Costco

Another place we should own stock in. I’ve discussed Home Depot before, but we also seem to spend a significant portion of our money in this place: Costco, formerly named Price Club. (please, no mention of Sam’s Club – I refuse to support WalMart or any associated business)

For those of you that don’t have big place like this nearby, it’s like a really really big market, but it sells things in really really big sizes and volumes. You can’t go in and buy two rolls of toilet paper (bog rolls?) but a pack of 36. You can’t get a quart of milk (liter of milk), but two gallons. About a third of the place is devoted to food: oranges in ten pound packs, frozen stuff in five or ten pound bags, coffee in hugh tubs, giant sized containers of mustard and ketchup. You get the idea, big things. Fortunately we have some large storage closets in our garage, so we can buy these large packs and put most of them outside. I think it’s an American thing; big SUVs, gas by the gallon, and Costco.



There is no interior decoration. These places are just big tilt-up concrete warehouse buildings with high ceilings and metal racks and lots and lots of stuff. The shopping carts are BIG, or you can use a large flat cart and really pile up the stuff.



We usually go every few weeks and get some stuff. Things we typically purchase (not all at once, and not every week) include aforementioned TP, paper kitchen towels, chicken breasts (in frozen five pound bags, we also have a big freezer), soda, washing machine soap, vitamins, dog treats (according to the guys we BETTER have those always on hand), and candy bars (I keep a full dish on my desk as bribes).

They also sell coupons for movie tickets fairly cheap. And the latest DVD movies usually at 10% - 20% under store prices. There is a section with clothes, changing seasonally, but regularly having socks and underwear. Oh, also big packs of diapers (something we didn’t buy before but are now).

I always take the big car when we go, and often fill both the trunk and back seat.