give a damn about cholesterol the $100/yr membership is worth it.

[Basil Ransom]

Redwood, I think you could claim your bro as your gay lover husband, and get a membership for free.

PoosyWrecker, you don't need the pricier membership to shop at the Business centers.

[lurker]

(08-25-2013 10:03 PM)Major Tom Wrote:  

Where I'm at (Orange County) my local Costco carries a brand of oatmeal called Coach's Oats, sold in bags of ~50 servings (1/3 cup dry per serving) at a price of $5 or so each. Texture is somewhere in the middle between rolled and steel-cut oats, but in my opinion, it's better than either of those. I think it might be a local thing at least in SoCal because they didn't carry them when I was living in DC at the Costco in Pentagon City.

Coach's Oats is awesome. It's the fastest-cooking oatmeal that tastes good I've ever had.

It's only in SoCal plus Phoenix and Tempe Costcos. I had a manager in one of the NorCal store check the location codes for me.

What to buy at Costco:

Meat subprimals. Especially whole bone-in beef rib.

[Bad Hussar]

Love Costco. May be the best retail group on earth as far as I'm concerned. Extremely well run business, at least in Canada where I am familiar with them.

No Costco here, and the equivalent store in SA, Makro, is total crap. Recently bought by Walmart, which says everything that needs to be said

Anyway, what to buy at Costco:

When I was (trying to) bulk:
Rotisserie Chicken - ridiculously cheap
Huge tub of red-potato salad - very tasty

More expensive items. But very good value:
Frozen Ahi Tuna steaks
All manner of frozen fruits for smoothies

Regular stuff like toilet paper etc.

Nearly bough a kayak there once, but decided I didn't have anywhere safe to store it.

A lot of people think Costco is only for big families in the suburbs, or when they buy big ticket items like large screen TV's, but I new of a lot of people like myself who lived in apartments downtown who did a lot of their regular shopping there. Costco have a store in downtown Vancouver, and I believe are moving into the downtown core's of other North American cities as well. It's good move in my opinion. More demand from apartment dwellers than a lot of people think.

[redwoodsandwaves]

(08-26-2013 10:58 AM)basilransom Wrote:  

Redwood, I think you could claim your bro as your gay lover husband, and get a membership for free.

You're wanna be quip is actually really dumb and ignorant. I've saved over a grand thanks to my friend.

[Basil Ransom]

Was referring to the fact that you can put a second person on your account by claiming them as your spouse. i.e. split a membership.