June 5, 2019 • 46 mins
Anyone who has heard of the different warehouse clubs like Costco, Sam’s Club, and BJ’s has also heard that they’re a great place to save you money. But are they? With the proliferation of discount grocery stores and the ability to easily find a great deal on pretty much any product online, some are questioning whether the annual membership fees are worth it. Have a listen as we break down a bunch of the benefits, but also some of the drawbacks associated with warehouse clubs.
During this episode we both enjoyed a Buffalo Soldier by UTOG Brewing Co which you can find on Untappd. Another big thanks to Andy for donating this beer to the show! And if you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and give us a quick review in Apple Podcasts, Castbox, or wherever you get your podcasts- we’d love to hear from you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt,
and today we're discussing why warehouse clubs are awesome but
really they're not. Now they're great, Now they suck. All right,
we're gonna get into it. Just in the second cue
the music. Yeah, man, there are lots of pros to
(00:33):
joining a warehouse club, and so we're gonna get into those.
And I think you know, by the end of this episode,
you're going to completely agree with me. We're gonna be
on the same page and all's gonna be right with
the world. You can try to convince me, but man,
I have not joined yet, so this is your last chance.
It should be last and final chance should be a
fun discussion, and you know, to be fair from the
get go, I will say they're not for everyone. You're
already backpedaling, But I love my costco membership. I think
(00:56):
it's gonna be a fun conversation today. We will see
about that, best buddy. I wanted to share a quick
story though with you about a bike helmet. A story
about a bike helmet. This sounds intriguing. It's like the
it's like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants it's about
the helmet though this time. Actually I don't know anything
about that movie or those books, but I feel like
that this might be a very similar story. Okay, alright,
(01:18):
I'm intrigued. I never read the book either. A couple
of months ago I was writing, I had taken the
girls up to up the corner between where you and
I live. In between us is a big parking lots
that belongs to a church, and they paved it recently,
and it's awesome for biking, fantastic spots. Take the kids
to ride bikes, kids go up there play. It is
a little free library. It's just like a little hub
to our neighborhood. We had a great time, came home,
(01:40):
we know, went back to living our life. A few
days later, I was trying to get the girls together
to go on another bike ride, and we were missing
a helmet. Well, you can guess as to where we
finally realized that we left it. We left it up
at that church. But it was close to a week
later at least, before we realized that your detective skills,
by the way, we could totally for got unparalleled. We thought, well,
(02:01):
the girls will grab the helmets and just like stash
them somewhere in the house, and so I'm like looking
in the closets, looking outside. I've been there. You know
what I'm saying. I know what that's But we finally realized, like, oh,
we probably left it up there. So I went up
to the church and was asking someone that works there
and like, hey, any chance you saw a pink helmet?
And well they asked around and she got back to
me and was like, hey, somebody saw that. Nobody can
(02:23):
remember what happened to it. It was sort of this
vague answer, and I was like, this is weird, but whatever, alright, fine.
I put it off for a couple of months, but
I finally realized, we need to get a helmets because
all the girls they need one, right, So that leads
me to value village. I wasn't necessarily looking for a helmet.
I was looking for some yard tools. Oh I would
have assumed you might have gone to all need to
get a bike helmet, but no, Hey, that would have
(02:45):
been a great guest because all the is the best.
And you know, like on your phone, like you think
of something and then you see an ad for that,
like the next day on Instagram. Yes it's creepy. Yeah,
Aldi has that, but without like the Vladimir Putin Russian technology.
Somehow they just know what it is that my wife
and I need, and all of a sudden they're carrying it.
This massive company just into it what you need. It's incredible.
(03:08):
But regardless. I was at value village looking for a
rake or something, and I thought, oh, this might be
a good spot to maybe find a helmet that might
actually be in decent shape. Specifically, I hopped over there,
and I was looking for one that had the little
round dial in the back because a little word to
the wise, that's how you get a helmet to really
fit your kid well as you make sure that you
can adjust it. And and I saw one and saw
(03:30):
so stoked, and I thought, oh, man, there's one at
the bottom of the pile, kind of like hanging on there.
And I looked a little bit closer and I realized,
wait a minute, that's pink helmet, Like that's the helmet
that we lost. I flipped it over it It It had
the mini mouth sticker there on the side and everything.
I could not believe it. Man, I was beside myself.
I was so stoked. That's incredible, like like what are
the chances right right to find something that you lost,
(03:53):
first off, that made it to the third story by
your house, and then second off that you know wasn't
already gone or what I mean just then I happened
to like go and see it. There's so many other
things that could have happened. That little helmet along the
way sister to the traveling Helmet. Am I right? And
so obviously I was stoked. I was beside myself. I
thought it was just sort of a funny story. And
so when I took it to the register, I started
telling the lady about how all this came to be,
(04:15):
which she as amazed as I am. Well, she kind
of rolled her eyes because I think she knew where
I was going with it, which was trying to see
if I could somehow get this helmet back for free
because it was my helmet, and she wasn't that convinced
by my story. Maybe she gets this all the time,
I don't know. So she had to go get a manager.
And while she did that, what I realized is that
I need some proof. I need some evidence. So whipped
(04:36):
out that phone, scroll back a few months and found
a picture of my daughter wearing that helmet and you
couldn't see that mini mouth sticker, but what you could
see was a chip piece of the shell of the helmet.
So I pinched and zoomed in and I was like, look, man,
it's right there. So I showed him the chip in
the picture, showed him the chip on the helmet, and
he just kind of cracked up, laughing and just let
(04:58):
me go with it. He let me have the helmet
for were free. I didn't have to pay anything, but
it didn't That just crazy. I mean, I wanted to
share that story because it's just such a wild thing.
I feel like that happened totally random. I was so happy.
But then secondly, I wanted to share how you know,
like we've had an episode before, we talked about the
art of asking for a discount episode number eighteen, Buddy,
eighteen eighteen. I was way back when it was a
(05:18):
while ago. But yeah, that's what you have to do.
You have to ask for that discount. You have to
be that advocate for yourself, because you know, had I
not said anything and not shared how excited I was,
or shared the whole story, man, I would have just
had to pay the five bucks. The four nine that
was written on the helmet with with sharpie that I
had to go home and rub off plus tacks exactly.
You know what that makes me think of, like we
(05:38):
just gotta well, first off, I love the story and yeah,
yeah it happened, and then you found the helmet. I'm
sure your girls were pumped when you brought it home, right, Yeah.
I came in literally I was. I was holding it
over my head kind of like bouncing it up and down,
you know, while the girls were like, Daddy, where did
you find being commed? You know, I got to play
the hero, which is a lot of fun, kind of
like in the movie Rudy where they hold him on
their shoulders or something like that. Yeah. No, I just
made me think of a recent listener email that we
(05:59):
got based on that episode about asking for a discount,
and the listener told us that their landlord was planning
to raise their rent somewhere in the range like a
hundred seventy dollars a month, a lot of money. Yeah,
I think it was like a corporate department complex. And
he asked for a discount. He asked for a lower
monthly rate, and just by asking his landlord was like, Okay,
and only raised his rent thirteen dollars some teen bucks.
(06:22):
Isn't that crazy? He saved almost two thousand dollars a year. Yeah,
and he didn't say that he wrote some like giant
essay or like some official letters. He just straight up
just asked the guy. It doesn't have to be anything
over the top. It doesn't have to be you know,
this big song and dance. But sometimes just by asking
just that act alone can actually lead to a major
impact in your finances or something minor or five bucks
(06:44):
off a helmet that's already yours, but it was less
the money for us and just more of the like
that's mine, like that used to be ours. It felt
weird because that's like, am I really going to pay
for something that used to be mine? That was accidentally
donated there? So the more of the story. Yeah, if
you don't ask, you don't receive EVE. But also to man,
check out your local thrist store, your local value village
if that's what you've got, or or goodwill, and yeah,
(07:06):
you never know what you might find. You might even
find something that used to belong to you that you
won back, No doubt, dude, I love a good thrist
store run although it's been a while for me. I
need to get back into the swing of things. Where's
that you know? My favorite thrist store shirt that you
had was like that. Uh it's like there's a T
shirt and it had like these rabbits on it that
we're running like some sort of bunny run. Yeah. I
still got that one. Yeah. Actually, one of my best friends, Josh,
(07:29):
had an eBay store where he sold vintage clothing. All
he did was shop at every single local area Thirst
store in Florida and he would resell that stuff on eBay.
And he had a full time job out of reselling
clothes on on online, which I thought was really cool
idea for her business. Yeah, Josh, he had good taste,
he did. I love that shirt. Alright, So Matt, let's
mention the beer that we're having on the show today.
(07:50):
We're drinking Buffalo Soldier by Utah Brewing Company. And big
thanks again to listener Andy for sending this beer out
as well. We had a beer that he donated on
Monday A two. Yeah, this is a black I p A.
I'm not sure if you've ever had this style on
the show before. This is one of the styles that
maybe I've only had once or twice in my entire life,
so really excited to share this one with you. And
(08:11):
we'll share our thoughts on this beer at the end
of the episode, no doubt. All Right, Matt, onto the
subject at hand, why warehouse clubs are so stinking great?
And uh, I think right. I think it's gonna be
a fun conversation because we both kind of fall on
different sides of this issue. I am kind of a
die hard Costco member. I I also have been a
member of Sam's Club in the past. I think there's
(08:33):
some really good, compelling reasons for people to consider joining
a warehouse club. And I know that you have really
staunchly refused to partake. And so let's get into kind
of some pros and cons and kind of not partake
of the Costco. So let's get into the too, the
good and the bad. And yeah, I want to hear
your take on on warehouse clubs. All right, Jil, let
(08:53):
me share my problem that I had with warehouse clubs.
The issue you know that I have and maybe others
do too, is that I am not sure that a
warehouse club membership is worth it. The reason being is
that with new grocery stores like Aldi, Like you mentioned earlier,
these guys are cropping up everywhere, and it's really easy
for us now to get affordable groceries, you know. And
then on top of that, online shopping allows us to
(09:15):
get the best deals on the other items that I
can't get at Aldi. So that begs the question is
it worth it to join Costco or you know, like
you said, Sam's Club or b J's whatever warehouse club
that you have in your area. Yeah, So that's what
we're discussing today. Let's run through a couple of things
before we kind of get into the pros and cons
of how we feel about the warehouse clubs. Really, these
(09:36):
warehouse clubs cater themselves to different clientele. That's something that
we kind of need to know upfront. I've been a
member of Sam's Club. I'm currently member of Costco. Sam's
Club seems to attract more small business owners. They just
have more stuff that seems to target itself towards towards
folks in particular that have their own small business that
mix machines, yeah, factors. Yeah, especially people that own, like
(09:58):
let's say, convenience store. They have a lot of stuff
that convenience stores could resell in their own store. So
it's interesting to note that they're all different, the price
points different. Two so it's sixty dollars to join Costco,
forty five to join Sam's. I think BJ's is fifty.
And you can find sign up specials from time to
time at each of these stores. B J's in particular,
if you have one of those close close by awtent times,
(10:21):
they'll offer you a free sixty day trial membership, which
is kind of nice way to get your foot in
the door for free. Yeah, and remember one time you
were trying to get me to go ahead and join
Costco when they're offering a sweet discount, they had like
have their membership rates. They're gonna throw in like a
free case of water, like a gift card. Chicken. Yes,
we're gonna get to the chicken man. This is such
(10:42):
a random assortment of goods this one has like to
shop at Costco exactly what it's like Like. The whole
thing kind of made me think, I don't think I
want to be a part of this. The whole thing
kind of weirded me out, I understand, honestly, because before
I joined Costco, a spare tire here we'll just throw
this as well. It does seem it does seem odd
from the outside in if you if you've never been
(11:02):
in one, if you kind of don't know how they work.
