Why I Broke Up With Costco

Ever found yourself wheeling out of Costco with a cart brimming with items you never planned to buy? Join me as we venture into the art of intentional grocery budgeting, where I bare all about my love-hate relationship with the mega store. I once relished the bulk buys and seemingly endless aisles, but a closer look at my receipts revealed a truth many of us overlook: bigger isn't always better for our wallets. 

As I share my personal journey of stepping away from the bulk-buying behemoth, I invite you to consider if a similar move could ease your shopping stress and bolster your budget. Remember, this is more than just about shopping—it's about making choices that serve our needs and nourish our lives, one intentional purchase at a time.

xoxo,
Rachel

Where to find me:
Instagram: @heyrachelcoons

Join me for my free training to cut your grocery bill by $600 every month: Register HERE

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:04

Welcome to the hey Rachel Coons podcast, a podcast where we embark on a journey of intentional living, smart grocery budgeting and savoring the beautiful chaos of motherhood. I'm your host, rachel, a grocery budgeting guru, california native wife, mom of four and creator of the Shop Method. Each week, we will dive into candid conversations, insightful interviews and practical tips that will not only transform your approach to money but also inspire joy in your journey. We're not just talking dollars and cents. We're uncovering the secrets to a life of abundance. So if your goal is to save some money on groceries, become intentional with your spending and find joy during this crazy season of mom life, you're in the right place. Let's tune in to today's episode. Hello and welcome back to the hey Rachel Kuhns podcast.

Speaker 1 1:01

This episode is going to ruffle some feathers. It may be my most unpopular episode, but I don't care. I'm going to do it anyway because the people who take what I'm going to talk about and really think about it and maybe change their behaviors after this will save money. I know you will. I've seen it before. I again am all about cognitive shopping, being intentional with how we shop, and I know people have different priorities. I talk about that a lot and I am not here to change your priorities or to change how you want to do things. I am just here to help you. If saving money on groceries is a priority and you get to rank where that is on your priority list, some things are going to top that, some things are going to not top that, and so it's your job to take all of the things that I share, all of the tips, all of the knowledge, all of the help that I've given my students and it's your job to take what I'm sharing and decipher where it fits on your priority level.

Speaker 1 2:14

Now just a little backstory. I grew up going to Costco. I actually was born in Kirkland, washington. If you don't know, the generic brand of Costco is Kirkland, the Kirkland signature brand, and I was born where Costco originated. So, like the head store, the corporate office of Costco was where I was born, and I lived in a town called Bothell until I was 14. So I was born and raised going to the Kirkland Costco.

Speaker 1 2:52

My mom I'm one of seven children, so we would go to Costco once every week or two. When I wasn't in school, I would go with my mom. When I wasn't in school, I would go with my mom. We would go shop and then we would get our hot dog drink combo or pizza or whatever that we all love at Costco, and then we'd go home and we'd do it every couple weeks. So I have always it's like innate in me to love Costco. I love Costco and I have nothing bad to say about them as a brand, and they carry really high quality ingredients.

Speaker 1 3:29

But as I've gotten older and I have had more of a priority to save money on groceries, I have been kind of jaded as far as what Costco offers, and I think sometimes people are manipulated into the experience of Costco and the excitement of it and they don't realize that it's actually what one of the biggest things that is making them spend so much on groceries. So again, I want you to be an informed shopper. You get to make decisions based off of the knowledge that you have, and so in this episode I just want to give you some knowledge as to, maybe, why you're spending more than you want to on groceries. And if you're shopping at Costco often and you're not doing it intentionally, it might be something that you want to reevaluate, or even reevaluate how you shop at Costco, what it looks like, what your routine looks like, so you can save money. So I'm just gonna go through some of the beefs that I have.

Speaker 1 4:32

Why I broke up with Costco, why I don't shop there anymore. I do have a Costco membership. It's actually my in-laws. He owns a business and he gets like free people on his membership. So I don't pay for my Costco membership, but I do have one and I will go to Costco. It's been months since I've been, but I'll probably go, maybe once or twice a year, maybe three times a year. It's just it's not somewhere that I use very often, and that is because, first, I am huge at staying out of the grocery store.

Speaker 1 5:06

If you want to save money, shopping online is one of the easiest ways to do that. And Costco, at this point in time, when this episode comes out, I'm going to keep my fingers crossed that they're going to change this. But Costco does not offer online ordering or pickup options, and there are a ton of stores that do for free. I'm not talking Instacart, because I know Instacart is available at Costco, but you're going to spend more on each item when you order through Instacart. But a store like Sam's Club you can order online and pick up without even going into the store. So I actually have the benefit of having a Sam's Club really close to me, and so I was able to break up with Costco, and you know, me and Sam's Club are now in a relationship because I love Sam's Club so much. So that is one of the reasons that I think Costco is really good at getting you in the store and making you spend more money than you want. Again, we talked about this in a previous episode of what grocery stores don't want you to know, and Costco does this the best.

