I shop at Costco monthly as an executive member. It saves me a lot of money, but there are 4 things I rarely buy there.
Jill Robbins
- I live with my husband and two teens, and we've had a Costco membership since 2014.
- Costco has some great deals, but sometimes buying in bulk isn't worth it for our family.
When I moved with my husband and then-4-year-old sons from England to Texas in 2014, one of the first things we did was get a Costco membership.
The concept of buying groceries in bulk wasn't common in England, so Costco shopping was a real novelty. We loved the chain's deals and how it seemed to sell everything from freshly baked croissants to electronics.
Ten years later, we still shop there and have an executive membership — but I've learned that not everything is an awesome value and that it doesn't always make sense for our family of four to buy in bulk.
I also try to remember that a Costco membership isn't free. Our membership recently went up to $130 a year, and although we get a 2% reward on purchases, it makes me a better shopper not to lose sight of this.
Here are a few things we usually don't buy at Costco and why.
We love variety too much to justify buying K-Cups at Costco.
I love my Keurig, and my husband and I both drink coffee daily. We have different taste buds and like having different styles of coffee on hand —I like to change it up throughout the week, and he faithfully drinks either breakfast blends or decaf.
But we like to keep several coffee varieties on hand at a time, so buying K-Cups in mass quantities at Costco would take over our pantry.
The wholesale retailer usually has good prices on K-Cups, but we prioritize our space here. We skip the 100-packs and usually pay a little more per pod for smaller quantities of coffee at Walmart or our local grocery store, HEB.
In my experience, many of the ready-to-eat meals aren't a great value.
I like to keep ready-to-eat meals, like pulled pork, on hand for when I don't have time to cook — but I don't think every dish at Costco is a good value.
On one trip to Costco, I found a 2-pound container of Kirkland pulled pork for $14.99. That same week, I found a 1-pound container of Llyod's pulled pork at Walmart for $5.88.
Buying two Llyod's containers at Walmart would be cheaper and still give me enough food to feed my family with leftovers.
At the same time, even HEB had a somewhat comparable deal to Costco: A pound of house-brand pulled pork for $7.99 — plus shoppers got a free loaf of bread with purchase.
I don't always have time to do this level of comparison, but I often find grocery stores have better prices on convenience foods unless Costco is having a sale.
The large packs of cold cuts and sliced cheese usually go bad before we can finish them.
I've gotten careful about buying perishables in bulk because I hate having to throw away food before we can reasonably finish it.
The large packs of cold cuts and sliced cheese at Costco are just too big for our family of four
And, even though we frequently eat sandwiches, nothing seems to make our family want them less like buying a big pack of cold cuts — call it Murphy's Law of Lunchmeat!
Instead, I usually buy store-brand meats and cheeses at our local grocery store in smaller quantities. If I'm willing to spend a little more, I'll get them freshly sliced at the grocery-store deli counter — they taste even better.
I only get breakfast cereal at Costco if there's a good sale.
In general, knowing how much items usually cost at my local grocery store can help me decide if something's actually a good deal at Costco.
I always try to compare prices for cereal. Many grocery stores sell private-label dupes of popular cereals like Cheerios or Cinnamon Toast Crunch, which are even cheaper than buying the real deal in bulk.
But Costco sometimes has great sales on cereal that make its prices the best, so knowing how much cereal costs across the board helps me decide what's a good deal.
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