Jean B. wrote:
> Cindy Fuller wrote:
>
>> ... She said that she and Rich
>> had let their Costco membership lapse. The SO and I have debated for
>> years about the value of getting a Costco membership. I briefly had a
>> Sam's Club membership many years ago, but I let it lapse because there
>> wasn't one nearby when I moved from Dallas to Ithaca in 1986. Our
>> neighbors are big Costco aficionados, and my relatives back east are
>> devotees of BJ's and Sam's. To my thinking, a membership doesn't make
>> much sense for the two of us. We don't have oodles of space to store
>> large quantities of stuff. Anyone in a small household want to chime in
>> one way or another?
>
>... MY debate was
> whether to go for the more-expensive membership, and I decided the
> kickback was worth at least that amount.

We shop regularly at Costco. In some years we've had overlapping
memberships in both Costco and Sams Club and that wasn't worth paying
the extra fee.

Costco has better meat than any of the local groceries, less expensive
than any of the local butchers. We get most of our meat at Costco and
some at the local butcher now. They also have a lot of products that
have better price or are just not available at other stores. The larger
package size rarely matters to us. If we lived in a downtown tiny
closet sized place it might matter but we live out in the burbs.

Our question now is should we downgrade from the fancy Executive
membership to the regular membership. We don't quite spend enough in
the year for the fancy membership for pay for itself and I don't recall
using any of the other extra services. This is a function of just being
the two of us now.