[CharliMarley]

My daughter took me to the Canberra Costco in April and bought me a pair of those Spinner Travel Cases for $150 for the two - bargain.

[CharliMarley]

I didn't know buffalo had wings - what are they really?

[lucky 2]

I bought some modal singlets that are very comfortable and soft. The Choc chips, washing powder, bulk pasta and paper towels, hershy cocoa powder, spill proof travel mugs (usually $30 in DJ's, $20 for 2). Real sheepskin "ugg" boots of dd ($29).
I haven't bought heaps as I'm still a newbie. It certainly is an "experience".

[ELKO]

Gumbette we bought the "Mountainview Resort" play equipment a few weeks ago. It was $1249 and looks great. We have only just started unpacking it this week and will have a working bee to erect it this Saturday. Just opening the boxes is an experience as the smell of the cedar timber is amazing

[~Sorceress~]

What I found was that compared to Aldi the prices were similar?

I'd agree with that. I go to buy the things Aldi don't stock - for me, A2 milk, organic tasty cheese, organic quinoa, bulk spices, free-range chicken fillets and some of the delicious frozen yum cha dishes! I also appreciate buying the loo paper and laundry detergent in handy bulk sizes . And their nappies are better quality than the Aldi ones (since Aldi moved to the new style with no back elastic ).

I have also bought electronics via Costco because of their fabulous warranty system. At the moment, I sort of see their annual fee as my insurance policy on the electronics I've bought .

So what I would like to know is is really worth me going back and having a good look around Costco? I dare say the perishable things would not really be worth buying in bulk as you can't store most of it.

Do you find you are still running to Aldi/Coles each week as well as shopping at Costco?

Has your monthly spend come down since shopping at Costco?

I don't think our monthly spend will have come down once I factor in extra time and the membership fee, but the quality of our eating has improved and some of the extras really are fabulous quality - socks, shoes etc.

I certainly wouldn't do all of my shopping at Costco, but I'm picky - so I get milk from Coles, butter from Aldi, cheese from Costco etc .

[Akatara]

I only went to Costco a couple of times last year, and was skeptical about saving money.

But when I did my budget for the last 6 months, I realized our supermarket shops seemed pretty cheap...

So I think stocking up on a lot of non perishables last year did help a bit. And you can get some unusual and different things!

I can really only manage it in the school hols, so this thread has inspired me to try it out again.

[2plusoops]

Kirkland baby wipes are the best I think. I prefer to any other brand.

Definately agree with this. Also the Kirkland brand paper towel - much thicker than the Viva which is what we usually used and each sheet is probably twice as big so we actually go through it slower. Kirkland brand peanuts are also very good. Agree with the PP who say the meat is great quality - we'll usually buy a pack of 2 x roast beef (we cut one into steaks), triple pack of chicken breasts, and a tray of diced steak - we split the diced steak into meal sizes and vacuum seal everything to put in the freezer.

We have started going monthly (DH gets paid monthly) and stock up on paper goods (paper towls, tissues, toilet paper etc) and also dry goods/canned stuff (rice, pasta, tomato paste, noodles/mac & cheese packs for the kids etc).

As well as groceries, the other stuff that Costco stock can be very good. We have a coffee maker (Breville) we picked up there a month ago - love it! We went on Saturday (find going first thing in the morning avoids large crowds and makes it easier with the kids) and I got a beautiful pair of deer skin gloves - DH got a pair last month and says they are really comfortable and very warm, $25. Hae to check out the Kirkland business shirts next time - DH is in need of a few shirts.

IMO the membership is definately worth it. You do have to know prices, not just individually but also in bulk as most of what Costsco sells is in bulk. I think this is what I like - we bought a slab of the Kirkland paper towel two months ago and haven't had to buy any since. We buy things like rice in bulk and store it in Tupperware containers - so you do need space to store stuff. I've found that my weekly shop is cheaper and I'm only buying fresh fruit/vegies, milk, bread and a few other items that we have a particular brand preference for.

Question though - can anyone give me any feedback on the Kirkland brand coffee? We had some at a friends place and it was really nice; then another friend gave us probably 1/3 tin but it didn't taste the same and really wasn't nice ... dont know if it was just stale or what. Not wanting to buy the big tin if its not that great.

[~kitteh.hoardere...]

We LOVE the cat and dog food, so do they!

We also love the memory foam bathmats, we now have 4 and are planning on getting another one LOL

DF loves the skippy PB ($7 for over 1kg jar.)

We also get finish dishwasher tablets for the same cost as Aldi. We get milk (normal and A2), toilet paper, giant bags of pizza cheese, large bottles of sauce (tomato/bbq/sweet chilli/worcestershire/soy), 10kg bags of rice, huge bag of sea salt (it was REALLY cheap considering the size), the trays with 8 1kg packages of flour, bags of frozen prawns, meat. The list goes on...

Oh the best is the large bags of potato (5kg for $5ish) and sweet potato!