The savings and pitfalls at Costco

it at $2.70 per 100g at Costco than $7 at Countdown.

This is how Costco bulk-buying works. Your onions are cheaper, but you carry out a sack of 5kg.

The challenges of this are four-fold.

The first is that while buying in bulk gets you bulk prices at Costco, it means you spend more on a single shop.

This is a challenge to cash-strapped families, as is stumping up the $60 to buy a Costco membership.

The second is that buying in bulk means you have to be able to store your purchases. That’s fine for people with large homes with large pantries, a laundry and garaging. It’s much more of a challenge for people in apartments, or smaller houses.

And the storage will require some investment for some households.

Great, buy a 25kg sack of sugar at Costco. The total cost would be about $15 cheaper than buying that through Countdown, using its largest packs, but you’re going to need an airtight tub to store it in, if you want to keep it dry and insect free. Ditto for the $49.99 22.7kg of jasmine rice.

I expect freezer sales to spike. Premium beef mince at 11.99 per kg is pretty tempting. Premium beef mince at Countdown was selling for $26 per kg on the day Costco opened. It was $18.99 at my local Pak’nSave.

I saw a woman walking out with four massive trays of fresh chicken breasts.

Countdown’s own-brand per kg price was $15 on the day. It was $14.29 at Pak’nSave. The Costco price will be $10.99. There were opening-day specials that meant the price was lower than it will be.

The frozen berries and vege were unfamiliar brands, and in larger packs, but cheaper than I’m used to.

The next challenge for households is that the more food you have in your house, the more temptation there is to eat it.

We are a society that struggles with selfcontrol.

Yes, that 1.9-litre Best Foods mayo may seem cheap, but that’s a lot of mayo to have at hand.

By nature, I’m a snacker, especially when tired. So I don’t keep chippies, cookies, and booze at home. It’s a selfdefence.

The last challenge for the shopper seeking better-value groceries at Costco is resisting the Costco ‘‘treasure hunter’’ effect.

Costco is full of nice-to-have stuff you never knew you wanted.

The toilet paper aisle, where its bestselling 48-roll toilet paper packs are stacked, is right at the back of the store, so you have to walk past the best part of 14,800m2 of temptation.

It would be so easy for all those savings to vanish in a rash of ill-thought-through purchasing decisions.