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I want to live like Costco people
- analog31 6mo agoI want to live like Costco people too, but my house isn't big enough. Fortunately, one family member shops there, and splits the stuff between two households.
- lerp-io 6mo agoWELCOME TO COSTCO I LOVE YOU
- tantalor 6mo agoI'm guessing the title is a reference to Pulp - Common People
- mock-possum 6mo agoYou’re probably right, but Pet Shop Boys also have a take on the theme - https://youtu.be/eQLpNpSXewo?si=bYSSBpoDAL2HKMI3 https://youtu.be/eQLpNpSXewo?si=bYSSBpoDAL2HKMI3
- teeray 6mo ago“…and let the deals, wrap their arms around me” —Death Cab for Cutie
- dnnddidiej 6mo agoAnd browse and grab and queue because there is nothing else to do!
- havblue 6mo agoI wanna live like Costco people I wanna do whatever Costco people do Wanna sleep with Costco people I wanna sleep with Costco people like you. Well, what else could I do? I said, "I'll... I'll see what I can do.
- FireBeyond 6mo ago"And she just laughed and said 'Oh, you're so funny.' And I said 'Yeah, well, I can't see anyone else smiling in here'." ... which often mirrors my feelings in Costco, particularly near the registers, where oftentimes in my local stores it feels more akin to the Thunderdome.
- FireBeyond 6mo agoJarvis Cocker wrote Common People about a girl he did actually know, who was "identified" as Danae Stratou, daughter of a Greek textile magnate, and while she said "the only person who knows for sure is Cocker himself", emails between her and her husband indicated that she saw herself saying and doing several of the things he references, "yeah, I'm rather ashamed to admit it, that -does- sound like me and things I'd say then". And then Disco 2000 was written about Deborah Bone, childhood friend who was a mental health nurse (who helped form Step2 and created the Brainbox), and said the only thing inaccurate about the song was that her home did not have "woodchips on the wall". She said, shortly before she died of myeloma, that she "did grow up and sleep with Jarvis Cocker, somebody had to, and it was perfectly innocent" (I think the implication is that they fell asleep together). Not of any great relevance. I just see myself as a collector of information that might only be useful for music trivia nights...
- nkurz 6mo agoYou probably know the details better than I do (and perhaps there's a later twist I'm unaware of) but in 2022 Cocker denied that it was Stratou: Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life (via The Mirror), Cocker addressed claims that the inspiration was Danae Stratou, a Greek woman who attended St Martin’s at the same time as Jarvis, but confirmed that “it wasn’t her because she had blonde hair and the girl had dark hair.” https://www.nme.com/news/music/jarvis-cocker-is-on-a-quest-to-find-woman-who-inspired-pulps-common-people-3226419 https://www.nme.com/news/music/jarvis-cocker-is-on-a-quest-t...
- FireBeyond 6mo agoHuh, interesting. I do know someone else (Katerina Kana) had claimed it was her, not Danae, but that Cocker hadn't commented on her claim.
- Joeboy 6mo ago> emails between her and her husband If we're dropping random trivia it should probably be mentioned that her husband is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanis_Varoufakis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanis_Varoufakis
- slumberlust 6mo agoI'm a fan of the Shatner version after seeing it suggested here a few weeks back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuyV76SG6qg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuyV76SG6qg
- hgvbnjjjhhuu 6mo ago[dead]
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- qrush 6mo agoI just got (at 38) a Costco membership this year, thanks to my in-laws gifting us a membership. There's another huge discount retailer here in Boston (BJs) that I have gone to for years, but Costco is another 10+ min drive away so I've resisted thus far. I will say... I'm still adjusting. - No aisle signs or labels anywhere. I understand the retail strategy here but the lack of efficiency in MY experience kills me. Clearly they can't move the bakery, or meat department. But after ~5 visits I still have no idea where some basic products can be found. - Who is buying a kayak, or shed while shopping for groceries? - I continually make the mistake of going during the weekend when it is the most packed store on Earth. There were no less than 3 Cybertrucks in the parking lot. I don't have the "must-buy" item yet, but every time I go, I feel like I need to take a nap after.
- vablings 6mo agoThe American mind must be studied. I saw someone leaving buc-ees at 10:30pm who just purchased a huge fire pit and was franticly trying to jam it in the back of a large chevy. I can only imagine they went for stacks due to the poor planning
- dionian 6mo agoif nobody is buying them, you have to wonder why they are for sale. my guess is someone is buying them
- geodel 6mo agoNah, Costco is so crowded and such long checkout lines. No one buys anything there.
- mrits 6mo agoIt's odd to me thinking people consider Costco a grocery store. I realize they have groceries but that certainly isn't what I use it for.
- Schiendelman 6mo agoHalf the store is food - it's an excellent grocery store.
- tetromino_ 6mo agoPart of growing up is realizing that the places where a person eats or shops, what music and entertainment they consume, what clothes they wear - are entirely uncorrelated with their personality and character and worth. And cringing hard at your own past teenage past self who confused such superficial identity markers with personality. Unfortunately, it sounds like the article's author is only on their first step of this realization.
- gdulli 6mo agoRight, I noped out of this article when I realized it felt like a guy making up a whole population he could do some elevated punching down at to offset some ostensible self deprecation. What a chore.
- somenameforme 6mo agoI'm quite curious what initially instills this juvenile idea in us. I expect it's advertising which actively seeks to foment this nonsense by implying that if you buy this or that you will become this or that.
- akramachamarei 6mo agoOf course, one can overgeneralize the correlations between consumption preferences and personality (character is vague and worth practically undefined) but it seems absurd to claim they are entirely uncorrelated. Take the Big Five traits: conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, extroversion. Each has numerous obvious implications for consumer preferences. Do you mean something else by "personality" or perhaps "growing up"?
- Aurornis 6mo ago> Something about the whole thing always registered to me as, like, lame—too normcore, too boring, perhaps even too cheugy to an informed and taste-driven millennial ur-consumer like me. The kinds of brands I like to buy aren’t what they sell at Costco Good example of how people can build identities through their brand choices and purchasing habits. It’s a foreign concept for many of us who seek out the best product or deals for each purchase and will change brands in an instant if another company releases a better product. Yet the crossover between brands, identities, and lifestyles is deeply held by many people. I know some will try to turn this into a criticism of Americans, but in my travels and international business experience I wouldn’t even rank Americans in the top 10 for integrating brands and identity. In some countries I had to make a conscious effort to try to wear clothes from acceptable brands and swap my functional laptop bag for something more stylish to avoid letting my purchasing habits become a point of judgment from others. It’s actually refreshing to come back to America where as long as you’ve made some effort to look more or less appropriate for the occasion few people care about the brand of your clothes, laptop bag, or car. Some people are proud of their Audi or designer bag, but I rarely run into situations where I’d be judged for arriving in a sensible Subaru instead of a Mercedes.
- krustyburger 6mo agoIt sounds like you’ve just been around toxic and superficial people in your international travels and then extrapolated from them to their whole countries. Unfortunately, they have people like that everywhere.
- giwook 6mo agoNot necessarily. South Korea is one example that I have intimate knowledge of where one's consumer habits (the clothes one wears, the car one drives, the logo on one's handbag) is the ultimate signal of status. You're automatically pre-judged by complete strangers without having to say a single word. There are always exceptions to the rule, but it is in fact an unspoken rule over there.
- bryceacc 6mo ago
- Lucent 6mo agoCostco's gimmick is relieving you of choice and price shopping. They find the best stuff and don't mark it up. If Consumer is your identity yet you fear executing its labors, let Costco step in and become your denomination of consumerism, complete with tithe, proscribed usury, and communion hot dog.