By the way, I also wanted to mention there is
a website that's kind of trying to be the online
equivalent of a warehouse club. It's called boxed dot com,
and uh, it doesn't necessarily have quite as good a deals,
but there's also no membership fee. For someone who's looking
to buy in bulk or maybe doesn't live very close
to any of these warehouse clubs, you know, boxed dot
(11:24):
com could be a good online alternative for folks like that.
Nice man, I've actually never heard of boxed box dot com.
Excited to hear that's an option, though. So in order
to convince me, though, you're gonna have to lay some
pros on me, all the different reasons why you love
costco so much. Late on thick, I will, all right,
So later in the show, we're gonna get into some
of the specific services that are offered the best specific
(11:46):
items to buy at warehouse clubs, but for now, I'm
going to kind of generalize it. Okay, first that I
want you to know a lot of these things. I'm
gonna specifically talk about Costco a lot because that's where
I'm a member, although many of these warehouse clubs offer
kind of similar things. I wanted to mention that employees
are treated really well. In particular, at Costco, there's a
fifteen dollar minimum wage. Employees are just really happy there,
(12:06):
and that that's a sign of a good company. In
my opinion, shopping at Costco is is pleasant, and I
think in large part that's because the employees feel loyal
to the company because the company cares for them well,
and to me, that kind of sets the table for
enjoying the place where you shop. Right, Knowing that the
employees are well taken care of and that they care
for you, that's kind of one check mark in favor
(12:28):
of Costco in the warehouse clubs. Yeah, you can always
tell like a good company like that, right when you've
got employees that are happy to be there and they're smiling,
and they're asking you questions and engaging with you versus
just showing up doing the bare minimum. If they're younger,
a lot of times they're just like on their phone,
like playing Fortnite while they're supposed to be working. It's like,
come on, guys, like, I'm trying to find some tires, right, yeah, fortnite.
(12:48):
A lot of people are predicted to that, right, I've
heard of this, all right. So another check mark in
the corner of the warehouse clubs is it buying in
bulk does often lead to lower prices, and in Costco
in particular has a commitment to not mark up anything
more than fift in its stores, and so you kind
of know when you're looking at the price that you're
(13:08):
not getting gouged. You you know that whatever you're paying,
well at max it's fifteen percent more than the cost
the Costco paid to acquire the item. And there's kind
of something cool about that. Yeah, I didn't know that,
knowing that, you know, in a grocery store there could
be certain items in there that are marked up. You know,
most grocery store items are marked up between twenty five
(13:28):
and fifty, and so you just kind of know that
you're getting, you know, a solid deal. It might not
always be the best deal, but you know you're getting
a really really good deal. And so I like that
about shopping at a place like Costco. You know, I
wanted to share a quick pro of Costco is that
I've experienced the Kirkland signature, which is like the Costco
store brand, even though not a member there, though I
(13:49):
have experienced that delicious brand, whether it be at your house, Joel,
or at a friends. You know, you got to cook
out and you see Kirkland signature. That's pretty good stuff.
You know. I've been impressed with the quality, you know,
of the store brand, and it's telling of a company
when you see folks buying the store brand like that, Yes,
you kind of just stole my thunder for the next thing.
(14:09):
Else to say, no, it's all good, No, it's funny.
It's so true that the Kirkland signature brand has kind
of taken on this life of its own, and anybody
that shops at Costco realizes that oftentimes the Kirkland signature
equivalent to the name brand that's being sold next to it,
is oftentimes better at a lower price. So it's fascinating
how Costco has been able to create a lot of
loyalty from their shoppers by giving them a cheaper, generic
(14:32):
brand that they take a lot of pride in. Do
you think it's in the marketing, The fact that they
named it something kind of cool like Kirkland signature. Honestly,
it had no appeal to me, and I doubted it
until I started buying that stuff. And and Emily and
I are both now Holkline and Sinker were like, if
it says Kirkland signature, it's going to be good. It's
just true. It just really is really good stuff. And
(14:53):
is the Kirkland signature beer. Actually, Okay, that's one place
they fall short. Their Kirkland signature beer is terrible. I
will I will readily admit that. Just don't buy that beer.
But but we're also ridiculous beers. Yeah, we're pretty. We're pretty,
particularly when it comes to our booze. Yeah. But almost
anything in the store that says Kirkland signature on it
is going to be really, really good. And so also
(15:13):
they have lots of organic options at Costco. So if
you are super into buying organics, that's one of the
best places in the United States to get really good
organics at a reasonable price. Oh and by the way,
you mentioned Aldi and buying groceries. There, have you ever
bought a steak at Aldi? I just want to let
you know right now there's a marked difference between a
steak that you buy at all the versus a steake
(15:34):
that you're gonna get a Costco. There's just something so
nice about the quality of some of the things that
Costco offers, especially in regards to to food like that.
And so yeah, that's another reason that I love Costco
is is that the quality is so much better than
than I could get at a local grocery store. Yeah. Sure,
I'll give that one to you. You know, we don't
buy meat often, and so maybe that's because we shop
(15:55):
at ALDI, or maybe it's the other way around. I
don't know, but I have had stakes from Asco with
you before, and yeah, those bone and ribbons are really good.
And I also remember when we were getting those steaks, man,
that we got to try some very delicious samples, and
I now that's one of the selling points people always
talk about the samples. You can kind of go around
the store and get a full meal if you just
(16:15):
like hot from one sample aid to the next to
the next. That's pretty accurate that how you're all, that's
pretty accurate. Yeah, though there's lots of good samples, especially
on the weekends, and and so yeah, that's kind of
one of the things that Costco shoppers love is it's
kind of the samples at every little corner of the store,
and so yeah, you're gonna get a little fill up,
you know, while you're doing your shopping. So that's kind
of cool, is it? Infomercial style as well? And they're like,
(16:37):
you can actually buy the skillet right over there as well,
and you can buy this meat over there. It is
like that, but they're not super pushy, which is nice,
and they're like super nice instead because they're happy to
be there. Yeah, they're not like, if you take this bite,
you must buy the product, So yeah, I appreciate that
it's a little low key. Another big time pro in
Costco's favor is their amazing return policy. Basically, you can
get a full refund for anything anytime except for electronics
(17:01):
and major appliances. Costco stands behind pretty much everything they
sell and you never have to worry about whether three
years later, you know your luggage broke. You know what.
At almost every other retailer, you're gonna have an issue
returning that you're you're just not gonna be able to
take it back. But with Costco Boom, you take it
back no questions. Asked refund or or you're given you know,
(17:23):
the equivalent that they offer right now. So I love
that return policy, especially for something like luggage, which is
gonna get beat up, messed up, and to know that
you can always take it back if something happens. I
really do appreciate that factor in a major way. Yeah,
that's a pretty sweet perk. And you know, I've also
heard you talk about Costco is a ridiculous warranty program.
Once you try to convince me on that a little
(17:44):
bit here. Yeah, So especially if you're buying I don't
buy very many electronics at Costco, honestly, I think there's
just a lot of competition in that space. If I'm
buying a television, I'm just not getting it from Costco personally.
But the reason that you would consider getting something like
a television from Costco would be the warranty that you
get in place when you buy electronics items. So you
only have like ninety days to return an item like that,
(18:05):
but the warranty is awesome through the Costco Concierge service,
and so you can get a two year warranty on
top of the manufacturer's warranty through that, and then in addition,
if you have the Costco visa card, which of course
I do, it gives you an additional two years beyond that,
so you can get just like this sick warranty on
(18:26):
electronics items like a computer or a television or a
major appliance. And so that's super helpful to know that,
in addition to the manufacturer's warranty, you might have five,
six or seven years of coverage on a really expensive purchase.
There's a lot of peace of mind in that knowing
that you didn't fork out extra money like you normally
would for a longer extended warranty. It's just kind of
(18:48):
part of the package. And I think that's really cool.
That's awesome. Man. You're talking about the Costco credit card
made me think of if Aldi had a credit card,
and it would totally be like amex Aldi Black, you know,
uper luxury or the opposite. Not really, it'd probably like
a like a change purse with like Alredy written on it,
you know, but like store your quarters for the carts
(19:09):
you get like free ARTI chokes every year. That's like
the reward I would imagine, which I would be all
about because their produce is great. In my opinion hit
or miss, But we can get into that at another
another time. That's another debate for another episode of My Friend.
But I did want to mention too that I think
my favorite thing about Costco is that they sell more
than just groceries. But really there's kind of a certain
(19:31):
piece of mind when I buy from Costco based on
kind of all these factors. I feel like they have
a commitment to quality. I know that the price isn't
going to be marked up over a certain place. They
have this amazing return policy extended warranty. I just know
that what I'm buying is is a good product, and
if it's not, I can return it. So I might
not be getting like the dirt cheapest price, but I'm
(19:51):
getting something that's really high quality at an incredibly fair price,
and it's in a place that I like to shop.
And I know that there are some cons to shopping
at a warehouse club. Um, And you know what, Matt,
I'm ready for your side of the argument, right for
the break, All right, Joel, we are back from the
(20:16):
break now, and like you just mentioned, we're gonna talk
about the cons now. These are the reasons why, you know,
Kate and I why we haven't joined Costco. And the
first of those is because you do have to buy
in bulk. You have to have room to store all
that stuff. You know, when you're getting that discount, it
is because you're buying lots of those things. And with
more folks moving to the city in particular, folks just
(20:39):
have less space. And so you know, to think you're
gonna buy a pallette of like toilet paper, We're like,
we're you gonna store that? You know, there's only so
much space that you have, and and our small in
town homes not to get the deal, you gotta get
two pallets. Yeah, double the toilet paper share with the neighborhood.
And then when it comes to food stuffs, you might
be tempted to buy like even a deep freeze or
(20:59):
in a sational fridge for storage, which obviously has the
potential for for being wasteful. I'm not saying that everyone
will do those things, but I think once you kind
of start going down that path of oh man, we
have to buy so much of this stuff, like, Okay,
where are we gonna put it? Well, we've gotta freeze it.
We gotta put it in the deep freeze, because that's
where we put all of our Costco meats. Do you
guys ever feel the temptation to, you know, be able
(21:20):
to store stuff away more efficiently or you know, what
do you do when it comes to buying like bulk
fridge stuff. Well, you know, I honestly I think that
this is a valid concern for some people, especially people
living in really small spaces. But for a long time,
our family has lived in a two bedroom, one bath
in square feet and we're still Costco members, and so
I don't feel the need to over buy. I feel
(21:42):
like the packaging is mostly sensible. There are probably a
couple of things that feel ridiculous based on just the
enormous amount of bulk you'd have to buy on on
certain items, like you buy two jars of peanut butter
at the same time that are plastic grabbed together or whatever,
and they're bigger than average jar of peanut butter. But
you know what, we go through so much peanut butter,
and their peanut butter is actually just better than any
(22:04):
other peanut butter that we've ever had, so it's worth
it to us, and it doesn't feel like it takes
up too much space, you know what, I'm saying, yeah,
you're not buying like twelve of them. It's just like two.
If it was twelve, it would be insane, it would
be ridiculous. So yeah, I can handle two or something.
