Five Costco Mistakes All Beginner Shoppers Make

I consider myself a seasoned expert when it comes to Costco. Especially after I had a huge fumble on my first trip. I didn’t get my Costco card before trying to check out for the first time. My cart was full of items that looked good in practice but I was buying for a different, more hopeful version of myself. I threw a lot away when I didn’t eat them. Regrettably so. So take my mistakes and learn from them. Here are the five mistakes that all beginner Costco shoppers make!

Videos by Sporked

Not Getting The Loss Leaders!

A loss leader is a product that a company will sell at a loss to get you in the door. The classic example at almost every grocery store is the rotisserie chicken. Its warm, beautiful embrace is so enticing that you can’t pass it up. Costco sells two loss leaders that I actually can’t resist getting every time I stop by. The rotisserie chicken and the $1.50 hot dog combo at the food court. You’re just leaving money on the table if you don’t grab them when you’re nearby!

Don’t Buy Beyond Your Household

Trust me. I get it. As someone who lives in a household size of one, it’s incredibly easy to shop with your heart and not your brain. You are buying at bulk in Costco so you’re going to get some pretty deals. Those deals won’t do us any justice though if we’re just buying more than we can actually use before they expire. The container of donut holes sounds nice but are you going to get through them all when you have to eat 20 holes a day before they go bad? Probably not.

Not Enough Dried Goods

Your fridge and freezer only have so much space. Dried goods can be stored anywhere! You’ll want to be incredibly selected when you get to the fridge and freezer aisles at Costco. Store them in the pantry, in the cabinets, heck even under your bed if you need to! We want to save as much space in the fridge and freezer for the extremely critical―especially so, considering we’re going to use the freezer for our next tip.

Blowing Your Freezer Space

I have lived in a perpetual state of my freezer being full for the past four months. It’s a whole problem. It means I don’t have enough freezer space to use the next tip! The freezer is an important tool because it combines our last two tips. You can get more life out of a dried good by stashing it away in the freezer, particularly the baked goods from Costco. We just happen to have put out a guide on how to freeze your Costco croissants, but the tips are pretty general so you can use them for any bakery item!

Buying With Optimism

Now is not the time to turn your diet around in a sweeping fashion! You’re either going to force yourself into eating a different diet and hate your life or you’ll never even get around to it. We need to be reasonable with ourselves. Eat for the version of you that exists in this moment. You can try something new at a regular grocery store that can actually sell you one banana at a time.