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Costco

This is a photo series of items I’d NEVER shell out money for at Costco.  I’ll be doing several of these as well as posts on what I WOULD buy at Costco.  Most of the items I list today I’d never buy at Costco, because we can almost always get them FREE or even as Money Makers.  Wouldn’t you agree?

Here are a few other popular Costco posts here on The Frugal Find…

  1. (Updated List!) Items I WILL buy at Costco…
  2. How to find Clearance items at Costco
  3. Why we bought a Costco membership…
  4. You can shop at Costco WITHOUT a membership!

$4.25 per box of cereal – Ouch! I’d pay up to $1.50 for Frosted Mini Wheats max.

We see deals on feminine products on a regular basis, often times even FREE!

Here is a 5ct package of Degree Deodorant for $13.49 or $2.69 each.  This isn’t a deal at all, almost on a weekly basis you can get deodorant anywhere from free to $0.99 each.

I’d expect to be PAID to take anymore toothpaste home, let alone pay over $2 per tube!

My mouth dropped when I saw the price over these razors, did yours?  Yes it’s true, sadly people still pay for these things.

Here’s one last item that we can get on sale, as low as $0.99 for a smaller bottle on a regular basis.

This post may contain affiliate links. When you use them, you support The Frugal Find. Thank you! Disclosure policy.

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It’s been almost 2 years since I first posted my “Items I WILL buy at Costco post” and in that time we’ve switched servers more times than I can count. Thankfully each time it was to accomodate the growth that we weren’t anticipating, but sadly in one of the moves we lost a lot of images and this post was one of the main ones to suffer the loss.  It took me hours to put this post together the first time around so frankly I’ve been dreading it, but it’s finally happening!  Mr. Frugal and I spent quite a bit of time yesterday at Costco getting ready for this post, today I’ll be adding quite a bit of new content but there is MORE to come!  Also stay tuned for an updated “What we would NEVER buy at Costco” post as well.

It’s been 2 years now that we’ve had our Costco membership, you can read about Why We Bought a Costco Membership.  The following is a photo series of items I do buy and would suggest you buy at Costco – these items are rarely cheaper even with a good sale or coupon (if they even exist) and as of right now I think you’d be hard pressed to find a better deal.  Plus I think the $1.50 hotdog/drink combo alone may be worth the membership :)

Fruits & Veggies: In most cases, I prefer the Farmer’s Market but when the market is not open I’ll opt for Costco.  However not for all of our produce.  I always shop the grocery stores “loss leaders” first – the produce that they have marked down to $0.99/lb or less.  They do this to get you in the door and it works for me!  I buy in bulk and freeze my fruits and veggies when I can find them around $0.99/lb or less and I stockpile my freezer with seasonal produce.

Dairy (Milk, Eggs, Butter, Yogurt, and Cheese):

Milk: It really depends when it comes to milk, lately I’ve seen some great in-store promotions for free milk with the purchase of various breakfast items that I already have coupons for.  So at this point it time it’s been a while since I’ve purchased my milk at Costco, but this is a great place to start for a good base price.

Eggs, Butter, and Cheese: Again here, my buy it now price for eggs is $0.99/dozen and Costco is pretty close but a bit over.  So it depends on the store sales when I need to buy eggs.  Fred Meyer often has their brand of butter on sale for $1.66 so that is my stockpile price and Costco is a bit higher at $1.84/lb.  Cheese is almost always on sale somewhere, so unless you really need it in bulk or prefer a higher end brand.  We love Tillamook so we buy this occasionally at Costco but you can likely find a deal elsewhere.  We recently stocked up on Lucerne cheese at Safeway for $2/lb.

Yogurt: I can’t find a single deal on single serve yogurt that I would ever consider a good buy – my buy it now price for yogurt is $0.25 each.  However when it comes to the larger tubs of Greek Yogurt, Costco is almost always the best buy unless I find it clearanced somewhere.