And I mean, well, peanut butter is a great example,
because like y'all we you know, we got through a
lot of peanut butter as well. So the next gripe then,
is the distance and the time that it takes to
(22:26):
get to the warehouse for us, Like where we live
right now, I can run my bike to Aldi and
get there in less than ten minutes. Hey, you could
ride your bike to Costco too. It would just take
you three hours. It only take me, yeah, like an
hour and a half, like with traffic. But I mean
I'm able to ride through with the neighborhood and hop
into Aldi and pick something up pretty quickly. And that's
the other thing too, is with Aldi being typically they're
(22:48):
smaller stores, and so I can not even joking, I
can get in and out of there in about nineties
seconds if I just need to go in and pick
up a gallon of milk, which is oftentimes the case.
I would love to see your Aldi run in slow
motion video ninety seconds I'm not even joking. I can
do it. That's crazy. But you know, with a bigger
warehouse club, it takes like ninety seconds even just to
walk from your car and get to the front door.
(23:10):
And then once you're in there, I've been in there
with you. It's it takes a while to even navigate
the entire space. They're they're larger buildings, and that's just
more of your day kind of going towards perusing the aisles.
And certainly there's deals to be had there, but I
don't know, there's something that I love about the efficiency
of all the of just being able to step inside
the door and I can take almost like ten steps
(23:31):
and I know I'm at milk, and I take temp
steps back and I'm at the register, and before you
know what, I'm out of there. No, I mean, I
think this is actually the con that is is most
accurate that I feel the most. It's kind of a
pain to get there, and because that, it kind of
dampens our excitement about going to actually go to the store,
because it's a bigger deal. Yeah, and and it is,
like you said, just has this enormous footprint and so
(23:54):
at times, you know, parking and walking in and all
that kind of stuff. It feels like a chore versus
a quick bike ride to Aldy to pick up the
four or five things you need. Doesn't feel that way.
So I completely agree on this front. The worst thing
about being a member of a warehouse club like Costco
or Sam's Club is a distance that you're likely located
away from one of these warehouse clubs, and then kind
(24:15):
of that insane parking lot and just getting in and
out of the store in general. Yeah, and another great
thing about Audi as well is that there is not
a barrier to entry unless you count the little quarter
that you have to stick in the cart so to
walk around because they're super efficient and they don't pay
anybody to round up all the carts. No, I think
it's such an amazing system. It's brilliant, you know, yeah,
I know it works really well so that you know,
you might consider that a bar to injury. But with
(24:37):
a warehouse club, you have to join. I think for
a lot of folks, including us, like, that's what keeps
us from from trying it out, because I'm like, well,
I don't I don't even want to bother with with
joining when I'm not even sure if this is gonna
work out, I can go to Audi or shop at
any online retailer for free whenever I want. And if
I'm already paying for something, well, you know, I'm already
an Amazon Prime member. And so it almost feels like
(24:58):
that if you've got multiple sort of outlets this where
you have to pay money to even begin to consider
shopping there. I don't know something about that kind of
rubs me the wrong way. I understand that. I think
paying up front in order just to have the privilege
of shopping at a store, I can completely see why
that rubs people the wrong way and why people would
avoid it because of that. I will say the great
thing about these warehouse clubs is that if you do
(25:19):
buy a membership and you feel like you're not getting
enough value for it, you know what, they will refund
the cost of that membership. So even if you were
a member of Costco for three and sixty four days
of that year and you on the three sixty fourth
day said, hey, guys, you know what, this isn't worth
it for me, they will refund your whole membership fee.
(25:39):
And I think that's really cool. It just kind of
gives you it's it's just kind of another way that
you can have peace of mind when you're paying for
a membership up front, which I understand is a barrier
for loss of folks. Yeah, that is pretty cool, though
I did not know that. You mean, not that I'm
gonna wait until the very last day it's the cancel,
but to know that, like hopefully you know, within the
first month and like a couple of months of trying
to get out and seen like how that affects your
(26:01):
grocery bill, seeing if it works out with as far
as traffic, because you know, again, like you said, like
that's the worst part of it for for you guys
like that that is going to be the worst part
of it for us, is is the commute essentially to
get to the grocery store. Another issue I have though
with basically buying in bulked is the potential for waste.
I think we might be tempted to buy more stuff
than when we actually need, and food a lot of
(26:22):
times doesn't last like it's gonna go to waste. We
potentially either over consume whatever item we would buy in bulk.
And then there's the psychological effect too of where you
know where you say oh, I have tons of you know,
X item, whatever it is, like chips or paper towels.
I can just use however much of this I want,
Like I feel that way, especially like with shampoo. Do
you feel that way anytime you get like a full
(26:43):
bottle of shampoo. At the beginning of the bottle, I
use like so much shampoo because I'm like, oh, there's
just tons of it. But then when you get to
the very end of it, you're just like rationing every
little pie size drop. It's just gonna take an exercise
and self control and discipline to make sure that you're
just not over consuming the item that you're getting such
a great deal on because you're buying so much of it.
I think it's another good point. Yeah, I think people
(27:05):
can can get bigger amounts of something and just say
who throwcaution on the wind us as much as they
want and find themselves just like blueberries for breakfast, lunch,
and dinner, right yeah, yeah, no, totally running through the
items that they purchased more quickly and therefore just leading
to more purchases and spending more money. So yeah, I
think if you are going to be a thoughtful costco shopper,
(27:25):
you need to be careful about how much shampoo, how
many blueberries, whatever it is. You know, whatever the item is,
make sure that you're not just consuming more of it
because you have more of it. Yeah, it takes kind
of having a plan, I guess, right, And I mean,
and that's another maybe that's another point as well, is
that if it takes more thought, it takes be more thoughtful,
like you have to have a plan, and that takes
more space in my mind or in Kate's mind. If
(27:47):
she has to more diligently or more systematically planned the
meals that she wants to cook, well, that's not how
she normally cooks, right she You know, she is a
fantastic cook, but she likes to wing it a little more.
She's a little more like takes more of the artistic
approach and see what's on sales, see what we have
in the fridge, and kind of combines it and finds
ways to to make you know, amazing meals for her.
(28:08):
There would be a complete shift in grocery runs and
how she approached meal prep. That's another sort of strike
against Costco in the sense that I don't think she
wants to do that. And if she doesn't want to
do that, then we're gonna We're gonna do whatever she
wants to do. You're not going to force her to
becoming a costco. But I understand, I understand both partners
in a marriage have to understand the glory that is
(28:29):
costco got to be the same thing to commit. Yeah,
you gotta commit together. And speaking of that, Matt, I
feel like one con that we should mention is that
warehouse clubs don't make nearly as much sense for single people.
If you like to talk about waste, right right, Yeah,
if you live alone, it's unlikely that you're going to
be able to get enough benefit from a warehouse club
that would make it worth the cost of a membership fee.
(28:51):
And in addition, you know, talking about potentially using too
much or wasting too much as a single person buying
things in that much bulk, you're just gonna be hard
pressed to get enough value out of a membership if
you live alone. So, yeah, it makes more sense for
a family, Like you know, we're a family of four
about to become a family of five, and it just
kind of fits into our lifestyle a little more than
(29:12):
it would for someone who you know, is living in
a small apartment by themselves. So this just made me
think of a great idea, which is does Costco have
a dating app, because they totally should. Oh my gosh,
that would be so good. Like the Costco die hards. Uh,
there's got to be like a whole singles group that
could totally revolve around the the Costco ecosystem. You know
(29:34):
what I'm saying. I guarantee you there's a sub credit
for that. Yeah, man, I bet there is a lot
of This does come down to you and your personal
preferences and specifically what you purchase, and so it may
or may not be more affordable for you to shop
at Costco. It might be more affordable for you to
shop at Aldi. There's a lot of sort of tests
(29:54):
out there, like different bloggers and whatnot where they've done
an Audi run and they've done a Costco run, and
they've they've got apples to Apple's goods and they've totaled it.
But it just completely depends on what you are purchasing
at each of the stores. So you know, I'm not
going to completely not Costco because I think there's a
chance that depending on what you purchase, you have the
chance of saving a lot of money. Also, on the
flip side of that, depending on what you purchase, you
(30:16):
might save more money if you shop at ALDI. So
I think it really does come down to your individual
purchasing patterns and as well as just kind of what
you prefer. All right, So on that note, Matt, I
think it's important to talk about some of the specific
items that you can buy at Costco where you can
get a deal that's unparalleled and that you can't find
anywhere else. And I think Costco does sell some things
(30:37):
that have a particular appeal and that could single handedly
pay for your membership. And so yeah, let's get to
some of those things right after the break. Okay, Joel,
you just mentioned there are some specific items that can
(30:57):
single handedly pay for your membership. That actually sounds really
impressive and I'm excited to hear those. But first, let's
talk about some access to services, like specific things that
Costco offers. I wasn't aware of this until we started
researching for this episode, but you have firsthand experience when
it comes to some of these items once you share
it with our listeners. Sure. Yeah, So the cool thing
(31:19):
about warehouse clubs is that they offer services in addition
to like groceries and electronics, right, so it's not just
physical items. There are some really cool services that kind
of set these stores apart. So I wanted to mention
that you can find great travel deals. Costco in particular,
has an awesome car buying program. I forget how many people,
(31:40):
but like millions of people buy a new car through
Costco's car buying program every year. Like that's how big
it is their own financing, is that what it is?
They're essentially negotiating with dealers on your behalf to get
you a really good price. So it's a no haggle,
walk out the door price on a new car. Basically, Matt,
you know you don't recommend buying a new car, but
(32:01):
if you really wanted to, you you you just felt
the need to buy a new car. I think Costco's
car buying program is a worthwhile place to go. And
both Sam's Club and Costco offer merchant processing. For Let's
say you have your own small business and you're using
like a PayPal reader or a square read or something
like that. Well, if you went instead with merchant processing
(32:21):
through a company like you know, Costco or Sam's Club,
you could potentially save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars
a year just by changing your merchant processing to to
going with one of them. It's kind of cool, some
of these side services they offered. If you can take
advantage of one or two of these, then I think
that that just kind of puts this other just enormous
(32:41):
check mark in the corner of the warehouse clubs that
it just makes a whole heck of a lot more
sense for you. I think I mentioned I bought my
life insurance through a company that Costco partners with, and
it was cheaper than even I could find on awesome
sites like policy Genius or have in Life. And so
because of that, it saved me a good bit of
mone me every year. And it was just another service
(33:03):
that's offered that's only available to members. And I think
if you can find one of these services that you
think will work for you, well, then it just means
you should take a much closer look at potentially joining up. Yeah,
so what does that even look like? You mentioned life insurance?
Do you just go in the store. Is there like
somewhere on the shelf where there's a card and it
says thirty year term life insurance you just kind of
like grab that walk to the register and like ring,
you know, ring it up. It's like on Costco's website.
(33:25):
You know, you click through through the website. Okay, yep,
so you click through and I said, you know, saw
that they partnered with this company. You can call for
a quote as a Costco member and you get a
quote that's just unavailable to non Costco members. And similar
thing with they have a mortgage program, so if you're
looking to do a refinance, you can get better rates,
lower closing costs through a lot of lenders just because
(33:45):
you're a Costco member. And so so that's kind of cool.
That's another service that they offer. And if you want
like an easier way to refinance, you kind of want
access to you know, a bunch of different quotes in
one fell swoop, well then Costco kind of has that
covered for you, and you just you might not be
getting the exact best deal on the market, but you know,
what you're getting is a really really solid deal and
(34:07):
that Costco has negotiated the closing costs as well for
you ahead of time, which which is really nice as
a member to know that that's the case. Yeah, that's
I mean, that's awesome knowing that you've got a company
going to bat for you there essentially your advocate, and
you're not having to pay anything above and beyond your
standard membership fee. Yeah. And when you think about those
services though, like a sixty dollar membership fee pales in
(34:28):
comparison to which you could potentially save on like a
refinance or life insurance or merchant processing. Like it's those
are the kind of things too, that that set these
warehouse clubs apart. That just make it, like Hookline and Sinker,
a good deal for potential members if they're going to
take advantage of some of these additional services that are provided.