- SoftTalker 6mo agoAlso the reason that small specialty shops, and mom-and-pop grocery, fruit, dairy, bakeries and butcher shops are largely gone. They just cannot compete with Costco and Sam's Club/Walmart's buying power.
- lifeisgood99 6mo agoActual specialty shops survive just fine. There's plenty of value in real expertise. Run-of-the-mill stores selling the same commodity at a higher price are simply inefficient.
- bell-cot 6mo ago99% of the reason for the mom-and-pop groceries dying out is that "our" Federal Gov't decided that it would stop bothering to enforce the law - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson%E2%80%93Patman_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson%E2%80%93Patman_Act And note how the modern Democratic Party - the originators of that law back in 1936 - utterly failed to give a crap about the issue.
- triceratops 6mo ago> note how the modern Democratic Party... utterly failed to give a crap about the issue From the article on the Act - "Enforcement of the RPA has declined since the 1980s. In 2022, FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya endorsed a revival of enforcing the RPA in order to curb price discrimination. In April 2024, sixteen members of Congress wrote to the FTC urging for a revival of the enforcement of the Act. In December 2024, the FTC sued liquor distributor Southern Glazer's under the Act, asserting that they charged small stores more than they charged large chains. On January 17, 2025, the closing days of the Biden Administration, the FTC filed a lawsuit against PepsiCo. In May 2025, The FTC voted to dismiss the PepsiCo suit but the suit against Southern Glazer's is proceeding." It's a low bar but the Democratic party has given more of a crap about it than anyone else.
- silisili 6mo agoI've only been to Costco a handful of times in my life. It seems like each time, there were hordes of people standing lifelessly in a huge line waiting to check themselves out(sometimes with help from an employee), which took longer than it should. Then, once that task was accomplished, they'd then stand in another huge line waiting to leave. Is this the typical experience or did I just happen to pick the worst times/locations? I happily pay more at places like Publix to -not- have to do that.
- danso 6mo agoHow are people supposed to act while waiting in line to check out?
- silisili 6mo agoThat's the takeaway - that people are supposed to be bored in line? I wasn't insulting the people, I was describing what to me is the awful human experience of shopping at Costco.
- danso 6mo agoI was just struck by this line: > there were hordes of people standing lifelessly in a huge line waiting to check themselves out Where are the retail experiences where people waiting to checkout are expressing an abundance of joy in life to you? Is the problem the “horde”? Sure, popular places tend to have a lot of people. I’m not sure why Costco customers act way less fun to you than at other places? This whole comments reads like a petulant “everyone is a NPC but me” screed
- bdangubic 6mo agoso silly, right??! and of all the checkouts Costco is bussin! I am always with my daughter, we open a package of 85 croisants and eat like 5 while also opening 60lbs bag of walnuts and munch together while taking bets whether we picked the right line based on complex algorithms of who is working at checkout, who is in line and how much stuff they bought and another billions parameters :)
- dmoy 6mo ago[dead]
- b450 6mo agoI've become a Costco person in recent years. At least in my perception, inflation has affected grocery stores unevenly: Whole Foods: eye-bogglingly expensive (and no, I don't think it always was) Wegmans: substantially more expensive than a few years ago, and a noticeable decline in produce quality Trader Joes: incredible value on many prepared foods, but not the best source for staples like rice or paper products. Costco is not inflation-proof by any means but they have pretty much 0 margins and they're reliably the best value on just about whatever they sell. The selection can be limited in some ways compared to a supermarket, and they can be a bad place to be health conscious (as it can be hard to resist massive containers of ultra cheap and delicious treats of various kinds) or to try to try to be an ethical consumer (and please spare me the HN cynical line on this, I get it, I have no real agency and I'm pathetically guilt-ridden): I've read bad things about their meat sourcing, they rarely have coffee with bona fides like fair trade or shade grown, I see controversial products like bird's nest soup, etc.
- acheron 6mo agoHuh, really? Re: Wegmans. For me they still have the best produce quality by far. Agree their prices have gone up in general though.
- b450 6mo agoIt's probably very store specific. If you know the Market Basket in Somerville, MA, it's got a legendary produce section. I've been to locations in NH with crap. IMO H-Mart is the safest bet in the Boston area for high quality produce (outside of farmers markets, natch)
- BoneShard 6mo agoI was a coffee snob, but now I'm buying coffee in Costco, you just have to do it online: https://www.costco.com/p/-/kirkland-signature-organic-ethiopia-whole-bean-coffee-2-lbs/100401327 https://www.costco.com/p/-/kirkland-signature-organic-ethiop... https://www.costco.com/p/-/mayorga-buenos-das-usda-organic-light-roast-whole-bean-coffee-2lb-2-pack/100844180?langId=-1 https://www.costco.com/p/-/mayorga-buenos-das-usda-organic-l... I have no idea why do they not sell these(light roast) ones in warehouses.
- pruetj 6mo agoI have a Costco that is walking distance from my office. If I need to decompress, I walk to Costco for lunch solo, get a hot dog and a slice of pizza, sit down, and watch both the people and what's in their cart. It's so diverse and pretty fascinating.
- SoftTalker 6mo agoHot dog and a slice? That's your calorie needs for the day.
- pruetj 6mo agoLOL, don't mess this up for me.
- OkayPhysicist 6mo agoUnless you are particularly sedentary, 1200 calories is pretty low for daily consumption.
- SoftTalker 6mo agoI'm thinking their hotdogs are huge, like 1/2 lb? And the slices are huge also. And most people probably get a 32oz cup of sugar water with them. Maybe I'm overestimating.
- OkayPhysicist 6mo agoFair, I did leave out the soda that comes with the hotdog. But that could be a diet soda. (and seems to frequently be, given that my local Costco has 4 diet coke spouts, as opposed to 1-2 of any others) I did look up the calorie count for both. 550-ish for the hotdog, 650-ish for the pizza.
- papercrane 6mo agoThe hot dogs are 1/4 lb, with the bun it's probably 500-600 calories.
- 6mo ago
- throw7 6mo agoThe nearest costco to me is an hour and half away. I've been in costco only once, and I guess I got it, but I also was like: do i need this? This year they're opening one nearby (~10mins). I have this nagging growing feeling of fear I will be joining.
- Schiendelman 6mo agoDon't fear it. Join us. There's a real reduction in your cognitive load, honestly. It's nice.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- asdff 6mo agoThe real hooking factor is when you go and recognize items you are already buying in other stores in smaller quantities for more money. Then you start branching out further still.
- legitster 6mo agoI grew up in a post soviet country. To me Costco, has perfected the soviet ideal of shopping more than any soviet economy ever could. In a Costco, we are all equal. I could be shopping for the same set of beige slacks right next to the CEO of a multi-million dollar company and never know it. We'll own the same Waterpik. Identical towels. Our lawn furniture will look the same. Everything is purchased at a fair price. And we know it's a fair price because it's Costco. The workers are happy because they are given a fair wage and respect by an executive team that doesn't think they're better than them. Yes, you have to admit to yourself that a certain part of shopping at Costco is rejecting iconoclasm. You must be okay being part of a crowd. But the other side of that - are you able to surrender? Can you deny yourself when you find something that is legitimately good? Must you be different to the point of self-detrimental? So yes, I will go to a store that has better olive oil or coffee or oranges. But how can you not love Costco?
- OutOfHere 6mo agoGood comment, but IMHO the main reason to not love it so much is the annual membership fee. It sits well with cult cultivation. Other stores don't require it and they don't form a cult around them.
- tavavex 6mo agoBut the fee isn't an initiation ritual. It's what partially subsidizes the low prices, often at the expense of people who buy the membership and underutilize it, spending more money upfront than they save on later purchases.
