Our Costco dividend check arrived this week. Woohoo, almost $114!

We get this dividend for being Costco Executive Members. The gist of executive membership is simple: we pay an extra $60 a year (on top of the $60 basic membership) and we earn 2% cash back every year for our purchases at Costco (not including their gasoline stations).


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Yesterday I dropped by a Costco. Yeah, that's not blog-worthy news normally, but this is a newly opened store in the area that's been in the news for having some wild things for sale, like $3,699 bottles of wine. Well, I didn't see the super rare wine (honestly I didn't even look as I'm not in the market to pay that much) but I did see something on ( Read more... )

One of the nice things about shopping at Costco is their wide variety of ready-to-cook meals. Some of them are on the basic end of the range, like packages of pre-seasoned meat. At the opposite end are meal kits, with multiple ingredients and/or side dishes included in a package. One that caught my eye on a shopping trip two weeks ago was this ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago I saw a new beer at Costco: Früh Kölsch. Costco isn't a great place to go looking for new beers as they stock a narrow selection dominated by big brands. Narrow selection is part of their business model. Occasionally, though, they have something off the wall that probably they got a good price on. For example, last summer I found ( Read more... )

Costco has finally caught up with the times! ...The times being, in this case, approximately 2018. When I went to Costco to buy gas this past weekend I saw something new: signs advertising that the pumps now have the ability to scan your digital membership card from the app on your phone, rather than you having to slide your membership card in the ( Read more... )

On one of the discussion groups I follow about Costco someone posted this picture with an ominous comment about prices increasing due to inflation.


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On a Costco shopping trip a few weeks ago we picked up a package of Kevin's Korean BBQ-Style.


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A few weeks ago I decided to try a pre-made lasagna from the refrigerator case at Costco. No, this wasn't Costco's Kirkland brand lasagna; we tried one of those a few years ago. This is a new brand I saw for the first time and decided to try it.


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A month ago I wrote that we decided to cancel our Costco Executive Membership (and drop back down to general membership). The issue was that we hadn't bought enough at the store to make the $60 premium worthwhile. But oh, how a month can change things!


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I mentioned in our record-shattering Costco shopping trip yesterday that we spent several hundred dollar without buying any meat. One reason was that the prices were nothing special. I browsed everything in the butcher case and said, "Meh."

In the past I enjoying buying fresh steaks at Costco because of the quality. Costco sold USDA prime beef for ( Read more... )