Household Goods (Toilet Paper, Kitchen Trash Bags, etc)

Toilet Paper: For most household goods I prefer to buy the smaller packages, especially when it comes to household cleaners and laundry detergent.  You can find deals on these regularly or you can make your own laundry detergent from home and save a bundle!  However quite the opposite is true when it comes to toilet paper.  That is one item that rarely, if ever goes on sale for less than Costco sells it for.  I’ve found a deal once or twice and I was sure to post it on TFF, but for the most part I would send you to Costco for this purchase.

We’ve gone back and forth about how to determine what exactly is a good price for toilet paper.  This is the formula I use below.  I’d also say that anything roughly below $0.50/roll is a good deal.  With that said brands vary great by size/length/and ply.  That is why the formula below is a sure fire way to know if you’re getting a good deal or not.

This is the equation I use with Costco’s Kirkland Brand #s to as a gauge…

Square Footage = 1539 sq ft
Insert a decimal 2 places to the left = 15.39 ($15.39 or less is a good deal and Costco’s is $14.99)
= $0.01 per square foot SO if you have coupons or if the cost of the toilet paper is LESS than this, it’s a good deal.

Kitchen Trash Bags: The same goes for Kitchen Trash bags – deals to exist but the price you pay for 200 bags ($0.07 per bag) just isn’t worth the hassle of clipping coupons and hunting down a deal.  Plus the quality of these bags far surpasses most other brands, in my opinion.  I also love that 200 ct box lasts us several months.

Breakfast Staples (Oats, Maple Syrup, Honey, etc):

Steel Cut Oats: Costco now carries Bob’s Red Mill products which makes me so happy!  They have 4.5lb bag of Bob’s Red Mill Steel Cut Oats for just $4.75 that’s just over $1/lb and I’m not 100% certain but I am pretty sure that beats any grocery store price or bulk bin, please correct me if I’m wrong.

Maple Syrup:  We recently ditched regular syrup in favor of Maple Syrup, it’s much better for you and we think it tastes a lot better too!  It is however fairly pricey.  I’ve found great deals on VitaCost with the new member free $10 credit, however on a regular basis Costco’s price of  $0.37 per ounce is hard to beat.

Honey:  Costco’s prices are good, but the huge bottle deters me.  I’d much rather smaller more manageable bottles, so if you’re up to refilling them that is an option.  We however prefer the taste of the Great Lakes honey that we order on Amazon, it’s actually just a few cents cheaper right now too (prices can change at any time though!)

Almonds: I have yet to find a better price on almonds at $3.26/lb.  These are so fresh and tasty too!  We use them in a huge variety of ways – roasting, trail mix, baking, etc.

That’s it for today, but I’ll be adding more items that I will buy at Costco to this post as I have more time available. I hope you’ve enjoyed this update! What are some items you think are consistently the lowest price at Costco?

This post may contain affiliate links. When you use them, you support The Frugal Find. Thank you! Disclosure policy.

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So we told you a while back that we are new again members at Costco.  We took a year off to see if we could “live without” our Costco membership and needless to say we are now back in the saddle. JUST this afternoon my husband returned our 2nd or 3rd malfunctioning GPS over the past 2-3 years without question.  That alone is priceless.

You can read more about Why We Bought a Costco Membership and the Items I would NEVER buy at Costco.  You can also read my first post about Items I WILL buy at Costco.  Today we’re going to talk about their gift cards.

I love getting gift cards at a discount whenever I can because they ARE like cash and CAN becombined with a coupon or sale!  That is the biggest tip I want you to take away from this, your gift card does not fall under the “not valid with any other offer” stipulation that you will see on a lot of restaurant or store sales and coupons.  Your gift card is just like cash and in the state of CA it never expires.

Here are a 2 examples of gift card deals I saw at my local Costco yesterday and ways you could maximize the savings.

Jamba Juice: I’m sure you’re well aware of the multitude of coupons that Jamba Juice releases.  I’ve posted many if not all of them here.  With the gift card deal pictured above at Costco, you are automatically saving 20%.  It is a $50 gift card (or 2 $25 gift cards) for $39.99.  Here is a deal scenario using a recent Jamba Juice coupon.