- fckgw 6mo agoCostco derives the majority of their revenue from the membership fee, followed by services. They actually make very little on the products themselves as they have a hard cap on markups at like 11% or something around there. The membership is the whole reason they can offer the deals they do.
- dragonwriter 6mo ago
- lifeisgood99 6mo agoI shop at Costco not because of the price or the bulk formats. It's not always a good deal vs other places. The value to me is not having to worry about quality. Any product that is not satisfactory gets returned with no hassle.
- Bud 6mo ago[dead]
- rdiddly 6mo agoIt's giving "Frasier Crane goes to Costco." But yes, you can buy many different items there. Many come in large packages. The public can be found there shopping too. You are not required to purchase every item. Welcome to the 90s and holy shit thanks for the journalism. I let my Costco membership lapse because it's cheaper, healthier and more pleasant to buy 1) small quantities, of 2) fresh foods, in a 3) nice store, that is preferably 4) nearby, and 5) quietly forget to buy all the other crap you don't need.
- b450 6mo agoFrasier, at a free sample station: I do thank you, but I'm afraid I'm rather particular about the provenance of my shellfish. To subject a scampi to the radiation of a microwave is not cooking, madam, it's an execution! My god, Niles, is that a '98 Chateau Latour in your cart? Niles: I've already secured six cases! They're over there, just between the Kirkland Signature Leaf Blowers and the 5 pound bags of "Kickin' Queso Jalapeño Poppers"! Martin: Oh I LOVE those, where?
- danbarak 6mo agoMy motto in life is, "If I need it and it's available at Costco, I buy it at Costco" I don't feel the need to demonstrate my unique personality through where I buy groceries.
- acheron 6mo agoI resisted joining Costco for many years, because it seemed too culty, or just too popular in general (with my assumption being that most popular things are bad). Eventually they sucked me in though, and yes, it really is good.
- deepsun 6mo agoThere was the best university in the world -- Costco University, in the movie Idiocracy.
- paulinho1 6mo agoI'm from East Asia, where every supermarket brand is basically the same aside from a few different products. When I moved to North America, this whole concept of tiered supermarkets felt really weird and exotic to me. Like, this is the most basic stuff you need, and you still need to tier it down? I'm kinda used to it now, but it still feels very American to me.
- canjobear 6mo agoChina at least has this. The stuff you get at the Ole Supermarket inside a shopping mall is different from the stuff you get from the little store facing the street on the ground floor of your apartment building.
- jerf 6mo agoAh, the terrible agony of realizing the hoi polloi aren't entirely wrong about everything after all.
- kristjansson 6mo ago> petroliferous Sent me to the shelf, but one has to appreciate the word choice. Evokes the peanut oil spilling everywhere, the reach for geologic terminology captures the lithic aspects of the peanut butter underneath.
- loloquwowndueo 6mo agoThis article seemed mildly interesting to perhaps kill 5 minutes. I clicked through only to be slapped by a cookie consent and a newsletter signup pop up, together they entirely obscure the content on mobile. Too much friction, so I decided to just close it, this saved me from wasting 5 minutes of my life reading, which I instead proceeded to use cleaning a toilet. All in all, a good outcome I would say.
- Sohcahtoa82 6mo ago> The bakery muffins really are smaller now than I remember them being as a kid Costco bakery muffins are HUGE. If they're smaller now than they used to be, I'd argue maybe that's a good thing. > They’re always in far-off places My Costco is only about 1 1/2 miles away. Literally walked there for lunch once. > the building, an aircraft hangar–size warehouse spectacle operated very much in line with casino design: a place with no outside source of light Odd, the author mentions living in Portland, and every Costco in the Portland metro area has skylights.
- stantaylor 6mo ago> They’re always in far-off places That's yet another thinly disguised case of punching down: the author wants you to know that they are not the type of person who lives close to a Costco, typically in the suburbs. This author's attitude is so tiresome.
- b0rtb0rt 6mo agothey recently stopped selling the iconic muffins, the new muffins are trash
- slumberlust 6mo agoOut of all the things I enjoy buying at Costco, the bakery section is mostly a miss. Cookies are bland and they make you buy bottom tier flavors like oatmeal to subsidize the macadamia's. Muffins are bland and tasteless. Bagels are just circular bread instead of a nice chewy outside. They also use carraway seeds in their everything seasoning, so too much licorice for my personal tastes. At .50 a pop I have no complaints on the croissants. Maybe the East coast bakery just can't compete, but I find time and time again I want to buy something yummy and can't find anything that is worth it.
- narrator 6mo agoI think the most extreme hoi polloi, kings and paupers experience I've had in the U.S is at the DMV. No matter how rich you are, you have to show up in person with everyone else, from the poorest mentally ill welfare/SSDI recipient who has to get someone to help them because they can't read the forms in any language, to the extremely wealthy. Everyone has to sit there and wait on those generic plastic chairs.
- selimthegrim 6mo agoIn many southern states the job is outsourced to private tag agents so there might be only a few actual DMV offices in big cities.
- daemonologist 6mo agoAnd in my experience this means you usually have to go to both the DMV and then across town to the tag agent.
- queuebert 6mo agoFalse: the truly wealthy don't drive themselves anywhere.
- Ifkaluva 6mo agoI will brave the downvotes and say: I don’t like Costco. It’s not out of snobbishness, their quality is excellent at excellent prices. My problem is that I find I spend more at Costco than at conventional grocery stores like Trader Joe’s. The paradox is, it’s cheaper, but I spend more. I buy things I wouldn’t normally buy, and ant higher quantities. Even worse, I somehow eat it all quite quickly. I spend more and eat more when I shop at Costco. Unfortunately that’s neither healthy for my wallet nor for my waistline.
- sasmithjr 6mo agoI love Costco, but I get it. My wife and I always joke about how we can't leave without spending at least $100, and how that's only like 7 items sometimes.
- acheron 6mo agoWe didn’t have Costco in our area when I was a kid, but iirc that’s why my parents stopped going to Sam’s Club: any money they saved on buying cheaper bulk things went into buying random extras.
- tavavex 6mo agoThe author's view is alien to me. It paints Costco as some sort of cultural retirement home. A boring place for boring people, not just a big store in a warehouse. I know that displaying brand affinity towards some companies is seen as tasteful and praiseworthy in our cultures, but I didn't realize many people extended this view to something as basic and pragmatic as the place they go to buy flour or whatever.
- jsbisviewtiful 6mo agoCostco is a store... where coffee, usually gas and most food + home goods are reliable in quality and priced well comparatively. Comparing the price of salmon fillets at Costco to Whole Foods or elsewhere is eye-opening. Would I buy clothes or furniture from Costco? No - because both are bland. The end. If the writer wants to make it anything more than that... They are a bit too obsessed with self-image vs wasting money and, dare I say, a loser for judging others over something as classist as personal finances. Feels like the write-up is just a statement piece meant to either rattle people for engagement or make the writer feel more hip than they actually are.
- triceratops 6mo ago> Would I buy clothes or furniture from Costco? No - because both are bland. The end. But they're like the gas and food at Costco - reliable in quality and comparatively well-priced. I'd buy clothes from other places if I knew where they were. Online shopping is a crapshoot and I mean that (almost) literally: they shoot crap into your mailbox. Department stores and clothes stores at the mall are overpriced for average quality. Ditto for IRL furniture stores.
- skeeter2020 6mo ago>> Would I buy clothes or furniture from Costco? Careful - even Gen-Z is looking at Kirkland clothing for certain pieces, and some furniture (like the Murphy bed I bought from them) is better when it's bland and greige
- bdcravens 6mo ago
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- sergiotapia 6mo agoI've been a costco member for more than 10 years now since it's about a 7 minute drive from my home. It's really fun to discover new things they bring in, like a flea market kind of vibe. These past 2 years it has gotten significantly worse. Too crowded. Too many people who have no common decency of not blocking the lane. And way way way too many instacart delivery people FLOORING IT to get their next item pickup and leave. Looking at their phone and bumping into people/stuff. I don't like the vibes. The one cool thing they have now is the 9am executive hours where you can go in earlier than normal. That feels more like the costco of 2016 to me.
