Costco

So today I went to Costco for the first time. For years I had a Sam's Club card. I first got it when I was living with my parents and was able to get a card for free through my mom's work. Back then Costcos didn't exist. At least not in Utah. Anyway, so I had a Sam's Club card, and I kept it even after moving to Minnesota, but I didn't use it very often. Occasionally I would go to get pineapple or muffins, but that was about it. So I finally told my mom to just cancel my membership. Someone, somewhere was paying for it, and it was a waste of money.

A week or two ago Kristin said that the Costco people were coming to her school and wondered if we should get a membership. I've heard excellent things about Costco for years and told her if she wanted one to go ahead. So she did.

We finally ventured to the nearest Costco (10 miles away in Maplewood) today, and, unfortunately, I was disappointed. Maybe it was the fact that so many people had talked it up so much so I was expecting something grand or spectacular, or maybe it really is just a disappointing place...but disappointing it was. It wasn't very busy at all. Everyone says "don't go there on the weekends! It's crazy busy!" It actually wasn't too crazy at all today - probably due to Mother's Day - so I can't blame that for my disappointment either.

Anyway, here are some of my observations:

First of all, the prices weren't stupendous. Now before everyone starts getting all defensive and telling me about the great deals they've found there - I'm sure there are great deals to be had. But we walked nearly every inch of that store, and I didn't see any great deals on anything I buy regularly. $8 for two boxes of cereal? I don't think I have ever spent $4 on a box of cereal in my life. The items that did seem to be good deals were either things that would spoil before we could ever eat all of it or things I would never buy in the first place.

Secondly, the selection didn't seem to be very big. I knew enough going in not to expect grocery store selection, but Sam's seemed to always have a lot more variety as far as food goes and just more "stuff" overall. It felt like more of Costco's aisles were dedicated to free sample people and large items than to useful things I would be interested in buying.

Thirdly, the layout of the store seemed haphazard and confusing. Maybe that could just be chalked up to it being our first time and not really knowing where anything was...?

On a positive note, the employees were extremely friendly...except one...but maybe she was having a bad day.

I'm not ready to trade my membership card back in yet. I am definitely willing to give the place another try, but I'm pretty sure that the only time I'll be driving 10 miles to do any kind of shopping is when we need pineapple or muffins (feels a little reminiscent of my Sam's Club days).

Anyway, in the end we left with a small box of items that cost $85 which apparently should feed us for a week since that's what I typically spend at Target for a week's worth of groceries...I'm just thinking we'll be tired of eating muffins, hummus, and pistachios before the week is up.