All right, but let's talk about specific items. Are you
(34:49):
ready for that? Some of my favorite items for people
to look to purchase at warehouse clubs. Yeah, well, you
already mentioned the chicken, and so you know that one's
already kind of like out of the bag a little bit.
The five dollar Roat Hisstory chicken is just Costco is
known for it. They're five dollars. They're just way better,
bigger than any Rooker Story chicken you're gonna get like
a local grocery store. Another food item is lunch. While
you're there. So if you are at Costco, everybody knows
(35:11):
about the lunch. The price of the hot dog and
a drink has stayed the same since five or something
like that. It's like a dollar fifty in order to
grab lunch there, So that's pretty great. They're also known
for their nuts, grains, and cheese, so those are worth mentioning.
I mentioned luggage earlier. That's another specific item to buy,
mainly because of the return policy. Not necessarily because it's
the cheapest luggage, but but because you can always return
(35:33):
it if something happens. Yeah, I'll share another deal that
I've been able to personally, uh take advantage of. Specifically
when we go to visit our in laws in Greenville,
their Costco members, and they always like to swing by
and kind of make sure that we have access to
the pump uh and and and fill up before we
leave town. And yeah, the gas is so much cheaper.
They're like ten to fifteen cents cheaper than any gas
(35:55):
station anywhere nearby. Honestly, depending on how much you fill
up just gas alone, that one expense. If you just
drive a ton, yeah, and you drive past the Costco
and you fill up there every time that could single
handedly pa if your annual membership really just the savings
and gas alone over the course of a year. Another
thing is is tires. If you wait for deal on tires,
you can get an awesome deal on really really good tires,
(36:18):
because again, quality is kind of the utmost. At Costco,
You're not gonna get the dirt cheap tires, but you're
gonna get really really good tires at a really really
good price if you wait for a deal. Another huge
specific item or area to look for is kids stuff.
If you're getting diapers, you can get really good deals
on diapers at Costco. And obviously you know you're buying
(36:39):
in big amounts, and and typically when you have an infant,
a little kid or whatever that that's wearing diapers, you
go through a lot. The thing that I found, honestly,
if I had to say one thing is the best
buy at Costco, it is their infant formula. Formula is
so expensive. The price of formula at Costco is literally
(37:00):
half the price, and it's just as good a formula
as you'd get from all the name brands, but it
literally cost half as much as Similac or whatever, any
of those name brands. Formulas. So if you are if
you've got a newborn, if you've got an infant and
you're looking to introduce formula, well, Costco is the place
to get the formula right now, I'm telling you that's
(37:21):
like the number one reason it's just such a good deal. Yeah,
I guess you guys never tried the Aldi formula or
the or the Aldi diapers when once they rolled all
that out. No, that kind of came along, but like
a year and a half ago something like that, after
we were kind of out of that phase. Yeah, so
we're kind of still in that phase a little bit,
at least with diapers with our youngest. So yeah, I
feel like I have to mention that a little bit.
We're not doing like a Costco versus Aldi or anything.
(37:42):
But you know, anytime I hear something that you're talking
about Costco, I'm like, oh, yeah, all these got that too.
I feel like I have to stick up from Aldi
a little bit here. Well, another thing Aldi doesn't sell
that Costco does, by the way, is dog food, and
dog food is a great deal. You can get again
really high quality dog food in great quantities at Costco.
So if you have a pup, that's another great reason
(38:02):
to consider having a membership there. Yeah, basically, anytime you're
going through just a large quantity of something, whether that
be diapers, formula, dog food, like all those things go
really quickly. Like going back to the conversation before about
someone like a single, it's like, well, you may not
get your money's worth, but if you have a large family,
or if you have a baby or a pup who
requires lots of resources and time and money, yeah, it
(38:25):
could definitely be worth it. Or if it's just you
and you really like booze, well, Costco has awesome prices
on booze too. Not every Costco has a liquor store,
but the ones that do, the prices that you'll find
are are just really incredible, no joke. They actually have
Kirkland signature alcohol and people there you mentioned the beer
that was terrible, which is terrible as the actual liquor decent.
(38:47):
The actual liquor is really good. And there are all
these rumors online about kind of who makes the liquor
for them, and so people say that their vodka is
made by Gray Goose or they're they're just kind of
everyone has a thought on where they're gin or where
their bourbons comes from. Yeah, it's super funny, but it's
actually really solid. A lot of their booze and you
can get it for the price of something that's like
(39:07):
much lower shelf at a liquor store. In the Costco
liquor store. See if you're throwing a party, especially and
you're gonna make some mixed drinks for folks, having that
Costco membership is clutch in order to save money. Right. Well,
isn't it true though, that you don't have to have
the membership in order to to take advantage of the
booze that that actually is true in in a lot
of states, it is illegal to charge more like a
(39:30):
special membership for exactly exactly, and so people in most
states can still shop at the liquor store even without
a membership, which is nice and also another great perk
of shopping at Costco. One thing you can do without
a membership is get your prescriptions filled there, and Costco
often has some of the lowest prices on prescriptions, so
that's worth looking into. I just want to mention a
(39:51):
couple of other random things that we buy every year
at Costco. Christmas trees, detergent sometimes extremely discounted gift cards,
and I can tell you, you you know, more things that
we enjoy buying there. It's certainly not for everyone as
we've as we've alluded to, but for our family, you know,
having that membership, Uh, it might not even necessarily save
(40:11):
us tons of money, but we're able to buy things
that we feel like our higher quality at what ends
up being an equivalent price to like a discount grocery
store chain. And and we feel like we're getting a
lot of value for our membership, in particular because of
those services that we mentioned too. So yeah, I feel
like we've definitely got our money's worth out of a
Costco membership. But I also realized that it's not for everyone.
(40:33):
And if I didn't convert you, Matt in this podcast episode,
I'm okay with that. Well, I'm glad you are, because
I'm not completely sure if you know, if we're converts
at this point. I totally understand how that you know
that it works out for you, But I keep going
going back to the biggest hurdle for us, which is distance.
You know, we just do not like spending a lot
of time in the car, you know, with what you
(40:53):
shared about getting the membership, trying it out for maybe
a month or two, and then maybe you know, if
you don't like it, getting refunded. That that might be
a way, as I could convince Kate to give it
a shot. We might join the ranks of costco fans
and maybe we'll see you guys up there. Well, I
would love to see that, my friend. We can go
shopping together anytime you want. I don't think we need
to spend more time together and say that's probably true.
(41:14):
Probably true. But let's mention just a couple other ways
real quick. That if people are interested in joining a
warehouse club, like how they can test test the waters.
I mentioned that b j's has like a lot of
like free sixty day trials. You can try out b
J's for free if there's one in your area by
going to their website or just google google that free
sixty day trial. You'll find something on that. Also, check
out a local warehouse club with a friend. You've been
(41:36):
with me before, Matt, get a taste for it for sure. Yeah,
and if you've got a friend who who has a
membership and they've wanted to check it out, well, you
know what, your friend would probably be more than happy
to have you tag along and check it out. Also,
ask your friend to buy you a gift card. If
you have a twenty or a fifty dollar gift card,
whatever it is to to Costco, you're allowed to to
shop without having an actual membership. And so yeah, if
(41:59):
you pay your friend any bucks to get that gift card,
you can go spend it there without having to have
that membership. Don't you have to show your Costco card
before you walk in? Yeah, but if you've got a
gift card that just like flash the gift card. It
works in the same way. It kind of feels like
a fake I D doesn't it. It's like a little
bit like mclovin. You're just like walking in and it's like, hey,
I got this, got the gifts gift card and they
kind of like frown at you. You're like, all right, fine,
(42:19):
start like sprinting past the guy at the front door.
All right, that's pretty cool too. That didn't realize that
that was an option. Yeah, man, So lots of ways
to to test the waters. Yeah, And you know, if
you are listening to this and you are like me
and you're not sure if you're gonna join a warehouse club,
maybe chime in on Facebook. Hop over in the group.
Maybe we can see how folks are kind of comparing
the costs that sort of trade off between joining Warehouse
(42:41):
Club and they're affordable local grocery store that's maybe more
conducive to their lifestyle. I'm very curious, I guess, to
see what other folks are doing. But in the end,
I guess it does kind of come down to what
it is that you prefer as an individual and what
you're looking for. But yeah, I guess I'm curious due
to hear what other folks are buying, because I know,
like the weird stuff that you guys buy when you
get a costco. But I gotta I gotta figure stuff. Well,
(43:04):
I know, you like, like once a year you buy
like this massive pack of like socks or something like that,
or an underwear as well, to like restock your underwear drawer.
I do always get my socks and underwear a costco
at least told me that before. But I gotta think
that there's other folks out there who are quite proud
of the oddities that they're purchasing at their costco as well.
You have so jump into our Facebook group. You can
just search how the money in the search bar on
(43:27):
on Facebook and you'll find us and and yeah, and
we want to hear your reaction to this. Super interested
in in maybe why you've refrained from getting a membership
and then if you have one kind of yeah, what
your best buys are, what your favorite things are to
get at a warehouse club, and and how it saved
you money. Looking forward to that discussion, and maybe you'll
even convert Matt who knows. Man. Maybe I want to
(43:47):
kick it back now to our beer. The beer that
you and I get to enjoy this episode is a
Buffalo Soldier by you tag Brewing Company, Joel. At the
beginning of this episode, you kind of mentioned like a
out like some of those roasted flavors, and I'm curious
if you're sticking with those notes, because I think those
are the notes that I'm going to share. Yeah, I
(44:08):
say it. It's a little stout like roastiness with some
of those peppery rhye notes shining through at the same
time the hot bitterness. It's an interesting beer because it
has all those elements at the same time, and they're
not elements that you typically associate with being together in
a beer but surprisingly it's really really tasty, Like it
(44:31):
did a really good job of kind of holding all
those things at the same time together. Um, I really
enjoyed it, even though it is kind of an abnormality
in a way in my opinion. But yeah, I thought
it was really good. Yeah, a really unique beer. Uh
So I'm not note it kind of made me think
of a porter, because typically porters feel lighter in your mouth,
which this totally did. Porters tend to be less sweet,
(44:53):
at least in my opinion a little bit like they
kind of have like those roasted bitter notes without the
sweetness that you normally finding a stout. And so by
maybe combining an I p A with sort of this
dark rye flavor, at times, I'd almost convinced myself that
I was drinking a porter instead of a black rye
I p A. But I like what you said about
those peppery notes. Case been making a lot of rye
(45:14):
bread lately. She's still on that breadmaking train because it's
just affordable and delicious, and she's got it down to
a science almost at this point. I don't know something
about that ride, just as that additional level of flavor,
and I'm all about it. So I'm super stoked that
we got to enjoy this beer on this show. Yeah.
So thanks again to Andy for sending that our way.
We appreciate it, man, Yeah, Andy, thanks again. So Joel,
(45:36):
that's gonna be it for this episode, man. Listeners can
find our show notes up at how to money dot com.
Will link to a few resources that we mentioned in
this episode, like box dot com. Uh, maybe a couple
of articles talking about Costco's great return policy and extended
warranty as well. Yeah, and if you like this podcast
and you've found it helpful, we'd appreciate your review on
(45:57):
Apple Podcasts. And if you feel like we've out room
for improvement, please drop us a line. We'd love to
hear from you. You can do that at how to
money dot com slash do Better. Well. I enjoyed this one, dude.