- throw0101c 6mo agoAlways found Costco's largest source of profits interesting: > Revenue from membership fees accounts for the majority of the company's profits, accounting for over 72% of the company's net operating income in fiscal years 2022 and 2023, and 65.5% in fiscal year 2024.[115][a] * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Business_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costco#Business_model
- e40 6mo agoIt's a great model. We get the benefit of low prices, they get sustaining revenue that allows us to get those low prices.
- hn_acc1 6mo agoI always found that weird because we get like 5x our membership dues back in rewards every year, so I guess we're the exception, rather than the rule?
- throw0101c 6mo agoCould be like gym memberships: where there's a population of folks that pay but don't make use of it (and don't bother cancelling).
- dahinds 6mo agoThe claim could be true even if every customer is exactly like you. The implication is that Costco doesn't really make money selling stuff, they just need to roughly break even. And "breaking even" here includes paying rewards on purchases. The fact that you earn a lot of rewards doesn't stop your membership dues from contributing to Costco's bottom line.
- throw0101c 6mo ago> The fact that you earn a lot of rewards doesn't stop your membership dues from contributing to Costco's bottom line. It could also be similar insurance floats: premiums and claims generally even out, but they make their returns while they're holding people's money. (Perhaps it's explained in their financial statements, but I've never been curious enough to check.)
- hn_acc1 6mo agoStopped reading at "cheugy". Born near Seattle and now lives in Portland - like two of the biggest non-conformist regions out there..
- bdcravens 6mo agoI like Costco, but it also helps there's one around the corner from my house. That said, I prefer the shopping experience at Sam's, with their mobile checkout. Of course, they're currently building one just a mile from my house. :-)
- yabones 6mo agoI get the allure, but it's not for me and my partner. We live in a small apartment. We drive a small car. The pantry has a good amount of dry bulk & canned food, but we largely shop one week at a time. Sure, we could "lock in" on two or three foods, buy weeks worth of them at a time, and save some money. But like most people we like a bit of verity. It's just not possible to buy such massive quantities of things with nowhere to store them. What I want is an anti-costco. More like a bodega. Still curated, maybe a larger mark-up, but smaller quantities of everything. Half loaves of bread, small bags of frozen veg, enough sugar or flour to bake just a couple batches.
- farmeroy 6mo agosounds like you just want to live in europe (or probably anywhere outside of the US?). You can typically go buy a half (or quarter) loaf of bread from a baker, and street markets let you buy all the small quantities you want by the kilo
- gib444 6mo agoYou can even buy half a baguette from a baker in France lol (They're already relatively small!). Love it - great for single people.
- stasomatic 6mo agoOne of the few things I miss about living in Charlotte a few years back, it's the brand spanking new Lidl stores that popped up. Like mini Costcos' with decent pricing. Bright and cheery. I must've gone there daily, not least for exploring the middle mystery isle. There were Aldis' too, but they were 2 tiers below Lidl. I've been to both chains in Germany and Aldi and Lidl seemed on par there.
- ASinclair 6mo agoThe thing is you can save a ton of money on a few non-food items to make it worth it. Just over-the-counter medicines save me a huge chunk of the membership fee. Then there are just random household goods: paper products, trash bags, dishwasher detergent, etc.
- oa335 6mo agoCostco encapsulates the American Dream; offering quality, value, and fair dealing to upwardly mobile strivers from all backgrounds.
- gib444 6mo agoI've been to Costco (UK) a couple of times. It mostly seems to be: 4x the quantity for 4x the price (i.e. same price as any other store). I don't get it? I honestly think a large majority of people think it being in bulk MUST equal a saving? Is it just for like catering companies or families of 20 where the bigger size is kind of helpful? They do some nice discounts on Macs online though (can't say I'm a fan of their customer service either though based on my experience returning a Macbook)
- toast0 6mo agoI don't know about Costco UK, but there are many staple items where the 4-pack of whatever costs about 1.5 times the single pack at my local mainstream grocery store. There's also a lot of items where the local mainstream grocery store tends to have something in that category on a loss leader sale below the costco price, so if you're brand insensitive or have room to stock up when your brand is on sale, you'll do better at the mainstream grocery; since you're also shopping at costco, probably at least one of those is true. And yeah, if you have particular tastes in certain categories, chances are you need to go somewhere else.
- FireBeyond 6mo ago> They do some nice discounts on Macs online though (can't say I'm a fan of their customer service either though based on my experience returning a Macbook) That is one area where I think they're starting to crack down, here, thanks to abuse. My ex- returned a glass-topped sit stand desk after 5 years, when she finished her degree, for a full refund. "Anything wrong with it?" "No." "Any reason you're returning it?" "Just don't like it now." "Okay, here you go". And her mom, who would buy a Keurig, drink all the sample pods it came with (24-30 or so), and then return it to get a new one (and new sample pods), which blew my mind, what a pain in the ass, for that, not to mention...
- gib444 6mo agoI didn't abuse anything fwiw. I just returned it within a a few days, exercising my legal rights when purchasing an item over the internet. I wasn't that impressed with the device for the money having had the opportunity to demo it The UK has almost nowhere that would accept a return for a refund after 5 years after having rented it for free. You can barely exercise your legal rights when something breaks at year 5 of 6 (because of the burden of proof is on you that it was a manufacturing defect)
- aaronbrethorst 6mo agoI'm 43, own a home, live in Seattle, and feel attacked by this article. "every Costco shopper has a certain item or two they’re compelled to purchase on each visit" Organic, single-serving guacamole and Magic Spoon cereal for me. My toddler is obsessed with their mammoth two dollar slices of cheese pizza and talks constantly about wanting to go to Costco to have pizza with his little bestie.
- declan_roberts 6mo agoCostco is such a family friendly place. My kids love going there. They've made some deliberate decisions to make it family friendly: 1. The aisles are wide so the whole family can walk through the store together. 2. The kids love free samples 3. The food court is a great place to have an inexepensive dinner. 4. The store is designed so there's nothing really to grab at ground level if you're a little kid. Everything is up higher. Contrast this with a standard grocery store: small aisles and tons of little things on the shelf at ground level (including random toys) that can get grabbed or knocked over. Every time I take my family to Albertsons I have to pick a dozen things off the ground that we accidentally knocked off.
- aaronbrethorst 6mo agoI feel compelled to add that we took our toddler to Costco after daycare today. He had his slice of pizza, I got my guacamole and gluten-free, high protein Magic Spoon cereal. Somehow we spent $500. Everyone left happy and thoroughly exhausted.
- declan_roberts 6mo agoOnce or twice a year I have a chance to go to costco in the middle of a work day and I'm absolutely blown away at how busy the place is at that time. People everywhere young and old, even kids! Long lines and nobody is rushed. I want to live like Costco people because apparently they don't work in the middle of the day!
- al_borland 6mo agoFor several years I worked the weekend night shift. This left me with 4 free days each week to do whatever. I thought this put me on the fridges of society to some respect, and I would constantly wonder what all these people were out doing all day and why weren't they at work. I think the same thing when a majority of businesses are primarily open 9-5 when they are consumer facing. I have to assume most consumers need hours on evenings and weekends, but I guess it all works out. I suppose a decent number of people work on the weekend have have varying days off during the week and there are those who don't work for one reason or another (retirees, people with disabilities, single-income homes with more than a single person, vacation days, etc). I guess that all adds up.
- leemelone 6mo agonormcore?