Speaker 1 6:18

Costco is so smart about the way that they set up the way that you move through the store. Now we all know that when you walk into Costco, you walk in to like there's usually like a bunch of sale items on the right, that things are on sale like home items, batteries, lamps or whatever, and then you've got like the clothes and then the televisions and the media is all right there. So they they initially get you in without even looking at food. You're not even looking at, most of the time, what you even came there for. And how many times does that cute sweater that's only 10 bucks end up in your cart because you're walking through it. So they want to get you to spend money on things you didn't even come there for right away. You don't even get to the food items until you've walked through the store, like there's the like home good appliances and clothes and shoes and whatever, until you hit, like, the back of the store, which is like the produce usually and the rotisserie chickens, which we all know everybody should be getting a rotisserie chicken. If you're gonna go inside Costco you better be buying at least one or two rotisserie chickens for you to use later. But that's most of the time what people come for. People come for the produce, they come for the rotisserie chickens, they come for the meat and if that's you, how many times do you have items in your cart before you even get back there?

Speaker 1 7:36

Again, unintentional spending. It's things that we weren't planning on buying but we bought anyways because we went to Costco. So then you get back to the produce and it's great. The quality of produce at Costco is like the best. I mean at least the Costco's that I've shopped out. Every Costco may be a little different, but I think the produce is really good. But here's the problem how many times do we buy the produce at Costco? It comes in bulk, we get more than we need and we end up having food waste because we can't use all the produce by shopping at Costco. Now, if you had just gone to your local grocery store and purchased smaller amounts of produce, which probably has comparable quality, you know nowadays we get great produce because the world is so interconnected how much money would you save if you spent, if you bought less and didn't have food waste? So one of my issues with the produce items at Costco is most of them come in big packs. It's like the big pack of spinach You're getting six bell peppers. When you buy bell peppers You're getting eight avocados and it's just maybe too much. So if you stopped shopping there and started shopping at your local grocery store, you probably would save money and maybe not even give up quality.

Speaker 1 8:59

Now one of my other beefs with Costco. In more recent years it wasn't like this when I was growing up. But Costco is switching a lot of their items to organic only. You can only purchase the organic item of you know, grapes or celery or whatever. They don't even have the non-organic item. And again, not here to tell anybody what to do. If you are someone who wants to eat organic.

Speaker 1 9:28

Costco might be your best bet, but for me, I don't prioritize organic produce. I don't want to pay the extra cost and hopefully nobody comes at me for this because I've defended it before and I can defend my options, and so I don't want to pay the price of organic. And if Costco is only going to offer the organic option, that is a big no for me. I don't want to have to do me. I don't want to have to do that. I don't want to be forced into doing that.

Speaker 1 9:58

And they've also changed it so that it's not just produce anymore. There's a lot of food items that they've switched to organic and again, if you like organic, that might be a really good option for you. I don't, so I am not going to shop at Costco for those items. When it comes to the meat, I really do love the meat. I love that you can buy it in bulk. I think it's high quality and that's actually what I end up going to Costco for is usually to stock up on the chicken breast and the red meat and things like that. So I do, I do like Costco for that.

Speaker 1 10:31

I'm not a I'm not a full Costco hater, but something else that Costco does and we talked about this in a previous episode is their carts are massive. They have such big carts because they want you to stock up. They want you to put as much food in that cart as possible and you don't know how much you're spending. You have no idea what the total is until you get to the front and you check out and you've now blown your grocery budget for the month and you probably have too much food and you're probably going to waste a lot of it. So that's something I really don't like and something that I should dang. I should get Sam's Club to sponsor this episode. What am I doing? But Sam's Club? They actually have a thing called Scan and Go where while you're in the store, and this is genius. I love them for doing this. It probably doesn't help them financially, but as a consumer, I think this is such a great resource and I wish more stores did this. But you can scan the items in your cart and it like shows you the total as you're going through. So Sam's Club gets a big gold star for doing that, and you can't do that in Costco. Like you just don't know what you're spending until you get to the front and the way that they lay out the store, the way that they have things put up.

Speaker 1 11:54

How many times do we buy more items? I would say 90% of the people that go into Costco get more than what they expected. Costco also is constantly bringing in new items. This is so annoying is sometimes you find an item that you love at Costco and then they get rid of it for six months and you can't get it there anymore and then they bring in new items. So they're constantly like switching out what items they bring in to get you to try, cause obviously you're going to want to try the new chocolate covered thin mint pretzels if they're there, and so they're always doing that. They're always switching out items so that you try new things. It's fun. It's fun to try new items. Trader Joe's does this a lot too, where they'll bring in new items, seasonal items, so that you buy them.