It was good. Yeah all right, buddy, Until next time,
Joel Best Friends Out as Friends Out
Welcome to How the Money. I'm Joel and I'm Matt,
and today we're discussing why warehouse clubs are awesome but
really they're not. Now they're great, Now they suck. All right,
we're gonna get into it. Just in the second cue
the music. Yeah, man, there are lots of pros to
(00:33):
joining a warehouse club, and so we're gonna get into those.
And I think you know, by the end of this episode,
you're going to completely agree with me. We're gonna be
on the same page and all's gonna be right with
the world. You can try to convince me, but man,
I have not joined yet, so this is your last chance.
It should be last and final chance should be a
fun discussion, and you know, to be fair from the
get go, I will say they're not for everyone. You're
already backpedaling, But I love my costco membership. I think
(00:56):
it's gonna be a fun conversation today. We will see
about that, best buddy. I wanted to share a quick
story though with you about a bike helmet. A story
about a bike helmet. This sounds intriguing. It's like the
it's like the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants it's about
the helmet though this time. Actually I don't know anything
about that movie or those books, but I feel like
that this might be a very similar story. Okay, alright,
(01:18):
I'm intrigued. I never read the book either. A couple
of months ago I was writing, I had taken the
girls up to up the corner between where you and
I live. In between us is a big parking lots
that belongs to a church, and they paved it recently,
and it's awesome for biking, fantastic spots. Take the kids
to ride bikes, kids go up there play. It is
a little free library. It's just like a little hub
to our neighborhood. We had a great time, came home,
(01:40):
we know, went back to living our life. A few
days later, I was trying to get the girls together
to go on another bike ride, and we were missing
a helmet. Well, you can guess as to where we
finally realized that we left it. We left it up
at that church. But it was close to a week
later at least, before we realized that your detective skills,
by the way, we could totally for got unparalleled. We thought, well,
(02:01):
the girls will grab the helmets and just like stash
them somewhere in the house, and so I'm like looking
in the closets, looking outside. I've been there. You know
what I'm saying. I know what that's But we finally realized, like, oh,
we probably left it up there. So I went up
to the church and was asking someone that works there
and like, hey, any chance you saw a pink helmet?
And well they asked around and she got back to
me and was like, hey, somebody saw that. Nobody can
(02:23):
remember what happened to it. It was sort of this
vague answer, and I was like, this is weird, but whatever, alright, fine.
I put it off for a couple of months, but
I finally realized, we need to get a helmets because
all the girls they need one, right, So that leads
me to value village. I wasn't necessarily looking for a helmet.
I was looking for some yard tools. Oh I would
have assumed you might have gone to all need to
get a bike helmet, but no, Hey, that would have
(02:45):
been a great guest because all the is the best.
And you know, like on your phone, like you think
of something and then you see an ad for that,
like the next day on Instagram. Yes it's creepy. Yeah,
Aldi has that, but without like the Vladimir Putin Russian technology.
Somehow they just know what it is that my wife
and I need, and all of a sudden they're carrying it.
This massive company just into it what you need. It's incredible.
(03:08):
But regardless. I was at value village looking for a
rake or something, and I thought, oh, this might be
a good spot to maybe find a helmet that might
actually be in decent shape. Specifically, I hopped over there,
and I was looking for one that had the little
round dial in the back because a little word to
the wise, that's how you get a helmet to really
fit your kid well as you make sure that you
can adjust it. And and I saw one and saw
(03:30):
so stoked, and I thought, oh, man, there's one at
the bottom of the pile, kind of like hanging on there.
And I looked a little bit closer and I realized,
wait a minute, that's pink helmet, Like that's the helmet
that we lost. I flipped it over it It It had
the mini mouth sticker there on the side and everything.
I could not believe it. Man, I was beside myself.
I was so stoked. That's incredible, like like what are
the chances right right to find something that you lost,
(03:53):
first off, that made it to the third story by
your house, and then second off that you know wasn't
already gone or what I mean just then I happened
to like go and see it. There's so many other
things that could have happened. That little helmet along the
way sister to the traveling Helmet. Am I right? And
so obviously I was stoked. I was beside myself. I
thought it was just sort of a funny story. And
so when I took it to the register, I started
telling the lady about how all this came to be,
(04:15):
which she as amazed as I am. Well, she kind
of rolled her eyes because I think she knew where
I was going with it, which was trying to see
if I could somehow get this helmet back for free
because it was my helmet, and she wasn't that convinced
by my story. Maybe she gets this all the time,
I don't know. So she had to go get a manager.
And while she did that, what I realized is that
I need some proof. I need some evidence. So whipped
(04:36):
out that phone, scroll back a few months and found
a picture of my daughter wearing that helmet and you
couldn't see that mini mouth sticker, but what you could
see was a chip piece of the shell of the helmet.
So I pinched and zoomed in and I was like, look, man,
it's right there. So I showed him the chip in
the picture, showed him the chip on the helmet, and
he just kind of cracked up, laughing and just let
(04:58):
me go with it. He let me have the helmet
for were free. I didn't have to pay anything, but
it didn't That just crazy. I mean, I wanted to
share that story because it's just such a wild thing.
I feel like that happened totally random. I was so happy.
But then secondly, I wanted to share how you know,
like we've had an episode before, we talked about the
art of asking for a discount episode number eighteen, Buddy,
eighteen eighteen. I was way back when it was a
(05:18):
while ago. But yeah, that's what you have to do.
You have to ask for that discount. You have to
be that advocate for yourself, because you know, had I
not said anything and not shared how excited I was,
or shared the whole story, man, I would have just
had to pay the five bucks. The four nine that
was written on the helmet with with sharpie that I
had to go home and rub off plus tacks exactly.
You know what that makes me think of, like we
(05:38):
just gotta well, first off, I love the story and yeah,
yeah it happened, and then you found the helmet. I'm
sure your girls were pumped when you brought it home, right, Yeah.
I came in literally I was. I was holding it
over my head kind of like bouncing it up and down,
you know, while the girls were like, Daddy, where did
you find being commed? You know, I got to play
the hero, which is a lot of fun, kind of
like in the movie Rudy where they hold him on
their shoulders or something like that. Yeah. No, I just
made me think of a recent listener email that we
(05:59):
got based on that episode about asking for a discount,
and the listener told us that their landlord was planning
to raise their rent somewhere in the range like a
hundred seventy dollars a month, a lot of money. Yeah,
I think it was like a corporate department complex. And
he asked for a discount. He asked for a lower
monthly rate, and just by asking his landlord was like, Okay,
and only raised his rent thirteen dollars some teen bucks.
(06:22):
Isn't that crazy? He saved almost two thousand dollars a year. Yeah,
and he didn't say that he wrote some like giant
essay or like some official letters. He just straight up
just asked the guy. It doesn't have to be anything
over the top. It doesn't have to be you know,
this big song and dance. But sometimes just by asking
just that act alone can actually lead to a major
impact in your finances or something minor or five bucks
(06:44):
off a helmet that's already yours, but it was less
the money for us and just more of the like
that's mine, like that used to be ours. It felt
weird because that's like, am I really going to pay
for something that used to be mine? That was accidentally
donated there? So the more of the story. Yeah, if
you don't ask, you don't receive EVE. But also to man,
check out your local thrist store, your local value village
if that's what you've got, or or goodwill, and yeah,
(07:06):
you never know what you might find. You might even
find something that used to belong to you that you
won back, No doubt, dude, I love a good thrist
store run although it's been a while for me. I
need to get back into the swing of things. Where's
that you know? My favorite thrist store shirt that you
had was like that. Uh it's like there's a T
shirt and it had like these rabbits on it that
we're running like some sort of bunny run. Yeah. I
still got that one. Yeah. Actually, one of my best friends, Josh,
(07:29):
had an eBay store where he sold vintage clothing. All
he did was shop at every single local area Thirst
store in Florida and he would resell that stuff on eBay.
And he had a full time job out of reselling
clothes on on online, which I thought was really cool
idea for her business. Yeah, Josh, he had good taste,
he did. I love that shirt. Alright, So Matt, let's
mention the beer that we're having on the show today.
(07:50):
We're drinking Buffalo Soldier by Utah Brewing Company. And big
thanks again to listener Andy for sending this beer out
as well. We had a beer that he donated on
Monday A two. Yeah, this is a black I p A.
I'm not sure if you've ever had this style on
the show before. This is one of the styles that
maybe I've only had once or twice in my entire life,
so really excited to share this one with you. And
(08:11):
we'll share our thoughts on this beer at the end
of the episode, no doubt. All Right, Matt, onto the
subject at hand, why warehouse clubs are so stinking great?
And uh, I think right. I think it's gonna be
a fun conversation because we both kind of fall on
different sides of this issue. I am kind of a
die hard Costco member. I I also have been a
member of Sam's Club in the past. I think there's
(08:33):
some really good, compelling reasons for people to consider joining
a warehouse club. And I know that you have really
staunchly refused to partake. And so let's get into kind
of some pros and cons and kind of not partake
of the Costco. So let's get into the too, the
good and the bad. And yeah, I want to hear
your take on on warehouse clubs. All right, Jil, let
(08:53):
me share my problem that I had with warehouse clubs.
The issue you know that I have and maybe others
do too, is that I am not sure that a
warehouse club membership is worth it. The reason being is
that with new grocery stores like Aldi, Like you mentioned earlier,
these guys are cropping up everywhere, and it's really easy
for us now to get affordable groceries, you know. And
then on top of that, online shopping allows us to
(09:15):
get the best deals on the other items that I
can't get at Aldi. So that begs the question is
it worth it to join Costco or you know, like
you said, Sam's Club or b J's whatever warehouse club
that you have in your area. Yeah, So that's what
we're discussing today. Let's run through a couple of things
before we kind of get into the pros and cons
of how we feel about the warehouse clubs. Really, these
(09:36):
warehouse clubs cater themselves to different clientele. That's something that
we kind of need to know upfront. I've been a
member of Sam's Club. I'm currently member of Costco. Sam's
Club seems to attract more small business owners. They just
have more stuff that seems to target itself towards towards
folks in particular that have their own small business that
mix machines, yeah, factors. Yeah, especially people that own, like
(09:58):
let's say, convenience store. They have a lot of stuff
that convenience stores could resell in their own store. So
it's interesting to note that they're all different, the price
points different. Two so it's sixty dollars to join Costco,
forty five to join Sam's. I think BJ's is fifty.
And you can find sign up specials from time to
time at each of these stores. B J's in particular,
if you have one of those close close by awtent times,
(10:21):
they'll offer you a free sixty day trial membership, which
is kind of nice way to get your foot in
the door for free. Yeah, and remember one time you
were trying to get me to go ahead and join
Costco when they're offering a sweet discount, they had like
have their membership rates. They're gonna throw in like a
free case of water, like a gift card. Chicken. Yes,
we're gonna get to the chicken man. This is such
(10:42):
a random assortment of goods this one has like to
shop at Costco exactly what it's like Like. The whole
thing kind of made me think, I don't think I
want to be a part of this. The whole thing
kind of weirded me out, I understand, honestly, because before
I joined Costco, a spare tire here we'll just throw
this as well. It does seem it does seem odd
from the outside in if you if you've never been
(11:02):
in one, if you kind of don't know how they work.