- type4 6mo agoI have a really mixed feeling about Costco. I hate it, I going there, I hate the crowds, the parking, the people, being hawked a credit card, a cell phone, whatever the vendors are selling. It makes me feel like a pig in a slaughterhouse waiting to get out of the store, I feel like it's the platonic form of consumption. We all go to the nice little consumption center like good piggies to get our sustenance and to get milked further (maybe I should buy some electronics!) Yet, I keep going. I like the cranberry bread, the cheap chicken, the granola, I like not thinking about what to buy so much. I like that it's of an acceptable quality at an acceptable price. I like that I can return stuff easily without getting shit for it. I like "scoring" deals on stuff that seems like a good value.
- dolebirchwood 6mo agoI won't set foot in that place unless: (a) it's 30 minutes before closing, at which point the crowd has died down, or (b) I've toked up.
- wil421 6mo agoThe one near my office is like Mad Max Fury Road if you try to go at lunch time. Good luck getting gas much less checking out with 200+ people all trying to get back to the office.
- snark42 6mo agoI hate going there and mostly use Instacart to avoid having to, but even with a Instacart mark-up and tip it's cheaper and higher quality than most other options, happy to pay someone else to do my shopping.
- fromMars 6mo agoIs it really higher quality? I had a membership for a year and didn't find much I was interested in purchasing food wise, at least.
- 6mo ago
- tristor 6mo agoThis is kind of a weird take on Costco, but I also somewhat resonate with it. I've always seen Costco as somehow the perfect aspirational ideal of the American middle class. Personally, I love Costco, and my love for it has grown as I've become more affluent, because I can actually attain that aspirational lifestyle. On any given day in my local Costco, I'm probably the highest earning person in the store, but that doesn't matter because I want the exact same Kirkland Signature toilet paper as the next guy. As someone who often obsesses over trying to acquire the best things so that they last longer (BIFL), Costco tickles my internal register of "good enough". I don't think I've ever regretted a purchase at Costco other than occasionally upsetting my wife for getting something that wasn't on the list.
- nostrademons 6mo agoIt's interesting how Millennials seem to be embracing boring practicality as they get older. Brands like Costco, Toyota, Ikea, minivans, etc are all staging a comeback as middle-aged Millennials decide they don't have time to deal with hassles or money to pay for overpriced status symbols.
- declan_roberts 6mo agoIndeed Costco is a very practical store. You can trust most of the food to taste good because they test it first, vs a throw everything at the wall and see what sticks approach to a standard grocery store. Trader Joe's is is probably the best in this regard. The return policy also takes away a lot of concern. If you don't like it you can easily just take it back without any hassle.
- umeshunni 6mo agoThey learned their lesson from buying Allbirds shoes 10 years ago.
- eli_gottlieb 6mo agoEmbracing? Get older? This is just how my parents raised me.
- arjie 6mo agoIf I’m being honest I find a lot of this kind of stuff pretentiously performative. It’s a wholesale market with a membership fee. The food is nutritious and cheap and there are economies of scale to be had. There are no Costco people. There are no Whole Foods people. There are no Gus’s people. In San Francisco, I live a block from Whole Foods, a block from Safeway and a block past that is Gus’s. Costco is six blocks away. We go to all of these places at various times. My gym is near Gus’s. Whole Foods has the biggest selection. Safeway has Envy apples. Costco is where we get the base load of stuff when we do weekly shopping. As commentary on consumerism has filtered down from philosophy to the masses it really has become incredibly middle-brow. Copy-paste opinions about shopping substitute for any intellectual examination of food availability. Like LLM text the language is sound but the ideas are incredibly shallow shadows of the ultimate concept. It really brings home the idea that if you can’t appreciate living in an era of abundance where fruit of high quality is available throughout the year and it has been bred to high perfection and eggs, milk, and rice are practically costless compared to the past, that perhaps there is nothing that can bring you joy. All the “this is late stage capitalism where you consume consume consume without thought and reason” takes have the shape of meaning but carry nothing. They’re some kind of cargo cult mimicry of some concept. We have solved food. Costco is the solved form. $2.99/lb of chicken.
- freetime2 6mo ago> There are no Costco people. There are no Whole Foods people. There are no Gus’s people. I think where you shop and what kind of products you buy says a lot about you. For example - I have two friend groups that sometimes meet up for drinks. One group drinks craft beer, fancy wine, etc. The other drinks relatively inexpensive beers and chu-hi. The experience in the two groups is completely different - everything from the conversation topics, manners, ideals, hobbies, how much people drink and for how long, etc. In both groups I have seen someone mention that they shop at a certain store, and elicit surprise from the other group members. > In San Francisco, I live a block from Whole Foods, a block from Safeway and a block past that is Gus’s. Costco is six blocks away. We go to all of these places at various times. My gym is near Gus’s. Whole Foods has the biggest selection. Safeway has Envy apples. Costco is where we get the base load of stuff when we do weekly shopping. I actually think this says quite a bit more about you than you may think. I can probably guess which way you vote, for instance, and where you stand on a range of social issues. I can probably guess how much income you earn, and whether you have a college degree. I may be wrong - we're dealing with probabilities after all - but demographics are real.
- pembrook 6mo agoThis could possibly be the most cringe piece of coastal elite content I've ever read. Aesthetically-minded hipster writes a think piece on reluctantly aging out of high school fears of being "uncool," finally grows up and has a family, but 15 years too late. Discovers the concept of economies of scale and also that families in the center of the country who spend their weekends at Costco instead of marching at pride events might not be nazis after all...and actually it's kind of convenient to go to a big warehouse full of curated bulk items and buy shit when you have kids. I imagine its exactly the type of thing boomer hippies (the hipsters of their generation) wrote about in the 80s/90s after they realized dropping acid in nudist drum circles gets old after a while and that communes don't actually work. Just rewrite the title to "I want to live like Kmart people," and voila, you've got a New Yorker thinkpiece from 1986.
- sicvita 6mo ago> I will never buy Costco coffee—I know too much about coffee, and my allegiance to a coterie of indie micro roasters (Yes Plz subscription for life) and esoteric brewing methods has ruined me for life from enjoying the simple pleasures of a Kirkland Signature K-Cup pod. You can pry the 2-lb bags of Mayorga Cafe Cubano dark roast coffee from my cold, dead hands.
- mrbombastic 6mo agoRuta Maya is quite good as well, probably not as big of a coffee snob as the author though.
- starkparker 6mo agoAn author who lives in Portland but gets a mail-order coffee subscription from California, no less. A half-dozen indie microroasters within 2 miles of him? _Not good enough_
- nemo 6mo ago"I will never purchase Costco clothing" Much of my wardrobe is from CostCo, effective suburban camouflage as well as being fine as clothes.
- fundad 6mo ago+1 I can't think of another clothing retailer that has garments right there in front of you that you can touch and hold up to your body, the experience is far superior to just looking at photos.
- 1-more 6mo agoYou can do this at Target, Wal-Mart, The Gap (incl. Banana Republic, Old Navy), any department store (Macy's, Bloomingdales, Saks), Paul Stuart, Brooks Brothers. I'm struggling to think of anywhere you cannot do this. Did you drop some qualifier that would restrict "clothing retailer" to a smaller category?
- OkayPhysicist 6mo agohuh? Have you never bought clothing in person before? Is Costco really your only exposure to buying clothes in a physical space? Is "big shop full of clothes" an American thing no one has ever pointed out to me?
- ncrc74 6mo agoYou'll never live like Costco people You'll never do what ever Costco people do Never fail like Costco people You'll never watch your life slide out of view And then dance and drink and screw Because there's nothing else to do
- mrbombastic 6mo agoAre you sure you wanna live like costco people? https://youtu.be/ainyK6fXku0 https://youtu.be/ainyK6fXku0 (I love the Shatner version, sorry!)
