So how much cheaper is food at Costco?

There are only two Costco's within driving distance from me, and the closest one is a good 40 miles away. I have actually never even been in a Costco before.

I have heard people say they have much cheaper food prices than regular grocery stores.

Is there any truth to this? For people who do go to grocery stores and Costco - what kind of price differences are there specifically?

I think this might be useful info for those of us trying to find a way to spend less on ever increasing food prices.

Of course you'll have to include the yearly membership fee ($50 last time I renewed), and then theres the fact they sell in bulk, fresh meat in 10lb sizes arent uncommon.

If you have a large family and a large freezer it can save you a good bit on your groceries.

1/2 pound of crappy store brand coffee at Safeway: $7.00

2 pounds of sliced almonds at Costco: $6.50
2 ounces of sliced almonds at Safeway: $4.00

I don't think the non-food items are that much cheaper (except when there's a sale), but food is always super cheap at Costco. Eggs, cheese, chicken, butter, and other staples are a great value.

as the above poster mentions though? Is it a value if you are not feeding a family worth of people on it? I think if I had to buy a mega pack of perishables half of it would go bad before I was able to use it.

are feeding a large group, or you really like oranges or potatoes whatever it is.

We have a good vacuum sealer and break up the packs into smaller ones, vacuum seal, and freeze. We eat the fresh veggies and then blanch and freeze the extra. Easy and it takes just a little bit mpre work to repackage.

You just have to get to know your freezer. :)

I don't/can't buy produce there unless it's freezable.

as I am also single and buy primarily at Costco. I would have to leave the city to go shop at walmart, and I refuse to do that. Plus the people that work there always seem so happy..

Not much need for 5 gallon jars of peanut butter for just the two of us.

OK, I exaggerate...but not by much.

and freeze the stuff I don't use immediately. That means I can get their megapacks of fish, fruits and veggies and prep them and freeze them for later use.

Just know what you use and how you're going to store it. You can get other things in bulk like flours, but again you'll need a strategy to store them so the bugs won't eat them first.

Costco is an enormous place and the deals aren't limited to food. You can also get things like six packs of CFLs, lawn mowers, big screen TV sets, and just about anything a big box store would sell. Their store brand, Kirkland, is very good.

I'm lucky, there's one four miles from me. It's going to be one of the things I look for in Mexico, too.

as it were...

You should be able to renew and get your Costco Mexico Card

I do my homework...

because, as you have said, you are buying almost everything in larger sizes or quantities. I just can't go through that many green peppers or onions or potatoes before they spoil. But I buy meat, coffee, butter (I freeze the extra till I'm ready for it) beer and wine and assorted other packaged foods. Gas at my Costco is about ten cents a gallon cheaper. Some things are not cheap enough to justify buying the large quantity. Paper towels and TP for instance. I live in a small apartment with very little storage space, so there is no room for large quantities even if I wanted them.

You can find some pretty good deals on clothes, however, and they have seasonal items and one-of-a-kind type things at really good prices.

frozen chicken, hamburger, flour, rice.

They try to make up for it by getting you to buy the botique/prepared stuff.

every trip for you is 4 (?) gallons of gas, plus your valuable time. do the savings justify the transportation costs?

when we go, we usually hit it after work (a mile from my office), and we spend $300.

you're saving money, but it sure doesn't feel like it.

for toilet paper, paper towels, coffee filters, garbage bags, health and beauty beauty items, snacks...that kind of thing. They do have really nice steaks (thick juicy ones in packs of four; one steak usually serves as two dinners).

they are also great employers and the customer service is wonderful.

My favorite story about Costco is when a friend's husband told her he was going to Costco and asked if she needed anything. She said "no". He replied "how do you know until you get there?"

The danger is buying stuff you don't need. The "marketing" (product placement) is excellent. You find yourself putting stuff in your cart because its cheaper than you are used to seeing it in other stores, not because you need it.

I've gotten better at the impulse buying but I still end up getting something I didn't intend to get and don't need.

There are some things we won't get anywhere else. Bagels are half or less what they are at the fancy bagel store, the chocolate cake is huge at at $18 is well worth it for a party (and to die for, I dream about them).

Agree with comments about produce. I usually pass on by that section. I used to buy fruits and veggies and ended up throwing too much away.