Buy (2) Jamba Juice 16 oz Smoothies – $3.95 ea (ouch!)
Use Gift Card and SAVE 20% – $0.80 Savings
Use BOGO Coupon and SAVE – $3.95
Final Price: $3.15 for 2 smoothies VS. $7.90 for 2!

Celia’s Mexican Restaurant: This is local Mexican Food restuarant that we’ve yet to try but have heard raving reviews for!  This is a GREAT deal, it’s a $100 gift card(s) that sells at Costco for $75.  Once again, you automatically saving 25% off your bill.  NOW with this restaurant specifically they are a part of the Restaurant.com program.  Here is a deal scenario using a recent Restaurant.com certificate purchased at 80% off:

Fine Print from the Restaurant.com certificate reads:

  • Minimum purchase of $45
  • Valid Sun-Thur.
  • 18% Gratuity added prior to discount.
  • Valid for Dinner, Dine In ONLY.
  • Present prior to ordering.

Spend $45 on food and drinks at Celia’s
Use Gift Card and SAVE 25% – $11.25
Use Restaurant.com certificate and SAVE $23 (minus the $2 certificate cost)
Final Price: $10.75 for $45 worth of food and drinks, that’s incredible!

*PLEASE remember to tip your server based on the PRE-Discounted Total which in this case at a 20% tip rate would be $9.

This post may contain affiliate links. When you use them, you support The Frugal Find. Thank you! Disclosure policy.

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Man buys 100 razors at Costco…

by Julia on July 14, 2010
Uncategorized

Jenny, a TFF reader, sent me an article that got me thinking about those people in our lives who think couponing is crazy and/or a waste of time & money.   This man stocked up on Razors at Costco (100) to be exact, in an attempt to save money in the long run.  Remember this post about things I’d NEVER buy at Costco?  The above picture was taken just last week at my local Costco, a 14+1 pack for $44.99.  At that price this man paid just shy of $300 for something we get FREE almost every week!

Don’t you feel sorry for him?  Who is going to break the news to him?

Do you have people in your life like this?  You know, the ones that are set in the way they shop and 100% positive they’re getting the best deal out there – like this man above.

This post may contain affiliate links. When you use them, you support The Frugal Find. Thank you! Disclosure policy.

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Why we bought a Costco membership…

by Julia on July 5, 2010
Uncategorized

We had a membership for almost 8 years through my husband’s employer, but when he left his job we lost it.  We hadn’t gone there much in the last year we had it, but we did go for a few things.  It had been a whole year without it, and we were missing it.

Here are my reasons:

Paisley Farms Four Bean Salad -  You can buy 1/2 Gallon of  their 4 Bean Salad in a jar for just over $5, I haven’t been able to buy the beans to make my own for anywhere near this price.  It’s my absolute favorite too – never tasted a bean salad as good as this one.

Will’s San Francisco Potato Salad – 5lbs worth for only $5.69!  We’ve never found another that we like more.  You see most of our favorite meals come off the grill, my husband is great out there and if all I have to do is put the sides in a dish, then that’s my favorite meal :)   Sure I could possibly make this cheaper, but I’d NEVER be able to make it as good.

Costco Gas – it’s almost always cheaper.

Electronics – Time and time again we’ve been relieved to know our electronics were covered by the longest warranty around.  Knowing that you’re getting the top-of-the-line product at the BEST price too can’t be beat.

Executive Membership – So this was new to us, we had our minds set on getting the cheapest membership at only $50, and when she tried to talk up the Executive membership we had our “car dealership” faces on.  BUT then…she said $25 cash card today…and we listened a bit more.

Turns out that with our $100 membership, we’d get 2% cash back and IF we didn’t get the full $50 we paid above the normal Costco membership they’d pay us back the difference.  Plus we were already ahead a $25 cash card that day, which we used to buy the above bean & potato salad.   So overall it worked out to be a great deal and we’re now proud Costco Card holders.

Walking through the store I’m sure my mouth was wide open in shock at some of the “bulk is better” prices. As I shop there a bit more, I’ll be sharing a few What to Buy and What NOT to Buy scenarios, so stay tuned…

This post may contain affiliate links. When you use them, you support The Frugal Find. Thank you! Disclosure policy.

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