- jamiecurle 6mo agoThe entire Has Been album is a great work. I have many of the songs on rotation in my daily playlist. I'm very much looking forward to his heavy metal album which lands in a few months. Obviously also, this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdUMICxLXhM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdUMICxLXhM
- giantrobot 6mo agoIn that case I'll have a rum and Coca-Cola.
- bdjxkhxhskak 6mo agoFine.
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- zabzonk 6mo agoI took her to a supermarket I don't know why but I had to start it somewhere So it started there
- 205guy 6mo ago
- motohagiography 6mo agoThe main reason i don't shop at costco is the lack of serendipity. i won't set foot in a walmart for the same reason. My expectations for any random human encounter there are net negative.
- freetime2 6mo agoWhen I lived in the US, I was a Trader Joe’s person. They had lots of interesting and gourmet-ish items at pretty reasonable prices. Not a lot in the way of fresh produce though, so needed to go to a supermarket for that. Their staff felt a bit cultish, but they were always pretty friendly and helpful so from a customer perspective it was nice. I tried Costco once and everything was too big. By the time we got to the end of anything we were absolutely sick of it.
- cwoolfe 6mo agoAcquired did a fantastic podcast about the history of Costco. https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/costco https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/costco
- gkanai 6mo agoAgreed. Recommended.
- teepo 6mo agoMy family and I recently completed this Costco 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle made by Dowdle Folk Art(1). And I have to say, I had a very similar feeling to what the author of this piece is describing. Lots of different people, all walks of life, and no words requiring a dictionary! (looking at you, "Contrapuntal") (1)https://boardwalkpuzzles.com/products/costco-treasure-hunt-1000-piece https://boardwalkpuzzles.com/products/costco-treasure-hunt-1...
- vunderba 6mo agoFrom the article: > Contrapuntal to the list of things we must buy on each visit, there is perhaps a more controversial list. That's... a very strange application of the word. I’ve only ever seen it used in the context of baroque music, interchangeable with the idea of counterpoint referring to independent melodic lines in a piece, such as you would see in Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier. Using it here feels forced and out of place.
- mannyv 6mo agoHas anyone else noticed the lack of free soda cups after they switched back to Coca-Cola products? Back in the Pepsi days there were always free cups around from people that didn't like Pepsi. Now - nada.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- jutworks 6mo agoI need that 82oz jar of Adam's at my costco
- binarymax 6mo agoMy favorite Costco story is when it opened up in my town, we joined. We were there one day and bumped into some very good friends of the family there (since passed sadly). They were talking about how they were admiring all the services offered to members, and said they considered buying a cruise vacation package, but then immediately realized “we’d just be on the ship with people from Costco”
- miek 6mo agoPSA: You don't need a Costco membership to buy from Costco.com. You pay a surcharge of 5%. A membership is $60, so if you spend less than $1200/yr on their website, it's better not to buy one.
- jccalhoun 6mo agoI've never been to Costco but there is a Sam's Club here. People talk about Costco hot dogs but Sam's Club hot dogs are pretty awesome.
- clircle 6mo agoThere's nothing appealing about costco to me anymore. Living is suburban DC... The parking lots are packed and dangerous, there's too many people in the store, the produce quality isn't there, and it takes forever to checkout. It doesn't fit my lifestyle anymore, and I'm the perfect candidate for someone that could benefit from going there once in a while.
- arian_ 6mo ago[flagged]
- anarticle 6mo agoWith dynamic pricing and other consumer predatory schemes out there, Costco feels like the only one that fights for the consumer. The checkout is lightyears faster than any local supermarket, return policies are good, and I don't feel like the warehouse is trying to waste my time. The low price of good quality meat alone is worth the price of admission. If you cook, you come out doubly saving money. "Something about the whole thing always registered to me as, like, lame—too normcore, too boring, perhaps even too cheugy to an informed and taste-driven millennial ur-consumer like me." -> What even is this? Get over yourself. Remember that the CEO of Costco wears his name tag to work, and eats the Costco hotdog like everyone else. I'd buy that for a dollar!
- Night_Thastus 6mo agoI tried to go the Costco route, but somehow it didn't click for me. The portion sizes were too large. As a household of 1, it just doesn't make sense to buy that much of most things, unless I'm sure they're almost entirely non-perishable. Maybe it would be fine for my cereal or something, but not a lot of what I buy. And, by design, they limit their SKUs a fair amount. So ultimately I end up in a situation where I can buy a couple things at Costco, but then still need to do regular grocery trips. Now I need to drive to 2 separate stores, which is extra trips there and back. The math just didn't work out. If I could truly do 100% of my grocery shopping there I would.
- rbbydotdev 6mo agowhen you consider the setup and infrastructure going to and fro the mega warehouse of dry and perishable goods, also considering the required equipment, (a sedan, or large car) - It begins to become apparent the genesis of costco largely rises out of Americas car culture and suburbia. Alternatively elsewhere, small shops, many locally owned, butchers, vendors convenience stores replace the existence of 'costco' In these facts, I dont know if its necessarily a bad thing, but there is something empty, soulless and anti social about it. Maybe a few grape tomatoes for thought between the world salad of this article, "cognitive pattern. It is a jarring thoughtscape, remarkably compelling and nondiscursive and utterly hard to shake." - That is what the author too is getting at?
- Rocka24 6mo agoCostco culture is the haze of infinite feeds, sequels, casinos with no right turns, the feeling that there is no new art, and the death of the novel. Stay repeat indulge enjoy
- JoshTriplett 6mo ago> You shift into Costco mode somewhere at the ten-minute driving mark. They’re always in far-off places, and so the last ten or twenty minutes of the drive feel like a rush Or you just order from Costco as one more store on Instacart or similar, and don't make it part of your identity. I have memories of a Costco similar to the author's, but I have no desire to ever go to a store again if I can help it.
- austinl 6mo agoFeudal Japan had a measurement called the "koku", which is roughly the amount of rice needed to feed a person for a year: about 330 lb. You can now buy 50 lb. of rice at Costco for $30, which is a few hours of work at minimum wage. To me, that is a modern marvel. I don't want people to buy things that they don't need, and I also don't like the crowds, but I can't help but feel grateful for a stocked grocery store that is accessible to basically everyone—isn't that the dream? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koku https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koku
- defen 6mo agoHistorically speaking is that "enough food to keep someone alive for a year" or "the amount of rice one person eats in a year"?
- henryfjordan 6mo agoThere's 1655 calories in a pound of uncooked rice, so with 330lbs you are sitting at ~1500 calories a day for a whole year. You wouldn't starve to death, but you'd absolutely want to supplement (both for more calories and probably for vitamins). But also you'd be eating that rice every single day pretty much, how else are you getting through that much rice?
- whyenot 6mo agoWouldn't you also need at least a little protein? and some lipids? For example, there is a lot more in Soylent than just rice flour. Oh, are we talking brown rice or white rice? That seems like it might make a huge difference, not only in nutrition, but also pooping.
- Dylan16807 6mo agoThat much brown rice will have around 12 grams of fat and 35 grams of protein. How much protein do you want for "at least a little"?
- Avicebron 6mo ago
- RajT88 6mo agoCostco is my least favorite part of middle age. Although, I do generally like their products and pricing. For some reason my wife likes taking more time there than other places we shop for food, and I get anxious to get it over with. You can bet most of the times I wander off to get things off our list that she's herself wandered off, and the Costco we go to doesn't have good cell coverage. So I then end up both anxious about spending all day shopping, and annoyed that I can't find my wife. I am sure I'm not the only one. I try to go alone, or stay in the car this happens so often.
