A Trip to Costco

My Costco membership is going to expire this month. I joined mainly because they have great prices on a lot of the equipment I need for my farmers' market booth. I probably won't be renewing.

I'm proud to say that, in the entire year that I've had the membership, I haven't bought a single food item.

I headed up there today to buy a few pieces of equipment while I still can. I figured that, while I was there, I should take a closer look at the food, to see if it defied any of my preconceptions. As far as quality, there were quite a few "industrial organic" items. I was glad to see them, but I wasn't tempted to buy any.

I was mainly interested in comparing prices with some of the other places I shop. The meat seemed really inexpensive, but I rarely buy meat, and when I do it's usually at the farmers' market and I'm more interested in quality than I am in price. (Buying it only occasionally gives you that luxury.)

I do look at a lot of produce prices in a lot of different places, so I figured that would be a good section to use for comparison. I found a 10 lb. bag of red potatoes for $5.29, pineapple for $2.99, a couple of small watermelons for $6.79 (they looked like they were about 5 lb. each,) and 5 avocadoes for $6.99.

After having my receipt scrutinized by the guard at the door, I headed up to one of my favorite produce stands, Country Farms, in Edmunds. They had 10 lb. bags of potatoes for $2.49, a 3 lb. pineapple for 98 cents a pound, and 10 lb. watermelons for 39 cents a pound. They had baby avocadoes at 5 for a dollar, so I couldn't compare that price precisely, but I do know that the last time I checked, Trader Joe was selling 4 avocadoes for $3.

I'm not denying that Costco has great prices on many of their items. But I do think that people who shop at big box warehouse stores often assume that any price they see there is cheaper than what you'll get elsewhere, and it isn't necessarily so.

And I'm left with the perennial question, if you spend less money on stuff you don't really need, are you actually saving money?