I always had my reservations about Costco; I guess I was always skeptical of places that charged members for shopping at their stores. So for the last 3 years or so, I bummed a Costco card off one of my former roommates (she was nice enough to put me on her account). Although I hardly shopped at Costco, I knew that there were savings to be had especially when I was in dire need of paper towels and toilet paper (which is like everyday; don’t ask).

Well this year I finally bit the bullet and decided to try out the wholesale warehouse for myself, so I paid my dues (~$50) and in return received a shiny new Costco member card with my picture on it. Since then, I’ve come to find that I’ve been missing out on quite a bit like one gallon of Naked Orange Juice for $4.79, 1 dozen Horizon organic brown eggs for $4.25, three pounds of Honey Nut Cheerios for $6.29, 1 gallons of Silk vanilla soy milk for $6.99, and the list goes on and on. At this moment, I have enough Charmin toilet paper, Brawny paper towels, Duracell AA batteries, Orbits Bubblemint, and Trident Tropical Twist to last me a few months. And although there are a few rare times that I find something cheaper elsewhere, I must say that I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some of the deals I’ve found like a Mag-Lite set of flashlights for less than a single Mag-Lite flashlight at Wal-Mart. And just recently I ended up kicking myself for buying a microSD card at Best Buy then finding the same exact one on Costco.com for $20 less.

So have I realized enough savings to make up for the membership dues? Up to this point, I think I’m really close to breaking even (now I wish I would’ve kept track). I bought an HP Photosmart 3210xi for $214 after rebate, so I’m pretty sure that did it. And while on the subject of rebates, I must say that Costco’s rebate process is pretty sweet. All you do is go online and enter in some info from your receipt and you’re done; there’s no need to mail in anything. Although I wish they could improve the process even further by allowing you to direct deposit or PayPal the rebate amount to you.

Anyways, I realize that this post has gone off on a tangent (what else is new), but there was a point to it. Oh yeah, I checked out their Costco Connection magazine and found an article on Craig Newmark of Craigslist, just click on the image below to check out it out (FYI, its a 1Mb file).

Sincerely,
The Closet Entrepreneur

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