- Carrok 6mo agoThis has nothing to do with Costco. You have described a relationship/communication problem, not a Costco problem.
- RajT88 6mo agoIt only happens at Costco. It's a Costco problem. Importantly, I am not blaming Costco for my Costco problem.
- initatus 6mo agoI figured out that when I push the cart, my wife runs all over and I struggle to keep up and navigate the cart between the crowds and it's an anxiety inducing experience trying to keep up before she turns a corner, then another, never to be seen again. When she is encumbered with navigating the cart, it's quite easy to stay nearby as all her movements have to be more considered. This also generally restricts her to the same lumbering speed as all the other carts in the store.
- wbxp99 6mo agoI like to pretend I'm driving a boat and enjoy the sightseeing and people watching. If he finds something he likes, he has to find me with the cart eventually!
- lbrito 6mo agoOnly an American could come up with an article like this, psychologizing about a supermarket. Guys. Its a supermarket with a monthly fee. Based on your monthly expenses it might or might not be worthwhile to shop there. That's about all the philosophizing there is about it.
- didgetmaster 6mo agoAs a long-time Costco member, I can relate to this story. I don't expect to find everything I need there, but buying the 'staples' there saves money. My biggest complaint has always been the enormous size of perishable items. Yes, you can buy a 10 lb bag of apples for much less than other stores; but does it really save you if almost half of it goes bad before you eat it all. Even when my four always-hungry children lived at home, we had trouble consuming many things we bought. I always thought that Costco would make a killing if they broke up their fruit bags and assembled assorted fruit baskets to sell. Buy 10 lbs, but get it as a mix of apples, oranges, grapes, and lemons. Also cut their chocolate cakes in half. They would sell more than twice as many.
- jms703 6mo agoAuthor missing out on good wine deals for no apparent reason.
- proee 6mo agoI find the quality of Costco food is lacking, especially things like Chips, which are usually quite stale. The overall experience is also off-putting, compared to a place like Whole Foods, that generally get me excited about cooking.
- ethagnawl 6mo ago> the great parking lot of dreams I don't know what Costco parking lots in the PNW are like but in the NE, they're a nightmare. People racing around, lining up and jockeying for spots, enormous carts careening around and being left ... wherever because people can't be bothered to put them back. My family has a membership but I permanently opted out after one trip to the Danbury, CT location. > otherwise you are rarely confronted by the staff here, and I like that. That is, until they try to stop you from leaving the store with your property until you show them a receipt.
- jjulius 6mo ago> ... I don't know what Costco parking lots in the PNW are like but in the NE... I live near, and commute by, one of the PNW Costcos in the PDX area the author explicitly references. I can confirm that just the mere sight of the parking lot, at all hours, has been the primary factor in my refusing to get a membership. Plenty of friends and family I trust love Costco, and I'm sure they're right and that I'd find lots to appreciate, but that damn parking lot madness is such a hump for me to get over. FWIW, I'm referring to the Beaverton Costco right next to Nike.
- wbxp99 6mo agoThat Danbury one is aggressive for sure. I've found the ones in the South Bay to be more crowded but less angry customers.
- Isthatablackgsd 6mo ago> That is, until they try to stop you from leaving the store with your property until you show them a receipt. The accountholder is required to show it, It is in Costco's terms and conditions.
- ethagnawl 6mo agoSure. That doesn't make it any less confrontational and obnoxious for me. It's one of the primary factors in my decision not to shop there.
- asdff 6mo ago
- rdl 6mo agoWhere I live (Puerto Rico) Costco is basically the only decent midrange to upper midrange store. There are a couple higher end butcher shops, but local groceries are "smart and final" or other discount-US grocery equivalent, with prices at mainstream NYC levels, while Costco is basically the same prices as most of the US, and ~70% of the selection of Bay Area Costco. Easy choice (along with Amazon and other online shopping).
- sva_ 6mo agoAs a European, I think I mostly liked Costco when I visited. But what I'll always remember is that pizza slice you can get when you leave. The amount of fat and especially salt made me feel like I'm about to have a stroke. I can totally understand how some Americans are unhealthy/obese. It was overall a great experience - 10/10 would do again. I can't imagine you could buy a pie of that shit to take home.
- onecommentman 6mo agoYou can do better with corn in bulk at a grain elevator. Takes about 8 bushels (56 pounds, 25.4 kg) to provide the calorie requirements for an adult for a year. Current price for corn in USA is $5/bushel plus transport. So $40/person/year (modulo transport, cooking, dying of pellagra, etc.). Look at Richie Rich paying $200 plus prorated membership for his subsidence calories (in white rice, no less, which is a premium starch in some Asian countries)…
- scosman 6mo agoDid anyone else read this in Anthony Bordain voice?
- ChoGGi 6mo agoWow, reading some of these comments. I think I love my Costco. If I'm grabbing an item or two and they haven't been moved I can be in and out in under 10 minutes. Lethbridge AB, some of these other ones sound like an adventure.
- salamandars 6mo agoThis whole comment section reads of Costco astroturf haha
- thatmf 6mo agoMortified that this guy calls himself a Portlander yet mail-orders subscription coffee from L.A.
- MegaDeKay 6mo ago> I love Adams crunchy peanut butter, but an 82-ounce jar is so massive and petroliferous with oil that you’d need a paint mixer to properly incorporate it all. I cannot recommend Kirkland Natural Creamy Peanut Butter highly enough. Ingredients: 100% roasted Valencia peanuts. Sold as a package of two 1kg jars.
- roncesvalles 6mo agoCostco is America's most important "third space". For many people including myself, it's a consistent weekly outing with friends, roommates, girlfriends, wife, the kids. I've even taken tourists there. Notice how almost no one goes to Costco alone, and contrast it with the supermarket, where most people now go alone. Costco is a theme park. So is Ikea.
- wbxp99 6mo agoWhat's the best deal at Costco? The aluminum foil I got for 4x the price that lasted me 20x as long seems up there.
- edwcross 6mo agoIt must be an issue with the European implementation, but I have a Costco not very far from home, and yet I never stepped inside. Because simply asking to see what it sells requires me to subscribe upfront. It's not like I cannot buy without a membership card; that is perfectly understandable. But I cannot even see what's sold inside, which prevents me from knowing if I actually want to become a member. They do have a "catalogue" of sorts... showing the prices of about 30 products or so. That's all. And the website describing the general aisles, with a few pictures. So, they want me to subscribe to something before I can even see what they have to offer? What the heck is with that? On the other hand, you can just walk straight to the food court and buy pizza, soda, and cookies, without being a member. Is this how things work in the US as well? If so, how is that justified?
- frakkingcylons 6mo agoYes it works that way in the US. You could go in with a friend with a membership or simply be reincarnated as a child of Costco members.
- JauntTrooper 6mo agoThe article had Don DeLillo vibes. > And this is where we wait together, regardless of our age, our carts stocked with brightly colored goods. A slowly moving line, satisfying, giving us time to glance at the tabloids in the racks. Everything we need that is not food or love is here in the tabloid racks. The tales of the supernatural and the extraterrestrial. The miracle vitamins, the cures for cancer, the remedies for obesity. The cults of the famous and the dead.
- jbrooks84 6mo agoI don't get it, Costco is objectively great
- alliao 6mo agoshopping at Costco reminds me of reading news in a bad way, Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect way. And it's bit of a shame because there's this already implicit trust that have formed over the years, but it just seems really hard to keep enshittification at bay. For Costco to continue they really need to up their game and make consumer their absolute fan by first stop destroying their gut health. Junk food's fine, but chicken mince honestly don't need all that additives.