By the way, I also wanted to mention there is
a website that's kind of trying to be the online
equivalent of a warehouse club. It's called boxed dot com,
and uh, it doesn't necessarily have quite as good a deals,
but there's also no membership fee. For someone who's looking
to buy in bulk or maybe doesn't live very close
to any of these warehouse clubs, you know, boxed dot
(11:24):
com could be a good online alternative for folks like that.
Nice man, I've actually never heard of boxed box dot com.
Excited to hear that's an option, though. So in order
to convince me, though, you're gonna have to lay some
pros on me, all the different reasons why you love
costco so much. Late on thick, I will, all right,
So later in the show, we're gonna get into some
of the specific services that are offered the best specific
(11:46):
items to buy at warehouse clubs, but for now, I'm
going to kind of generalize it. Okay, first that I
want you to know a lot of these things. I'm
gonna specifically talk about Costco a lot because that's where
I'm a member, although many of these warehouse clubs offer
kind of similar things. I wanted to mention that employees
are treated really well. In particular, at Costco, there's a
fifteen dollar minimum wage. Employees are just really happy there,
(12:06):
and that that's a sign of a good company. In
my opinion, shopping at Costco is is pleasant, and I
think in large part that's because the employees feel loyal
to the company because the company cares for them well,
and to me, that kind of sets the table for
enjoying the place where you shop. Right, Knowing that the
employees are well taken care of and that they care
for you, that's kind of one check mark in favor
(12:28):
of Costco in the warehouse clubs. Yeah, you can always
tell like a good company like that, right when you've
got employees that are happy to be there and they're smiling,
and they're asking you questions and engaging with you versus
just showing up doing the bare minimum. If they're younger,
a lot of times they're just like on their phone,
like playing Fortnite while they're supposed to be working. It's like,
come on, guys, like, I'm trying to find some tires, right, yeah, fortnite.
(12:48):
A lot of people are predicted to that, right, I've
heard of this, all right. So another check mark in
the corner of the warehouse clubs is it buying in
bulk does often lead to lower prices, and in Costco
in particular has a commitment to not mark up anything
more than fift in its stores, and so you kind
of know when you're looking at the price that you're
(13:08):
not getting gouged. You you know that whatever you're paying,
well at max it's fifteen percent more than the cost
the Costco paid to acquire the item. And there's kind
of something cool about that. Yeah, I didn't know that,
knowing that, you know, in a grocery store there could
be certain items in there that are marked up. You know,
most grocery store items are marked up between twenty five
(13:28):
and fifty, and so you just kind of know that
you're getting, you know, a solid deal. It might not
always be the best deal, but you know you're getting
a really really good deal. And so I like that
about shopping at a place like Costco. You know, I
wanted to share a quick pro of Costco is that
I've experienced the Kirkland signature, which is like the Costco
store brand, even though not a member there, though I
(13:49):
have experienced that delicious brand, whether it be at your house, Joel,
or at a friends. You know, you got to cook
out and you see Kirkland signature. That's pretty good stuff.
You know. I've been impressed with the quality, you know,
of the store brand, and it's telling of a company
when you see folks buying the store brand like that, Yes,
you kind of just stole my thunder for the next thing.
(14:09):
Else to say, no, it's all good, No, it's funny.
It's so true that the Kirkland signature brand has kind
of taken on this life of its own, and anybody
that shops at Costco realizes that oftentimes the Kirkland signature
equivalent to the name brand that's being sold next to it,
is oftentimes better at a lower price. So it's fascinating
how Costco has been able to create a lot of
loyalty from their shoppers by giving them a cheaper, generic
(14:32):
brand that they take a lot of pride in. Do
you think it's in the marketing, The fact that they
named it something kind of cool like Kirkland signature. Honestly,
it had no appeal to me, and I doubted it
until I started buying that stuff. And and Emily and
I are both now Holkline and Sinker were like, if
it says Kirkland signature, it's going to be good. It's
just true. It just really is really good stuff. And
(14:53):
is the Kirkland signature beer. Actually, Okay, that's one place
they fall short. Their Kirkland signature beer is terrible. I
will I will readily admit that. Just don't buy that beer.
But but we're also ridiculous beers. Yeah, we're pretty. We're pretty,
particularly when it comes to our booze. Yeah. But almost
anything in the store that says Kirkland signature on it
is going to be really, really good. And so also
(15:13):
they have lots of organic options at Costco. So if
you are super into buying organics, that's one of the
best places in the United States to get really good
organics at a reasonable price. Oh and by the way,
you mentioned Aldi and buying groceries. There, have you ever
bought a steak at Aldi? I just want to let
you know right now there's a marked difference between a
steak that you buy at all the versus a steake
(15:34):
that you're gonna get a Costco. There's just something so
nice about the quality of some of the things that
Costco offers, especially in regards to to food like that.
And so yeah, that's another reason that I love Costco
is is that the quality is so much better than
than I could get at a local grocery store. Yeah. Sure,
I'll give that one to you. You know, we don't
buy meat often, and so maybe that's because we shop
(15:55):
at ALDI, or maybe it's the other way around. I
don't know, but I have had stakes from Asco with
you before, and yeah, those bone and ribbons are really good.
And I also remember when we were getting those steaks, man,
that we got to try some very delicious samples, and
I now that's one of the selling points people always
talk about the samples. You can kind of go around
the store and get a full meal if you just
(16:15):
like hot from one sample aid to the next to
the next. That's pretty accurate that how you're all, that's
pretty accurate. Yeah, though there's lots of good samples, especially
on the weekends, and and so yeah, that's kind of
one of the things that Costco shoppers love is it's
kind of the samples at every little corner of the store,
and so yeah, you're gonna get a little fill up,
you know, while you're doing your shopping. So that's kind
of cool, is it? Infomercial style as well? And they're like,
(16:37):
you can actually buy the skillet right over there as well,
and you can buy this meat over there. It is
like that, but they're not super pushy, which is nice,
and they're like super nice instead because they're happy to
be there. Yeah, they're not like, if you take this bite,
you must buy the product, So yeah, I appreciate that
it's a little low key. Another big time pro in
Costco's favor is their amazing return policy. Basically, you can
get a full refund for anything anytime except for electronics
(17:01):
and major appliances. Costco stands behind pretty much everything they
sell and you never have to worry about whether three
years later, you know your luggage broke. You know what.
At almost every other retailer, you're gonna have an issue
returning that you're you're just not gonna be able to
take it back. But with Costco Boom, you take it
back no questions. Asked refund or or you're given you know,
(17:23):
the equivalent that they offer right now. So I love
that return policy, especially for something like luggage, which is
gonna get beat up, messed up, and to know that
you can always take it back if something happens. I
really do appreciate that factor in a major way. Yeah,
that's a pretty sweet perk. And you know, I've also
heard you talk about Costco is a ridiculous warranty program.
Once you try to convince me on that a little
(17:44):
bit here. Yeah, So especially if you're buying I don't
buy very many electronics at Costco, honestly, I think there's
just a lot of competition in that space. If I'm
buying a television, I'm just not getting it from Costco personally.
But the reason that you would consider getting something like
a television from Costco would be the warranty that you
get in place when you buy electronics items. So you
only have like ninety days to return an item like that,
(18:05):
but the warranty is awesome through the Costco Concierge service,
and so you can get a two year warranty on
top of the manufacturer's warranty through that, and then in addition,
if you have the Costco visa card, which of course
I do, it gives you an additional two years beyond that,
so you can get just like this sick warranty on
(18:26):
electronics items like a computer or a television or a
major appliance. And so that's super helpful to know that,
in addition to the manufacturer's warranty, you might have five,
six or seven years of coverage on a really expensive purchase.
There's a lot of peace of mind in that knowing
that you didn't fork out extra money like you normally
would for a longer extended warranty. It's just kind of
(18:48):
part of the package. And I think that's really cool.
That's awesome. Man. You're talking about the Costco credit card
made me think of if Aldi had a credit card,
and it would totally be like amex Aldi Black, you know,
uper luxury or the opposite. Not really, it'd probably like
a like a change purse with like Alredy written on it,
you know, but like store your quarters for the carts
(19:09):
you get like free ARTI chokes every year. That's like
the reward I would imagine, which I would be all
about because their produce is great. In my opinion hit
or miss, But we can get into that at another
another time. That's another debate for another episode of My Friend.
But I did want to mention too that I think
my favorite thing about Costco is that they sell more
than just groceries. But really there's kind of a certain
(19:31):
piece of mind when I buy from Costco based on
kind of all these factors. I feel like they have
a commitment to quality. I know that the price isn't
going to be marked up over a certain place. They
have this amazing return policy extended warranty. I just know
that what I'm buying is is a good product, and
if it's not, I can return it. So I might
not be getting like the dirt cheapest price, but I'm
(19:51):
getting something that's really high quality at an incredibly fair price,
and it's in a place that I like to shop.
And I know that there are some cons to shopping
at a warehouse club. Um, And you know what, Matt,
I'm ready for your side of the argument, right for
the break, All right, Joel, we are back from the
(20:16):
break now, and like you just mentioned, we're gonna talk
about the cons now. These are the reasons why, you know,
Kate and I why we haven't joined Costco. And the
first of those is because you do have to buy
in bulk. You have to have room to store all
that stuff. You know, when you're getting that discount, it
is because you're buying lots of those things. And with
more folks moving to the city in particular, folks just
(20:39):
have less space. And so you know, to think you're
gonna buy a pallette of like toilet paper, We're like,
we're you gonna store that? You know, there's only so
much space that you have, and and our small in
town homes not to get the deal, you gotta get
two pallets. Yeah, double the toilet paper share with the neighborhood.
And then when it comes to food stuffs, you might
be tempted to buy like even a deep freeze or
(20:59):
in a sational fridge for storage, which obviously has the
potential for for being wasteful. I'm not saying that everyone
will do those things, but I think once you kind
of start going down that path of oh man, we
have to buy so much of this stuff, like, Okay,
where are we gonna put it? Well, we've gotta freeze it.
We gotta put it in the deep freeze, because that's
where we put all of our Costco meats. Do you
guys ever feel the temptation to, you know, be able
(21:20):
to store stuff away more efficiently or you know, what
do you do when it comes to buying like bulk
fridge stuff. Well, you know, I honestly I think that
this is a valid concern for some people, especially people
living in really small spaces. But for a long time,
our family has lived in a two bedroom, one bath
in square feet and we're still Costco members, and so
I don't feel the need to over buy. I feel
(21:42):
like the packaging is mostly sensible. There are probably a
couple of things that feel ridiculous based on just the
enormous amount of bulk you'd have to buy on on
certain items, like you buy two jars of peanut butter
at the same time that are plastic grabbed together or whatever,
and they're bigger than average jar of peanut butter. But
you know what, we go through so much peanut butter,
and their peanut butter is actually just better than any
(22:04):
other peanut butter that we've ever had, so it's worth
it to us, and it doesn't feel like it takes
up too much space, you know what, I'm saying, yeah,
you're not buying like twelve of them. It's just like two.
If it was twelve, it would be insane, it would
be ridiculous. So yeah, I can handle two or something.
And I mean, well, peanut butter is a great example,
because like y'all we you know, we got through a
lot of peanut butter as well. So the next gripe then,
is the distance and the time that it takes to
(22:26):
get to the warehouse for us, Like where we live
right now, I can run my bike to Aldi and
get there in less than ten minutes. Hey, you could
ride your bike to Costco too. It would just take
you three hours. It only take me, yeah, like an
hour and a half, like with traffic. But I mean
I'm able to ride through with the neighborhood and hop
into Aldi and pick something up pretty quickly. And that's
the other thing too, is with Aldi being typically they're
(22:48):
smaller stores, and so I can not even joking, I
can get in and out of there in about nineties
seconds if I just need to go in and pick
up a gallon of milk, which is oftentimes the case.
