A few disappointments I have noticed with brands Costco is carrying, I had bought pork loin occasionally for a long time and last time it was different, water injected, as are a lot of turkey, and frozen chicken breasts. I raise my own meat chickens and there is no reason to to do that other than skim a little more money off the customer. I also bought campbells mushroom soup and found it nothing like the product they use to produce , smaller cans, you no longer get a concentrate but already hydrated and lots of salt and maybe sugar to give flavour but I have to wonder if an entire can contains one mushroom minced beyond recognition? I think you really have to watch what you buy these days. Things I do like from there are the dried cranberries , multiple bread loaves ( though I am vowing to learn how to make buns , muffins and scones myself). I buy their cat food brand. As mentioned above, cooking oil and detergents for cleaning dishes and clothes . Bananas . Always disappointed there bags of onions always seem to have a few rotting so I avoid them now and last time I bought potatoes you could not see inside much but the skins were greening from light exposure. Bulk bags of spinach for most of the year when my own garden is not producing so great for greens. We split the cost between my parents and I so two households with one card and fortunately they shop a lot it seems and they give me the refund cheque yearly which is then about $250 so yes I would continue being a member for some time .

Maybe I'm not the savviest of shoppers, but I hardly ever run for "specials" although this is how my mom brought me up. I find that the $0.25 I save on granola bars there and $0.45 I save on tinfoil here are all wasted savings when I factor in my time and car gas. A it is usually Superstore and Walmart for groceries and like goods. I'm also a long time Costco member. I go there with the impression that I will usually save money on the goods I buy. Maybe I could save a bit here and there by buying the Safeway brand or the Sobeys brand, but I know I can usually pay no more for the "real" brand at Costco. If you buy big ticket items (tv, mattress or car seats for children) you usually recoup your membership cost at once.

We don't leave as close to a Costco as we used to, so our trips are more spread out but we also usually end up loading the truck up with stuff. I doubt that we would save enough on the purchase alone to make up for the membership and the gas to drive to the city, but it is usually just an opportunistic Costco shopping spree when we go in town anyway.

If you hesitate, go with a friend once and see if it would work for you.

I work at Costco and I'm new to prepping...I plan to buy specific bulk items when they go on sale there. As the deals come up I can post comments here. I can see already that peanut butter, honey and cooking oil are good deals even when they're not on sale.

I have a Gold Star membership which includes your spouse for $55 + tax per year. At that price I think it is worth it. I used to split the fees with a friend of mine. He bought the membership and used my name as his spouse. So I had my own card and never once had to shop with him. But we stopped that some years ago. I still go to Costco (it is around the corner from my place). Mostly because of the Starbucks coffee beans. Can't find it cheaper anywhere. They do have fairly good deals on lots of stuff ex: coconut oil, olive oils, flour, beer (from the Quebec side - it is sometimes less that $1 a beer). My brother (who lives on the Ontario side) gets me to buy his beer for the cottage by the cases of 50. You need to know the prices of things in order to get a deal. For example our Maxi store (affiliate of Loblaws) has sales on Royal or Cascade bathroom tissue that Costco could never beat. Maxi is my favorite for deals, but you have to read the flyers to know what is coming on sale and mostly be there on the first or second day of the sale to be sure there is some left.

I have been debating buying a Costco membership because I hear so many preppers talking about shopping there. I've been there several times as a guest but now enough to know what the really good deals are. Right now I shop the sales flyers of regular grocery stores and buy in bulk. Will I save any money by shopping there? (I know the answer will depend on if I can discipline myself not to go overboard!)

What specific things do you purchase there that make the trip worthwhile??

For example I have bought boxed potatoes. The ingredients listed were potatoes and salt. That's it - no chemicals or additives. It's convenient and the price per serving was pretty good.

Your thoughts??

Going Overboard isn't hard to do. But finding the right fix that works into prepping and living as normal as possible after an incident makes all the difference. Some people have more money then others and they can go out and buy MRE's or already made meals prepped for long term storage. But with experience and finding what works for you can make the experience fun. I'd Picked up a case of Uncle Bens Bistro meals for about $2 an entree (exp 07/2014) at Costco the other day, add with some greens or something else is a lot cheaper then the $9 or $10 for miltary style MRe's. Everything has pros and cons but putting your body in a unusual mix up makes you digestion as well as mind work harder to coop. billions of people aren't wrong when buying Rice and today it isn't that expensive, tomorrow??? What has work really well is route your inventory some things last for 20yrs but the government has made the company list a bb date. Hope this helped!

Sorry to veer off topic, I really like rice as a carb I crave but I sometimes wonder if the Americans are engineering a corn with a spermicidal agent in it , and targeting marketing 30% of the offshore corn production sales as this variety , hmm, I sometimes wonder what the Asian countries might be doing with the rice ?

Sorry to veer off topic, I really like rice as a carb I crave but I sometimes wonder if the Americans are engineering a corn with a spermicidal agent in it , and targeting marketing 30% of the offshore corn production sales as this variety , hmm, I sometimes wonder what the Asian countries might be doing with the rice ?

Almost sounds like a topic for "the fringe" lol

Sorry to veer off topic, I really like rice as a carb I crave but I sometimes wonder if the Americans are engineering a corn with a spermicidal agent in it , and targeting marketing 30% of the offshore corn production sales as this variety , hmm, I sometimes wonder what the Asian countries might be doing with the rice ?

I do agree, that it might be a good fringe topic

however I have stopped buying Asian rice years ago, I only buy the ones grown in the states, for this very reason, I may not like what folks get away with in large ag anywhere but my own research shows that the rules and regs and testing is much more controlled in the states rice growing programs then in the stuff that gets imported from China, I do have a lot of the very, very cheap china rice in buckets ( one, I use it in my dogs food) and two, I have several hundred pounds for gifting or trade if it was needed and will continue to add more)

But for my own family and groups needs, we have the more costly N.A. grown rice.