Costco sells two 36 ounce bottles of Organic Blue Agave for $9.89

Easy Ways to Save Money: Shop at Costco 

This is part 1 of my review of Costco. [Don't miss Part 2 here]

I know this may seem a little off-topic for this blog, but I think there are still many families who haven't discovered the joys of shopping at bulk food warehouse stores.  Many people are turned off by the membership fees or think they just don't need a huge box of this or that.  I submit that if you have a family of 3 or more, you should definitely look more closely.  The cost savings on many items is drastic and although the selection can be limited, there are other factors that offset this such as higher quality of available items and even environmental benefits of buying bulk.

I really like Costco.  Generally speaking the shopping experience is good, although I admit that sometimes it is so crowded that you feel like you could be mowed down at any moment by a wave of oversize shopping carts.

I have the executive membership that is currently priced at $110.  One of the benefits of the executive membership is that you get 2% cash back on your purchases.  So that means that if you buy $5500 worth of things there, you will make your money back on the membership purchase.  That might seem like alot but over a year's time it could easily add up--especially if you purchase any of the many non-food items such as electronics, appliances, home and garden, furniture and much more (especially if you count what you can buy on costco.com).  There is also a regular membership that costs about half as much.  With your membership you get two membership cards, meant for two people who live together from the same family.  You need to present the card whenever you pay and when you enter the store. (You might be able to get away with going in on a membership with a friend who doesn't live with you, but it is against their policy and only one of you will get their monthly coupon mailings.)

Example of cost savings.  Today I purchased 40 Duracell AA batteries for $12.   On Amazon.com, they offer the same thing  before shipping for $21.00.  In a typical grocery store, you cannot buy this quantity of batteries at all.  Instead you'd buy maybe 12 batteries per package at most and they might cost you $11.  It is a huge difference.  Now many folks might say, "yeah, but what am I going to do with all those batteries" but in this case, Duracell guarantees their batteries to be usable for 10 years...so as long as you have a safe place to store them, this is a fantastic deal.

The "Green" of Costco - Organic and Environmentally Friendly Offerings

As I mentioned earlier there are a few reasons why shopping at Costco is good for the environment.  First of all, buying bulk items typically means reduced amounts of packaging.  Although this hasn't held true for some items, usually you are buying much bigger amounts of an item so less packing material is needed.

Secondly, Costco offers quite a large variety of natural, fair trade and organic items.  A good example is their house brand of chocolate chips which they sell for the price of $6.99 for 3.5 pounds.  These chocolate chips contain fair trade cocoa and do not have any dairy or preservatives.  They would most likely qualify to claim they are vegan as well.  They are delicious and much better quality than the comparable Nestle chips. (Although Costco also sells Nestle as well)

Cost of Organic Rice Milk At Costco

Here is another example of the savings you can garner by shopping at Costco:  If you purchase Organic Rice Milk at a regular grocery store, you might pay about 8-15 cents per ounce.     As you can see below, you will pay less than 4 cents per ounce ($1.14/quart - - on quart = 32 ounces) at Costco.  Yes, you do have to buy 12 quarts at a time, but with something like rice milk, you can definitely store it very easily and it lasts a long time.    I should mention that Kirkland is the house brand of Costco.  Most of the time Kirkland products are of very good quality and typically much cheaper than their name brand counterparts.


As I stated, there are many organic foods at Costco.  I am excited to see Costco adding more and more of these kinds of items because when they do, their buying power has strong effects in the consumer ecosystem.  They purchase huge amounts of these things from suppliers and that helps stabilize the market and reduce the prices for everyone.  Here some examples of some of the organic items you'll find in a Costco store. (BTW, if you live in central Maryland, see my blog post about other ways of getting lower cost organic fruits and vegetables at wholesale prices) I have put prices down for some of them to give you something to compare to other stores--be aware that sometimes these things come and go, plus prices do change and vary around the country, so YMMV.  Here is my current list of organic foods available at Costco--unfortunately this list isn't complete:

- Eggs (they recently stopped packaging their organic eggs in styrofoam (doh!), excellent)
- Whole and 2% Milk
- Several cuts of chicken/whole frozen chickens
- Ground beef
- Butter (2 lbs for $7.69)
- Olive Oil
- Croutons (2lbs/ 32 oz for $6.49)
- Rice Milk
- Soy Milk
- Frozen Blueberries
- Quinoa
- Spinach
- Kale
- Mixed Greens (Kale & Spinach)
- Bananas
- Frozen Corn
- Frozen Mixed Vegetables - (The flash frozen vegetables are great to have around for soups and quick sides.  The quality has been very good.)
- Stoneyfield Yogurt
- Sugar
- Blue Agave ($9.89 for two 36 ounce bottles)
- Frozen Mango
- Bread (two pack)
- Tortilla Chips
- Brown rice
- Edamame
- Mary's Gone Crackers Gluten free crackers
- 18 Rabbits Granola
- Rickland Organic Trail Mix
- Next Organics Drak Chocolate Covered Banana Coconut
- Late July MultiGrain Snack Chips
- Tasy Brand Organic Wild Berry Fruit Snacks
- Hanover Organic Ancient Grain Pretzels
- Tazo Organic Iced Green Tea
- Horizon Organic Vanilla Milk
- Apple & Eve Organics Orange Carrot Juice
- Mayorga Organic Cafe Cubano Coffee
- Carrington Farms Organic Coconut Oil
- Minsley Cooked Organic Brown Rice Bowls
- Della Organic Belends Quinoa and Rice Blend
- Gluten free Organic Black Bean Spaghetti
- Ghingi Organic Pasta
- Classico Organic Pasta Sauce
- Kirkland Signature Organic Tomato Paste (12 - 6 oz cans- $5.99)
- Kirkland Signature Organic canned Diced Tomatoes
- GreenShield Organic Laundry Detergent
- Kirkland Signature Organic Tomato Sauce
- Malibu Gardenburger Organic Vegan Burgers
- Pasta Prima Organic Spinach and Cheese Ravioli
- Sambazon Organic Acai Juice
- Better than Bullion Reduced Sodium Beef Base
- Black Chia seeds (2 pounds for $9.89)
- Several Breakfast cereals
- Sunmaid Organic Raisons (2 lbs for $8.59)
- Carrots
- Peanut Butter
- Nutiva Gluten Free Coconut Flour

Just to say a bit more about a couple of things that have come and gone:  One of my favorites that they took away without warning was the organic oatmeal...they have plenty of genetically modified Quaker oats though.  So if I was going to make any complaints about Costco, one of the top ones is that you cannot count on a product to be there for "good".  Certainly there are some reliable offerings in general, but I would say that you can mainly only count on staple foods, as I have seen all sorts of random things get removed from the lineup or replaced by a different brand over the years.

They also sell "earth friendly" products of other sorts.  For example, they offer products from the Honest Company including vegan shampoo and diapers/wipes.  They also offer environmentally friendly Costco-brand environmentally friendly dish soap and laundry detergent.

Sheet Cakes and Desserts

As someone who thinks most supermarket cakes taste disgusting, I do think that Costco's sheet cakes are definitely better tasting than most and at $18 for a half sheet cake that feeds 48 people, it is a good deal.  We have purchased several cakes for birthday parties at Costco and that have always been tasty (Having said that, they still use quite a bit of sugar and have some chemicals that everyone should do without).   They always have "stock" sheet cakes available that are quite nice or you can order a custom decorated cake by filling out a form. There are two basic kinds of cake - chocolate and white.  The white cakes are filled with 2 pounds of vanilla mousse and iced with white butter cream.  The chocolate cakes are filled with 2 pounds of chocolate mousse and iced with chocolate butter cream.   They request that you give them 1 day's notice for customized cakes.

I have created a fillable form to make ordering cakes at Coscto easier.  Click here to download the form. (If it opens up in Google's web viewer, you need to click the download icon to get to the fill-outable/printable form. Once you fill in the details simply print the page.) This definitely helps to eliminate errors because of handwriting issues!

There are also several other types of pre-made party desserts you can purchase at Costco.  For example, there are many types of non-sheet cakes you can get--they have some really delicious choices including a red velvet cake, coffee cakes, an amazing chocolate cake, cupcakes, and apple strudel.  Availability tends to shift, but you can bet there are plenty of outrageously delicious options.  You can also find some amazing frozen party desserts, such as filled pastries and eclairs as well as Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

There is more to read--Don't miss part 2 of my Costco review here.