Doug Freyburger wrote:
> 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.

The wife and I have a Sam's membership. We use it strictly for gasoline.
We very seldom go in to the Sam's store. Sam's is only about a mile
away. You have to buy large portions of groceries at Sam's. We just use
Walmart for 90% of our groceries.