I would love to see your Aldi run in slow
motion video ninety seconds I'm not even joking. I can
do it. That's crazy. But you know, with a bigger
warehouse club, it takes like ninety seconds even just to
walk from your car and get to the front door.
(23:10):
And then once you're in there, I've been in there
with you. It's it takes a while to even navigate
the entire space. They're they're larger buildings, and that's just
more of your day kind of going towards perusing the aisles.
And certainly there's deals to be had there, but I
don't know, there's something that I love about the efficiency
of all the of just being able to step inside
the door and I can take almost like ten steps
(23:31):
and I know I'm at milk, and I take temp
steps back and I'm at the register, and before you
know what, I'm out of there. No, I mean, I
think this is actually the con that is is most
accurate that I feel the most. It's kind of a
pain to get there, and because that, it kind of
dampens our excitement about going to actually go to the store,
because it's a bigger deal. Yeah, and and it is,
like you said, just has this enormous footprint and so
(23:54):
at times, you know, parking and walking in and all
that kind of stuff. It feels like a chore versus
a quick bike ride to Aldy to pick up the
four or five things you need. Doesn't feel that way.
So I completely agree on this front. The worst thing
about being a member of a warehouse club like Costco
or Sam's Club is a distance that you're likely located
away from one of these warehouse clubs, and then kind
(24:15):
of that insane parking lot and just getting in and
out of the store in general. Yeah, and another great
thing about Audi as well is that there is not
a barrier to entry unless you count the little quarter
that you have to stick in the cart so to
walk around because they're super efficient and they don't pay
anybody to round up all the carts. No, I think
it's such an amazing system. It's brilliant, you know, yeah,
I know it works really well so that you know,
you might consider that a bar to injury. But with
(24:37):
a warehouse club, you have to join. I think for
a lot of folks, including us, like, that's what keeps
us from from trying it out, because I'm like, well,
I don't I don't even want to bother with with
joining when I'm not even sure if this is gonna
work out, I can go to Audi or shop at
any online retailer for free whenever I want. And if
I'm already paying for something, well, you know, I'm already
an Amazon Prime member. And so it almost feels like
(24:58):
that if you've got multiple sort of outlets this where
you have to pay money to even begin to consider
shopping there. I don't know something about that kind of
rubs me the wrong way. I understand that. I think
paying up front in order just to have the privilege
of shopping at a store, I can completely see why
that rubs people the wrong way and why people would
avoid it because of that. I will say the great
thing about these warehouse clubs is that if you do
(25:19):
buy a membership and you feel like you're not getting
enough value for it, you know what, they will refund
the cost of that membership. So even if you were
a member of Costco for three and sixty four days
of that year and you on the three sixty fourth
day said, hey, guys, you know what, this isn't worth
it for me, they will refund your whole membership fee.
(25:39):
And I think that's really cool. It just kind of
gives you it's it's just kind of another way that
you can have peace of mind when you're paying for
a membership up front, which I understand is a barrier
for loss of folks. Yeah, that is pretty cool, though
I did not know that. You mean, not that I'm
gonna wait until the very last day it's the cancel,
but to know that, like hopefully you know, within the
first month and like a couple of months of trying
to get out and seen like how that affects your
(26:01):
grocery bill, seeing if it works out with as far
as traffic, because you know, again, like you said, like
that's the worst part of it for for you guys
like that that is going to be the worst part
of it for us, is is the commute essentially to
get to the grocery store. Another issue I have though
with basically buying in bulked is the potential for waste.
I think we might be tempted to buy more stuff
than when we actually need, and food a lot of
(26:22):
times doesn't last like it's gonna go to waste. We
potentially either over consume whatever item we would buy in bulk.
And then there's the psychological effect too of where you
know where you say oh, I have tons of you know,
X item, whatever it is, like chips or paper towels.
I can just use however much of this I want,
Like I feel that way, especially like with shampoo. Do
you feel that way anytime you get like a full
(26:43):
bottle of shampoo. At the beginning of the bottle, I
use like so much shampoo because I'm like, oh, there's
just tons of it. But then when you get to
the very end of it, you're just like rationing every
little pie size drop. It's just gonna take an exercise
and self control and discipline to make sure that you're
just not over consuming the item that you're getting such
a great deal on because you're buying so much of it.
I think it's another good point. Yeah, I think people
(27:05):
can can get bigger amounts of something and just say
who throwcaution on the wind us as much as they
want and find themselves just like blueberries for breakfast, lunch,
and dinner, right yeah, yeah, no, totally running through the
items that they purchased more quickly and therefore just leading
to more purchases and spending more money. So yeah, I
think if you are going to be a thoughtful costco shopper,
(27:25):
you need to be careful about how much shampoo, how
many blueberries, whatever it is. You know, whatever the item is,
make sure that you're not just consuming more of it
because you have more of it. Yeah, it takes kind
of having a plan, I guess, right, And I mean,
and that's another maybe that's another point as well, is
that if it takes more thought, it takes be more thoughtful,
like you have to have a plan, and that takes
more space in my mind or in Kate's mind. If
(27:47):
she has to more diligently or more systematically planned the
meals that she wants to cook, well, that's not how
she normally cooks, right she You know, she is a
fantastic cook, but she likes to wing it a little more.
She's a little more like takes more of the artistic
approach and see what's on sales, see what we have
in the fridge, and kind of combines it and finds
ways to to make you know, amazing meals for her.
(28:08):
There would be a complete shift in grocery runs and
how she approached meal prep. That's another sort of strike
against Costco in the sense that I don't think she
wants to do that. And if she doesn't want to
do that, then we're gonna We're gonna do whatever she
wants to do. You're not going to force her to
becoming a costco. But I understand, I understand both partners
in a marriage have to understand the glory that is
(28:29):
costco got to be the same thing to commit. Yeah,
you gotta commit together. And speaking of that, Matt, I
feel like one con that we should mention is that
warehouse clubs don't make nearly as much sense for single people.
If you like to talk about waste, right right, Yeah,
if you live alone, it's unlikely that you're going to
be able to get enough benefit from a warehouse club
that would make it worth the cost of a membership fee.
(28:51):
And in addition, you know, talking about potentially using too
much or wasting too much as a single person buying
things in that much bulk, you're just gonna be hard
pressed to get enough value out of a membership if
you live alone. So, yeah, it makes more sense for
a family, Like you know, we're a family of four
about to become a family of five, and it just
kind of fits into our lifestyle a little more than
(29:12):
it would for someone who you know, is living in
a small apartment by themselves. So this just made me
think of a great idea, which is does Costco have
a dating app, because they totally should. Oh my gosh,
that would be so good. Like the Costco die hards. Uh,
there's got to be like a whole singles group that
could totally revolve around the the Costco ecosystem. You know
(29:34):
what I'm saying. I guarantee you there's a sub credit
for that. Yeah, man, I bet there is a lot
of This does come down to you and your personal
preferences and specifically what you purchase, and so it may
or may not be more affordable for you to shop
at Costco. It might be more affordable for you to
shop at Aldi. There's a lot of sort of tests
(29:54):
out there, like different bloggers and whatnot where they've done
an Audi run and they've done a Costco run, and
they've they've got apples to Apple's goods and they've totaled it.
But it just completely depends on what you are purchasing
at each of the stores. So you know, I'm not
going to completely not Costco because I think there's a
chance that depending on what you purchase, you have the
chance of saving a lot of money. Also, on the
flip side of that, depending on what you purchase, you
(30:16):
might save more money if you shop at ALDI. So
I think it really does come down to your individual
purchasing patterns and as well as just kind of what
you prefer. All right, So on that note, Matt, I
think it's important to talk about some of the specific
items that you can buy at Costco where you can
get a deal that's unparalleled and that you can't find
anywhere else. And I think Costco does sell some things
(30:37):
that have a particular appeal and that could single handedly
pay for your membership. And so yeah, let's get to
some of those things right after the break. Okay, Joel,
you just mentioned there are some specific items that can
(30:57):
single handedly pay for your membership. That actually sounds really
impressive and I'm excited to hear those. But first, let's
talk about some access to services, like specific things that
Costco offers. I wasn't aware of this until we started
researching for this episode, but you have firsthand experience when
it comes to some of these items once you share
it with our listeners. Sure. Yeah, So the cool thing
(31:19):
about warehouse clubs is that they offer services in addition
to like groceries and electronics, right, so it's not just
physical items. There are some really cool services that kind
of set these stores apart. So I wanted to mention
that you can find great travel deals. Costco in particular,
has an awesome car buying program. I forget how many people,
(31:40):
but like millions of people buy a new car through
Costco's car buying program every year. Like that's how big
it is their own financing, is that what it is?
They're essentially negotiating with dealers on your behalf to get
you a really good price. So it's a no haggle,
walk out the door price on a new car. Basically, Matt,
you know you don't recommend buying a new car, but
(32:01):
if you really wanted to, you you you just felt
the need to buy a new car. I think Costco's
car buying program is a worthwhile place to go. And
both Sam's Club and Costco offer merchant processing. For Let's
say you have your own small business and you're using
like a PayPal reader or a square read or something
like that. Well, if you went instead with merchant processing
(32:21):
through a company like you know, Costco or Sam's Club,
you could potentially save hundreds, if not thousands of dollars
a year just by changing your merchant processing to to
going with one of them. It's kind of cool, some
of these side services they offered. If you can take
advantage of one or two of these, then I think
that that just kind of puts this other just enormous
(32:41):
check mark in the corner of the warehouse clubs that
it just makes a whole heck of a lot more
sense for you. I think I mentioned I bought my
life insurance through a company that Costco partners with, and
it was cheaper than even I could find on awesome
sites like policy Genius or have in Life. And so
because of that, it saved me a good bit of
mone me every year. And it was just another service
(33:03):
that's offered that's only available to members. And I think
if you can find one of these services that you
think will work for you, well, then it just means
you should take a much closer look at potentially joining up. Yeah,
so what does that even look like? You mentioned life insurance?
Do you just go in the store. Is there like
somewhere on the shelf where there's a card and it
says thirty year term life insurance you just kind of
like grab that walk to the register and like ring,
you know, ring it up. It's like on Costco's website.
(33:25):
You know, you click through through the website. Okay, yep,
so you click through and I said, you know, saw
that they partnered with this company. You can call for
a quote as a Costco member and you get a
quote that's just unavailable to non Costco members. And similar
thing with they have a mortgage program, so if you're
looking to do a refinance, you can get better rates,
lower closing costs through a lot of lenders just because
(33:45):
you're a Costco member. And so so that's kind of cool.
That's another service that they offer. And if you want
like an easier way to refinance, you kind of want
access to you know, a bunch of different quotes in
one fell swoop, well then Costco kind of has that
covered for you, and you just you might not be
getting the exact best deal on the market, but you know,
what you're getting is a really really solid deal and
(34:07):
that Costco has negotiated the closing costs as well for
you ahead of time, which which is really nice as
a member to know that that's the case. Yeah, that's
I mean, that's awesome knowing that you've got a company
going to bat for you there essentially your advocate, and
you're not having to pay anything above and beyond your
standard membership fee. Yeah. And when you think about those
services though, like a sixty dollar membership fee pales in
(34:28):
comparison to which you could potentially save on like a
refinance or life insurance or merchant processing. Like it's those
are the kind of things too, that that set these
warehouse clubs apart. That just make it, like Hookline and Sinker,
a good deal for potential members if they're going to
take advantage of some of these additional services that are provided.