- b0rtb0rt 6mo agothis article is pretentious garbage and makes me glad i no longer live in the pacific northwest
- olivierestsage 6mo agoFirst thing I did upon opening this comment thread was ctrl-F for "pretentious"
- petterroea 6mo agoLiving in Japan, I have a membership because it's a good source of western food at a cheaper price than most import shops. Good bacon and cheese isn't common over here.
- flakiness 6mo agoThe lack of real bacon is shocking for sure.
- ykl 6mo agoI wonder how many other people do this: when my wife and I do long roadtrips, we use Costcos as waypoints. Need to refuel? Costco gas is always cheaper than whatever other fill up station is nearby. Need to re-up on snacks (and maybe see what weird snacks the locals have that we don’t have back home)? Costco. Realize you forgot to pack enough socks halfway between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City? No prob, the St George Costco had the same exact socks I have at home because all of my socks are from Costco. Ran over a nail and need a tire swapped? Costco tire warranty babbbyyy. Bathroom? Costco bathrooms are very basic but always clean. In big adventure RPG games there’s always some kind of shop in every new area that is the same inside everywhere that you can reliably go to for whatever gear you need, to heal, to save your game, whatever. Costco is that but in real life.
- rconti 6mo agoHuh. It's the exact opposite of what I'd look for in a roadtrip waypoint. Gas line. Nightmare parking lot to get in and out of. Long walk to the store. Long walk to find anything. Slow checkout. I guess narrowing it to "cheap gas, availability of familiar goods and bathrooms, with an on-site tire shop" helps make it make a _bit_ more sense, but the (lack of) speed would just be a deal-killer for me.
- tonymet 6mo agoCostco is the last holdout of true American abundance. In the 90s abundance seemed everywhere, even if out of reach. The difference in quality of a service or product was clear at higher price points. Now as a rich adult I generally feel poor, even at fancy restaurants. Nearly everything feels meagre, flimsy & rationed, despite being insanely expensive. Like that scene in Jojo Rabbit where the kids are wearing cardboard uniforms . I buy 95% of my food and most of my household items from Costco. I will blindly buy any item without reading reviews. Out of thousands of purchases I can count the failures on one hand. Many ridicule Costco for being excessive. But frugal buyers can produce great value out of 25 lbs of flour, 10 lb bags of rice and so on. With proper home economics you can still eat like a king on a lower-middle-class budget. I'm very proud of the nutritious and luxurious meals I produce with what most people are paying for Doritos & Mountain Dew. I will never live out of reach of a Costco. It's the second most important factor when I live somewhere.
- Gabriel54 6mo agoI'm reading the comments here and confused by one thing... Do people here not purchase fresh fruit and vegetables on a regular basis (i.e. multiple times a week)? I am not an expert on Costco but it seems insane to visit a store the size of Costco every couple of days just to buy some tomatoes and parsley.
- ssl-3 6mo agoI usually buy ephemeral fruits and vegetables frequently, and in small quantities. So, no: I don't go to Costco for those things. That's in-and-out local grocery store stuff, not Costco trip stuff. When I'm at Costco for other stuff I might buy some produce, though. It depends on what they've got today, the status of what they have (produce quality can vary quite a lot from day-to-day in any given store), and whether I expect to be able to use all of it before it becomes gross. Mostly what I come home from Costco with is multipacks of [household-sized] canned goods, cheese (which keeps fine in the fridge), meat (to be frozen), and onions (big bag == big onions). Oh, and cat food and kitty litter. Canned V8 juice also comes from Costco at a fraction of grocery store prices. Their OTC medicine is cheap, which is important for stuff I take every day (yay pollen!). These are all things that I will use, and which I save a good deal of money on. They don't have everything. Often, they very distinctly do not have what I want. If I go there expecting to find a particular flavor of dish detergent or canned salsa, I will probably be disappointed. What they do have tends to be a very attractive combination of quality and price. Those purchases are successes. These little successes feel better than getting shafted over and over again by Kroger.
- blobbers 6mo ago"the solo adult men with AirPods in (also sold at Costco), listening to God knows what podcast: Are they thinking about a dead relative’s favorite Costco items, too?" -- this is me. I am seen.
- mostertoaster 6mo agoI love Costco. Jim Senegal (former CEO of Costco) is what I wish more CEOs were like. I have a large family, so we buy almost everything at Costco. When I was kid I was so mortified when my parents suggested to buy clothes at Costco. Now I think half my clothes come from Costco.
- carabiner 6mo agoI want to do whatever Costco people do.
- coldtea 6mo ago>The kinds of brands I like to buy aren’t what they sell at Costco If what food you buy is "brands", it's shit to begin with. Just that some of it is more expensive shit. If you want to be uppity about it, buy mostly local, fresh produce and meats, not packaged brands, as much as you can.
- gadders 6mo agoCostCo has dropped off a bit in the UK. They've oversold the memberships (which were being abused anyway) and now the stores are always crowded, often it seems with people who don't know what a shop is or who can't push a trolley in a straight line.
- TomMasz 6mo agoMy wife had the Costco membership and had a tendency to buy in quantities that were a bit much for the two of us. Our freezer was always packed. Now that she's passed, I went and got my own membership (and requisite Visa card), just for the things available there I can't get elsewhere. My goal is to try to avoid the allure of buying inappropriate amounts. We'll see how that goes.
- trgn 6mo agoi find it saddening to read things like this, it could have been written in the 20s, the 50s. there are no bulwarks, the world is more bland every day, and each time another rationalization on the way down. yet again another author fishing for sympathy for caving in. tongue in cheek of course. don't take it too seriously y'all, we're just keeping it real, nudge nudge. i want of this train. Dear snobs, all is forgiven, please come back.
- rsanek 6mo agoThis website does not respect the `prefers-reduced-motion` flag. For others that find moving elements on the screen distracting while reading, you can use the following uBlock rule: ||tastecooking.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/*.gif
- MarkusWandel 6mo agoBeing "Costco people" is easy. The quality of the product is good, the prices are good, there's little "choice paralysis" and it's all under one roof. But socially, it's like having IKEA art on your walls. You don't want to have the same thing everyone else has; as a host (if you still do that sort of thing) or potluck participant, you have to somehow differentiate yourself. Of course you can cook interesting stuff from ingredients found at Costco, but serving any kind of ready made snacks or meal items from Costco is just lame given that your guests are probably Costco-istas too.
- wesleyd 6mo agoI don’t even think Costco is all that cheap! Yes, many things are slightly - a few percent - cheaper than many other stores, per unit weight/volume, but it’s not a a big difference. Some things are more expensive though, like meat and fish. It seems “cheap” only if you do most of your other grocery shopping in premium grocery stores (eg Whole Foods). I do most of my grocery shopping in Market Basket, and it’s about the same as Costco for most things I buy. And everything comes in normal sized portions! Costco’s real benefit is that everything they sell is pretty good stuff, and nothing is outrageously overpriced. Eg They sell Goya beans, for more per can than supermarket brand beans, but less than Goya beans in supermarkets. Many things are like this. You can assume that the things Costco sells are The Good Brands, but you can get most things cheaper if you’re not brand sensitive. There are many things for which buying in bulk is a false economy: I will *ever again buy Costco-sized containers of eg yogurt covered raisins, or praline covered almonds! I suspect that every trip to Costco used to raise my average body weight for the next year by half a pound. Especially if I went to Costco hungry! Never go to Costco hungry!
- ausbah 6mo agosorry but good god what an asshole this writer sounds like. a majority of people go to costco because it’s drastically simplifies the grocery shopping experience and saves money. easier to buy for 3 weeks at a time vs once a week, reduces decision paralysis on basic goods from fake variety at the grocery store, and again for a cheaper price than most places around reducing the experience to “settling into the drudgery of middle age” scream more of a reflection of OP than any costco normal shopper
- illuminati6664 6mo ago[dead]