Spend Less at Costco

Speaker 1 12:45

Another beef that I have is Costco doesn't offer the generic brand in a lot of items, so everyone thinks they're going to Costco to buy bulk because you're going to save money when you buy in bulk. But you're ending up having to buy the name brand in that item. And if you took that bulk and you took the price per ounce and you price checked it with your local grocery store and maybe it didn't come in as much bulk, you're not getting as big, but chances are you're going to spend less if you can buy the generic. So I don't like that. They only have those name brand items. I know there's the Kirkland brand and there's a lot of things that you can buy with the Kirkland generic brand, but there's also a lot of things that you can't buy. So when you're shopping there, just make sure that you're shopping for the items that are cheaper compared to your local grocery store, because nobody just shops at Costco, right? Most people have another store to make you feel bad. I just think you should know. You should know that they do this. They're a business, they want to make money and they're doing a really good job. Costco is doing really well and it's at the cost of us. It's at the cost of the consumer. It's at the cost of us financially. So if you are second guessing, maybe you're like wow, I didn't know that Costco did all these things. Great, now you've brought this to consciousness and you get to decide what you want to do with it. Do you want to continue shopping at Costco Awesome.

Speaker 1 14:22

Here's some things you can do to help you spend less, to help Costco not be such a budget buster that it tends to be. First, shop less. If you're someone that's going to Costco once a week, I can almost guarantee that you're spending too much. So shop less. Go once a month, stock up on the items that you love from Costco. Chances are you don't need to go more than once a month and when you do go, be really intentional. So first, be really intentional about how much you want to spend and stick yourself to it. Don't go in there thinking I'm only going to spend a hundred dollars and then start throwing things in your cart. So you have to decide.

Speaker 1 15:03

Today my priority is to stay under budget and once you do that it'll be easier to stay within those boundaries. And then, second, really don't get sucked in to the fun, flashy new items, the things on sale. Really stick to, to what is on your list. What items do you need? And obviously I think the more you meal plan and the more you shop with a list, the easier it is to stick to that list and not get sidetracked. But if you're someone who's like but I really want to try all the cool new things.

Speaker 1 15:34

Okay, cool, let's step back and look at your priorities and look at what you're spending, what you want to spend and maybe that means you put 100 extra dollars in your budget because obviously that's a priority for you. Let's put a little bit more money in your budget. I'm not using budgeting as like trying to hold you back. We're using this as an opening to financial intention and making sure that our money is going where we want. And if this is where you want to put your money, then add that money to your budget.

Speaker 1 16:06

But don't let it be a last minute decision. Don't be don't have it be a decision of like oh, I was only going to spend 200, but now that I'm here, I really want to spend 400, because then you just got manipulated by the store itself. So sit down, make an intention and say, okay, I actually want more money in my Costco budget, so I'm going to put more money in there so that I can spend. You know, I can buy the extra things that I want to. Great, now you're doing it intentionally and that's fine. Just don't let this be an unintentional thing. So those are the reasons that I don't shop at Costco, but if you're somebody that does want to shop at Costco, that's what I would do in order to stay under budget.

Speaker 1 16:43

Now, if you're like, yes, I actually have noticed that Costco is killing me and it's why I'm spending so much on groceries and I get all the snack food, I get all the things from Costco. I get home, the kids eat it right away then maybe it's time to have a chat and break up and do something different. And if this is what you need, if you need permission to not shop at Costco anymore, your world is not going to self implode. You're not going to have FOMO when your friends talk about what they got at Costco. You're going to feel. You're going to feel good. I promise there's other options. There's other places to shop out where you can get that experience that you get Costco.

Speaker 1 17:26

The Costco in my town is a zoo. It is always so busy In fact, they're building another Costco like a couple miles down the road because it's so busy and it's a stressful experience, like it's chaotic and I stopped shopping at Costco and I've never looked back because I feel like every time I go there I want to pull my hair out and it's chaotic and I stopped shopping at Costco and I've never looked back because I feel like every time I go there I want to pull my hair out and it's very stressful. Okay, I hope, if you're a Costco lover, you don't hate me and we can still be friends Because, again, I love Costco. I just have higher priorities of saving money on groceries. But I'd love to know what you think and if I maybe ruffled some feathers, we can chat about that too, and hopefully this is just helping you again be more conscious. You don't have to break up with Costco like I did. You don't have to if you don't want to, but knowing how you can spend less is also really important. So I will see you in the next episode. I will see you in the next episode.

Speaker 1 18:27

Thanks again for tuning into this episode of the hey Rachel Coons podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, go ahead and leave a review. Your feedback helps us improve and reach more listeners like you. Also, don't forget to register for my free upcoming training, where I'll be sharing exactly how my students save an average of $600 each month on groceries without giving up health or convenience. You can find the registration link in the show notes. Lastly, if you want to stay updated on future episodes and exclusive content, be sure to subscribe to the podcast and follow me on social media at HeyRachelCoons. Sharing the podcast with your friends and family is also greatly appreciated. Thank you again for your support and until next time, remember to live with intention and abundance.