All right, but let's talk about specific items. Are you
(34:49):
ready for that? Some of my favorite items for people
to look to purchase at warehouse clubs. Yeah, well, you
already mentioned the chicken, and so you know that one's
already kind of like out of the bag a little bit.
The five dollar Roat Hisstory chicken is just Costco is
known for it. They're five dollars. They're just way better,
bigger than any Rooker Story chicken you're gonna get like
a local grocery store. Another food item is lunch. While
you're there. So if you are at Costco, everybody knows
(35:11):
about the lunch. The price of the hot dog and
a drink has stayed the same since five or something
like that. It's like a dollar fifty in order to
grab lunch there, So that's pretty great. They're also known
for their nuts, grains, and cheese, so those are worth mentioning.
I mentioned luggage earlier. That's another specific item to buy,
mainly because of the return policy. Not necessarily because it's
the cheapest luggage, but but because you can always return
(35:33):
it if something happens. Yeah, I'll share another deal that
I've been able to personally, uh take advantage of. Specifically
when we go to visit our in laws in Greenville,
their Costco members, and they always like to swing by
and kind of make sure that we have access to
the pump uh and and and fill up before we
leave town. And yeah, the gas is so much cheaper.
They're like ten to fifteen cents cheaper than any gas
(35:55):
station anywhere nearby. Honestly, depending on how much you fill
up just gas alone, that one expense. If you just
drive a ton, yeah, and you drive past the Costco
and you fill up there every time that could single
handedly pa if your annual membership really just the savings
and gas alone over the course of a year. Another
thing is is tires. If you wait for deal on tires,
you can get an awesome deal on really really good tires,
(36:18):
because again, quality is kind of the utmost. At Costco,
You're not gonna get the dirt cheap tires, but you're
gonna get really really good tires at a really really
good price if you wait for a deal. Another huge
specific item or area to look for is kids stuff.
If you're getting diapers, you can get really good deals
on diapers at Costco. And obviously you know you're buying
(36:39):
in big amounts, and and typically when you have an infant,
a little kid or whatever that that's wearing diapers, you
go through a lot. The thing that I found, honestly,
if I had to say one thing is the best
buy at Costco, it is their infant formula. Formula is
so expensive. The price of formula at Costco is literally
(37:00):
half the price, and it's just as good a formula
as you'd get from all the name brands, but it
literally cost half as much as Similac or whatever, any
of those name brands. Formulas. So if you are if
you've got a newborn, if you've got an infant and
you're looking to introduce formula, well, Costco is the place
to get the formula right now, I'm telling you that's
(37:21):
like the number one reason it's just such a good deal. Yeah,
I guess you guys never tried the Aldi formula or
the or the Aldi diapers when once they rolled all
that out. No, that kind of came along, but like
a year and a half ago something like that, after
we were kind of out of that phase. Yeah, so
we're kind of still in that phase a little bit,
at least with diapers with our youngest. So yeah, I
feel like I have to mention that a little bit.
We're not doing like a Costco versus Aldi or anything.
(37:42):
But you know, anytime I hear something that you're talking
about Costco, I'm like, oh, yeah, all these got that too.
I feel like I have to stick up from Aldi
a little bit here. Well, another thing Aldi doesn't sell
that Costco does, by the way, is dog food, and
dog food is a great deal. You can get again
really high quality dog food in great quantities at Costco.
So if you have a pup, that's another great reason
(38:02):
to consider having a membership there. Yeah, basically, anytime you're
going through just a large quantity of something, whether that
be diapers, formula, dog food, like all those things go
really quickly. Like going back to the conversation before about
someone like a single, it's like, well, you may not
get your money's worth, but if you have a large family,
or if you have a baby or a pup who
requires lots of resources and time and money, yeah, it
(38:25):
could definitely be worth it. Or if it's just you
and you really like booze, well, Costco has awesome prices
on booze too. Not every Costco has a liquor store,
but the ones that do, the prices that you'll find
are are just really incredible, no joke. They actually have
Kirkland signature alcohol and people there you mentioned the beer
that was terrible, which is terrible as the actual liquor decent.
(38:47):
The actual liquor is really good. And there are all
these rumors online about kind of who makes the liquor
for them, and so people say that their vodka is
made by Gray Goose or they're they're just kind of
everyone has a thought on where they're gin or where
their bourbons comes from. Yeah, it's super funny, but it's
actually really solid. A lot of their booze and you
can get it for the price of something that's like
(39:07):
much lower shelf at a liquor store. In the Costco
liquor store. See if you're throwing a party, especially and
you're gonna make some mixed drinks for folks, having that
Costco membership is clutch in order to save money. Right. Well,
isn't it true though, that you don't have to have
the membership in order to to take advantage of the
booze that that actually is true in in a lot
of states, it is illegal to charge more like a
(39:30):
special membership for exactly exactly, and so people in most
states can still shop at the liquor store even without
a membership, which is nice and also another great perk
of shopping at Costco. One thing you can do without
a membership is get your prescriptions filled there, and Costco
often has some of the lowest prices on prescriptions, so
that's worth looking into. I just want to mention a
(39:51):
couple of other random things that we buy every year
at Costco. Christmas trees, detergent sometimes extremely discounted gift cards,
and I can tell you, you you know, more things that
we enjoy buying there. It's certainly not for everyone as
we've as we've alluded to, but for our family, you know,
having that membership, Uh, it might not even necessarily save
(40:11):
us tons of money, but we're able to buy things
that we feel like our higher quality at what ends
up being an equivalent price to like a discount grocery
store chain. And and we feel like we're getting a
lot of value for our membership, in particular because of
those services that we mentioned too. So yeah, I feel
like we've definitely got our money's worth out of a
Costco membership. But I also realized that it's not for everyone.
(40:33):
And if I didn't convert you, Matt in this podcast episode,
I'm okay with that. Well, I'm glad you are, because
I'm not completely sure if you know, if we're converts
at this point. I totally understand how that you know
that it works out for you, But I keep going
going back to the biggest hurdle for us, which is distance.
You know, we just do not like spending a lot
of time in the car, you know, with what you
(40:53):
shared about getting the membership, trying it out for maybe
a month or two, and then maybe you know, if
you don't like it, getting refunded. That that might be
a way, as I could convince Kate to give it
a shot. We might join the ranks of costco fans
and maybe we'll see you guys up there. Well, I
would love to see that, my friend. We can go
shopping together anytime you want. I don't think we need
to spend more time together and say that's probably true.
(41:14):
Probably true. But let's mention just a couple other ways
real quick. That if people are interested in joining a
warehouse club, like how they can test test the waters.
I mentioned that b j's has like a lot of
like free sixty day trials. You can try out b
J's for free if there's one in your area by
going to their website or just google google that free
sixty day trial. You'll find something on that. Also, check
out a local warehouse club with a friend. You've been
(41:36):
with me before, Matt, get a taste for it for sure. Yeah,
and if you've got a friend who who has a
membership and they've wanted to check it out, well, you
know what, your friend would probably be more than happy
to have you tag along and check it out. Also,
ask your friend to buy you a gift card. If
you have a twenty or a fifty dollar gift card,
whatever it is to to Costco, you're allowed to to
shop without having an actual membership. And so yeah, if
(41:59):
you pay your friend any bucks to get that gift card,
you can go spend it there without having to have
that membership. Don't you have to show your Costco card
before you walk in? Yeah, but if you've got a
gift card that just like flash the gift card. It
works in the same way. It kind of feels like
a fake I D doesn't it. It's like a little
bit like mclovin. You're just like walking in and it's like, hey,
I got this, got the gifts gift card and they
kind of like frown at you. You're like, all right, fine,
(42:19):
start like sprinting past the guy at the front door.
All right, that's pretty cool too. That didn't realize that
that was an option. Yeah, man, So lots of ways
to to test the waters. Yeah, And you know, if
you are listening to this and you are like me
and you're not sure if you're gonna join a warehouse club,
maybe chime in on Facebook. Hop over in the group.
Maybe we can see how folks are kind of comparing
the costs that sort of trade off between joining Warehouse
(42:41):
Club and they're affordable local grocery store that's maybe more
conducive to their lifestyle. I'm very curious, I guess, to
see what other folks are doing. But in the end,
I guess it does kind of come down to what
it is that you prefer as an individual and what
you're looking for. But yeah, I guess I'm curious due
to hear what other folks are buying, because I know,
like the weird stuff that you guys buy when you
get a costco. But I gotta I gotta figure stuff. Well,
(43:04):
I know, you like, like once a year you buy
like this massive pack of like socks or something like that,
or an underwear as well, to like restock your underwear drawer.
I do always get my socks and underwear a costco
at least told me that before. But I gotta think
that there's other folks out there who are quite proud
of the oddities that they're purchasing at their costco as well.
You have so jump into our Facebook group. You can
just search how the money in the search bar on
(43:27):
on Facebook and you'll find us and and yeah, and
we want to hear your reaction to this. Super interested
in in maybe why you've refrained from getting a membership
and then if you have one kind of yeah, what
your best buys are, what your favorite things are to
get at a warehouse club, and and how it saved
you money. Looking forward to that discussion, and maybe you'll
even convert Matt who knows. Man. Maybe I want to
(43:47):
kick it back now to our beer. The beer that
you and I get to enjoy this episode is a
Buffalo Soldier by you tag Brewing Company, Joel. At the
beginning of this episode, you kind of mentioned like a
out like some of those roasted flavors, and I'm curious
if you're sticking with those notes, because I think those
are the notes that I'm going to share. Yeah, I
(44:08):
say it. It's a little stout like roastiness with some
of those peppery rhye notes shining through at the same
time the hot bitterness. It's an interesting beer because it
has all those elements at the same time, and they're
not elements that you typically associate with being together in
a beer but surprisingly it's really really tasty, Like it
(44:31):
did a really good job of kind of holding all
those things at the same time together. Um, I really
enjoyed it, even though it is kind of an abnormality
in a way in my opinion. But yeah, I thought
it was really good. Yeah, a really unique beer. Uh
So I'm not note it kind of made me think
of a porter, because typically porters feel lighter in your mouth,
which this totally did. Porters tend to be less sweet,
(44:53):
at least in my opinion a little bit like they
kind of have like those roasted bitter notes without the
sweetness that you normally finding a stout. And so by
maybe combining an I p A with sort of this
dark rye flavor, at times, I'd almost convinced myself that
I was drinking a porter instead of a black rye
I p A. But I like what you said about
those peppery notes. Case been making a lot of rye
(45:14):
bread lately. She's still on that breadmaking train because it's
just affordable and delicious, and she's got it down to
a science almost at this point. I don't know something
about that ride, just as that additional level of flavor,
and I'm all about it. So I'm super stoked that
we got to enjoy this beer on this show. Yeah.
So thanks again to Andy for sending that our way.
We appreciate it, man, Yeah, Andy, thanks again. So Joel,
(45:36):
that's gonna be it for this episode, man. Listeners can
find our show notes up at how to money dot com.
Will link to a few resources that we mentioned in
this episode, like box dot com. Uh, maybe a couple
of articles talking about Costco's great return policy and extended
warranty as well. Yeah, and if you like this podcast
and you've found it helpful, we'd appreciate your review on
(45:57):
Apple Podcasts. And if you feel like we've out room
for improvement, please drop us a line. We'd love to
hear from you. You can do that at how to
money dot com slash do Better. Well. I enjoyed this one, dude.
It was good. Yeah all right, buddy, Until next time,
Joel Best Friends Out as Friends Out
Hosts And Creators
Joel Larsgaard
Matthew Altmix
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