Costco is at least cheaper than Makro and Booker in my experience!
Not checked but I can believe that. Croydon Makro has gone now but a battered Booker lives on.
On the car front, if you happen to live very close to a Costco, or pass one on a regular commute/journey, the membership can pay for itself in petrol/diesel savings. Auto Shenanigans did a video a while back demonstrating that it's usually not worthwhile driving further just to get to a cheaper petrol station though.
Sadly Croydon Costco has no petrol station. Shams as it is so close it is walking distance from the house even for the one who prefers to be Chauffeured !. It is possibly nearer than any petrol station. The traffic jams on the A23 Purley Way caused by Costco probably would swallow up the fuel savings though !.
Ironically our Morrisons gives us fuel off vouchers BUT the nearest Morrisons petrol station is 30+ minutes drive away in Peckham I am assured by customer services !.
Yes, and I think combined with the quantity the items are sold in. You see a 15Kg bag of rice for £x and because you're not used to buying things in that quantity you think that's a great deal, only 10p a serving. But then it you compare the unit price to just buying the rice from Asda, Costco works out more expensive, and of course you need more cash up front to bulk buy, and then need the place to store it all.
Thai rice for us and it is often cheaper especially when on offer in Morrisons or Lidl/Aldi/Sainsburys. Being a long life item (2-3 years) I keep plenty in stock.
On something recently she laughed at me for letting it go out of date - it was the manufactruered date and I checked when I retrieved it from the bin.
I'm a tap water guy also and don't get the whole bottled water thing. Costco bottled water is often stacked at the entrance and is very cheap, potentially even a loss-leader. I swear that's how a lot of people are duped into shopping there - they find one or two products which are significantly cheaper there and think the whole shop must be a trove of bargains.
For Croydon Costco the water is at the back - actually I thinl it is near the (un)loading bay and would never get further into the store. I have more than once watch a doven or so customers waiting like hawks for each pellet load to come out, they usually rip into them before the pallet has actually dropped to the floor !. Did I say this is in Croydon !.
Yeah, my mother in law is like this. During COVID, my partner and I were doing the food shop, and we switched from Tesco to Aldi. We swapped her Bisto granuals (not sold in Aldi) with Aldi own brand, and she never knew. Same also with Coco Pops, butter, and a couple of other bits and she never clicked, but benefitted from the savings. There are some things where branded vs non-branded is a significant difference though. Mayo for example, I find it really obvious when it's not Hellman's. So we're a bit of a mix of some brand loyalty with a lot of unbranded preference.
Yes waiting for Hellmans to be on offer is the way forward. But is it a proper offer - I have to alert the chief buyer. She goes mad when I start looking at the weight/volume on the label and doing mental arithmetic.
Yeah. I remember there used to be a website which let you add all your shopping and it would show you the cheapest supermarkets to buy each product. The problem is, nobody wants to go to Asda for half a dozen things, then Tesco for another half dozen, then Aldi for the bulk of the shop, etc. I'm no different. Recently I needed jam sugar, bread flour, and filo pastry, which I know my nearest Aldi don't sell, so I did the whole shop at Asda instead, because I value my time more than the cost difference in the total food shop.
Oh please tell me the website name (guilty as charged). I did do a spreadsheet before Covid - conclusion was that I should reserve certain items at certain shops for a visit one week to that shop then get other items the next week.
Being retired I suppose I now have the time. I walk to the Morrisons near me more than once a week (on avarage 2-3). I then go further afield for Lidl and Aldi near each other and opposite J Sainsburys - I will peruse all three.
Incidentally is it just me or is searching on supermarket websites horribly tedious and so easier to go there in person ?.
I think this website must have been made for my other half.
She loves nothing better than visiting supermarkets at least 5-10 times a week because "I can't get the things I want in the same place and Aldi is 20p cheaper than Lidl this week on X." She says she finds walking round the aisles quite relaxing which is an alien concept to me. I did protest at one point early on in the relationship that she was wasting her time and we didn't need to save 20p here and there, but then she mentioned that I find travelling on buses fun so I learnt to end the argument there!
I seem to be damned for being a rail enthusiast when an argument is looking like I will win.