The quality is great on everything.

at my local Costco compared to most grocery stores.

they sell everythingi in megapacks. That's great if you have a large family or a restaurant, but even though their frozen foods are a good deal, I live alone and have only a standard refrigerator freezer.

In your case, I'd say that you'd use up more in gas than you'd save on food. Your best bet would be to find a supermarket within walking distance or cycling distance and go more often.

NOTE EVERYONE: The OP would have to drive 40 miles to get there. An 80-mile roundtrip. I'd guess that that would wipe out any possible cost savings.

Shredded cheese freezes very well (get some ziplocks and a sharpie to date them and through in freezer).

There are some items that are about 2 meals total in the package (serves 4 or 6) - i.e.e pasta, shrimp, cod etc. (skip the Tuna - that should never be frozen it changes the flavor)

The gas will eat any savings you may get at Costco.

Ask around your neighborhood ... who needs flour, oranges, peppers, (fill in a product that you fear you won't use all of before it spoils) and share with a friend or several friends. You can even split the cost of the membership if you take a friend when you sign up and give them the second card. That way, you can share not only the food, but the trips to get the food.

I recently bought some steaks there. They were so thick (and so good I might add) that we brought them home, sliced them lengthwise twice and got 12 steaks from a package of 4! You can freeze them individually and use them as you need them.

Costco for me is a drive but I often have to go into the area for work. I carry 5 freezer carry bags in my car at all times just in case I go that way and have the time to stop in.

And, if you go on the right day at the right time, you can virtually have a meal as you snack your way through all the free samples in the store.

Well worth it for the food and for the other things they offer as well.

My parents and I go in on a membership together - so it's only $25 for me and $25 for them. And, often when I'm in Tucson, where they live, we'll go and split the food purchases too, so nothing goes bad or is overwhelming.

we didn't have costco, but we had a cheap fruit market that was 20 or so miles away. When one of us went, we'd check with all our friends and get a group grocery list and divide it up. That way no one of us always got stuck with the drive, most of the time it was someone else doing the drive. It was a good excuse to get together, also.

I know in modern neighborhoods people don't always have a group of neighbors they get along with like that, it's sort of the thing to always think about yourself as an independent entity rather than hanging together. But if you don't have a group like that you can split chores with, you might go on craigslist and see if anyone else in your area is interested in group shopping like that, if the commute is bad.

those were the days.

look for a CSA in your area. they often deliver to a central point. One I've used in the past is over an hour away from Chicago, but there was a delivery site a few blocks from my house

here...great story from PBS. I saw it, went out to visit the farm itself. wonderful experience. reminded me of when I was a kid.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/realdirt/csa.html

strongly urge OPer to check the site, and watch some of the stuff available

By that I mean locally grown with no petrochemicals and poison sprays?
Sustainably grown?
Is the meat from a CAFO? Full of antibiotics? Hormones?
Is the purchase supportive of small farms, or corporate giants?
Are your frozen veggies imported from China?

If it's just priced to sell, it's really not a bargain.
Someone said Costco compared favorably with Safeway.

I say Safeway is a piss poor place to buy food.

My income is low, but I vote with my dollars every time I eat. You may have noticed that dollars are the only votes that are reliably counted in this country. I know plenty of people with less money than me who make wholesome food an absolute priority- especially for their children. And, we are changing the way food is produced in this country, one family at a time.

Join the revolution. Don't buy corporate "food". It's bad for your health, bad for the economy, bad for your children, and most importantly
(yes 'fraid so...MOST importantly)
bad for the planet.

Beef too expensive? Don't buy mad cow beef. Eat less beef.
Prepackaged foods too expensive? Don't send your money to China. Buy local, and spend some time on Sunday making food for the week.
Love your kids? The least expensive food choices are also the healthiest. Kids don't really need individual packaging for their kiddie meals. No matter what the TeeVee tells them to tell you, they really need healthy food, not a mini trip to Disneyland every meal.
Get rid of the packaging. Buy more whole foods. Your food bills will go down. So will your chances of getting food poisoning, or worse.

You get what you pay for. The hidden costs of eating low on the corporate hog are huge.

