LogFAQs > #968549693

I got a costco membership a few months ago because they have king crab cheaper than anywhere else, not cheap enough to be worth buying much, but I figure in a year I'd only need to buy 6 pounds of crab all together to pay for the card, and there might be other things that were cheaper there.

Yeah, no, not even close.

So I went a few times, and this last time I decided to really check the prices as the previous times I mainly got a slice of pizza (Very cheap and decently tasty) and some soda (insanely cheap at like 50 cents). That btw is a good deal.

The food though...omg, the cost comparison is rediculous.

Even without sales at all, in general, costco is almost 20% more expensive for the same amount of food as Safeway. A ribeye steak is 17.99 a pound for instance while it's 11.99-13.99 a pound (Base price) at safeway. Also safeways meats are generally higher quality.

But maybe buying in bulk canola oil will be cheaper? Nope, they have a twin thing of conola oil at costco, but in comparison to buying 1/2 as much (twice), it's 2$ more over all at costco (that is only about 10% more....but this is all without specials/deals/points etc you get from safeway).

I went down a straight list of items, although because costco has WAY less variety, sometimes I had to use different brands etc, and honestly NOTHING was cheaper at costco than safeway...again before deals.

That would be bad enough, but then you have weekly specials.

So that 17.99 rib eye steak? Two weeks ago they were on sale for 5.77 a pound (limit one max pack) and 7.99 a pop after that. The boneless ribeyes were 9.99 meanwhile (other then the 5.77 max pack I stuck to boneless as that is a better deal).

Every week they have one kind of steak on sale as well. In addition on fridays (like today) they usually have another (today is 5.99 tri tip steaks which I'm going to grab some of).

There are of course tons of other deals on the weekly adds, that drop prices significantly, and if you store up items, you can just about only buy them on sale.

But wait, that is good and all, and gives me at least 30-40% off on average now each time I shop, but there is more.

Every 100$ you spend at safeway gives you 1 point, but there are usually specials that multiply that, and additional specials that give you points if you spend x amount of money. Last week for instance you got 4 point if you spent 70$ or more, and 3 points if you spent 50$ or more (and they stacked for a total of 7 points), they also had 3x the points on produce/meat/dairy items (so 1 point per 30$). I ended up spending a bit over 100$ (after deductions) and left with 11 points total.

Every 12 points is 20$ off your next order (you can also get $1 off a gallon of gas per 10 points but unless you have a REALLY big gas tank that isn't a good deal).

Net result after everything was factored in, to buy the same groceries at Costco that I got on sale at safeway and after taking away the money from the points I got, was slightly less then twice as expensive (104$ at safeway vs 197$ at costco).

Now mind you, other then buying the steak that was on sale etc, and using just 4 you coupons etc, I didn't specifically shop based on deals. I didn't save as much as I could, I got exactly what I wanted to eat that week. If I had shopped based on deals I could have saved even more.

In conclusion, Costco even if you are extremly lazy and don't use any digital coupons (they go right on your card) and don't shop based on the sales of the week, is WAY more expensive than safeway in every way. You dont' same money by buying in bulk, you don't save money by having fewer options/types of food to buy, you actually spend significantly more.