Support your local farm families, not DuPont. The corporate model is currently to feed you corn, which has been processed into a million kinds of bad food. Seriously. Read the labels. Everything is made of corn. All the meat is corn fed, too. This makes it easy on the corporate giants, 'cause they only have to grow corn, but it is no way to eat. Check out The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan. This book says it all better than I ever could. A very even handed study of where our food comes from. Takes a good look at the "organic" corporate food chain as well. He does not give "industrial organic" a free pass. My eyes were seriously opened.

But, here's the good news:
We found that when we gave up "normal American brand" "quick" and "snack" foods, we could afford all of the healthy food we wanted. Yes, a bag of chips costs more than a head of OG broccoli. And, a head of OG lettuce costs less than a bag of salad greens. Homemade stew costs much less than the canned stew. And so much food comes from China these days. If you can't trust imported pet food, how can you trust imported stew?

Times are tough, but food is where it starts and ends for good health. Bad health is much more expensive than clean food. Especially in this country!

Here's to your health, and to the collective health of our nation!

go for a day trial to look around and see if they sell what you want to buy.
I find terrific bargains and you may want to split some items with a friend.

2 jars of organic peanut butter about $6.50 - most peanut butter has the peanut oil removed and replaced with a cheaper oil such as palm oil. Not this stuff - straight peanuts. It would be about $5.50 for one jar at the grocery store.

8 lb of organic sugar for $ 7.99 - that would be about $2.50 - 3.00 a lb regularly.

organic butter - 2lb for about $7 - it is usually about $5.50 - 6.00 for one lb

Amy's enchiladas - 6 pkg for $12. It is way over $4 per pkg regularly

200 coffee filters - $ 3.25

8 cans of Glen Muir organic cut up tomatoes - $ 4.49, regularly $1.70+ per can.

2 lb red potato salad - $ 5.39

For me it is worth it.

Organic Olive Oil....it's an Italian brand working with Costco with the Kirkland label...
2 one liter bottles for around 16.00
It is so yummy!!!
Also, they have great organic oatmeal packets, I think it's 40/9.99
nummy organic raisens....
I use the chopped garlic in jars...and spices...red bell peppers...
a huge log of cheve goat cheese for less than 5 bucks.
I live alone, and like they said upthread...you just plan ahead.

I live near a Trader Joe's and a WinCo (like Cub Foods), so I don't buy much food there. Maybe the meat is cheaper, but I don't buy meat, so I wouldn't know. I do get their salmon burgers (wild Alaskan and delicious) and shrimp (also wild caught), and their store brand whole wheat bread, and some frozen fruit (although it's only a little bit cheaper than Trader Joe's, and the packages from TJ's aren't huge). They sell ginormous bags of broccoli and organic baby carrots for super cheap--so I pick those up on each trip. And the baked pita chips. Hey, maybe I do buy a lot of food there after all!

However, WinCo is SUPER cheap compared to other grocery stores, so maybe if you don't have a discount grocery store, or a Trader Joe's, near you, Costco would be worth it for lots more foods than it is for me. And if you eat meat, I bet Costco is fantastic for that. I would be a little wary of meat from a discount grocery store, although of course lots of people don't have a choice since meat is pretty expensive these days, I think.

The reason I love Costco is that their quality is really good... so even if you pay the same price for something that you would at another store, the quality of the one from Costco is almost certainly going to be higher. I'm talking about things like tools, electronics, furniture, etc as well as food. And lots of times the Costco version is better and cheaper. The only exception I know of is bagels... Costco bagels are great (I think they're Noah's Bagels really), but my WinCo's bagels are just as good for half the price.

Other people's suggestion to make a group shopping list, and break up the huge boxes of cereal, twin-wrapped jars of peanut butter, etc sounds like a great idea to me. You definitely would save money without giving up too much of your pantry space.

I've been a Costco member for many years, living with a growing family and living now with only one adult kid at home. I normally don't buy perishables at Costco these days, unless my other two adult children are visiting. But there are some good buys to be had. Toilet paper, paper towels, laundry detergent, and more are good. I got a really good deal on coffee beans the last time I was there. I've gotten great buys on some clothing as well (I'm not a fashion maven).

So yes, check it out. It's definitely worth the membership fee. Just don't go crazy and buy loads of perishables that you won't eat, and don't assume that everything you see there is a good buy.