costco

Got Milk from Costco?

Costco sells Kirkland Signature homogenized milk 2×1 gallon for $3.99 and Kirkland Signature nonfat milk 2×1 gallon for $3.19. You have to buy 2 gallons at a time. No mix and match, unless you visit the Hawaii Kai Costco where you can purchase individual gallons. However, the pricing will probably be different.

Safeway advertises Lucerne Milk 2×1 gallon for $4.28 for whole, 2%, 1% and fat free. You can mix and match if people in your household prefer different types of milk, so you are not committed to buying 2 gallons of the same type of milk.

Finally, Piazza, a Palo Alto supermarket, offers Our Dairy Milk for $2.00 per gallon with coupon. You don’t have to buy two. In fact, you are limited to a maximum of 2 gallons. In this comparison, Costco has the lowest prices for milk. If your household can finish 2 gallons of nonfat milk per week, you will save $0.81 per week over Piazza’s advertised special and $1.09 over Safeway’s everyday low price. In a year, that represents a savings of $42.12 to $56.68.

Tide Laundry Detergent: Costco v. Coupon

How special are advertised specials? Usually, I just toss the marketing flyers straight into the recycling bin. However, this time, I decided to take a closer look. I buy laundry detergent from Costco under the assumption that more = cheaper. But is it?

Costco sells a 170 oz jug of Tide HE Liquid for $20.99. Actually, the true measure is loads and not liquid volume because liquid laundry detergent can come in varying concentrations. The more concentrated, the less needed. So, Tide sells for $0.191 per load from Costco.

At Target, Tide 2x Ultra HE Clean Breeze sells for $0.219 per load. Of course, neither of these two products were on sale.

Safeway will sell you Tide 2x Liquid for $0.177 per load with Club Card and coupon.

Rite Aid has tagged Tide laundry detergent with a Red Hot Specials badge. At $0.187 per load, this deal is not as special as the one from Safeway, but hotter than the price from Costco and Target.

Longs Drugs also has Tide on sale for $0.170 per load if you have their ExtraCare card. So, the winner is Longs Drugs, which beat Costco by just over 2 cents per load. If you run one load of whites and one load of coloreds each week, that’ll come to 104 loads per year. Saving $0.021 per load nets $2.18 for the entire year.

Apple iPod Touch

Apple sells the iPod Touch 8GB for $229.00 and the 16GB for $299.00.

If you don’t want to pay full retail, Costco sells the 8GB for $214.99 and the 16GB for $274.99, which is a few cents more than Amazon. I was really surprised that the iPod Touch 8GB was selling for more than $200 because it really isn’t too different from the original iPhone 8GB. Imagine that. If you upgrade from the original iPhone to the new iPhone 3GS, your 2-year-old phone has a residual value of $200. That shows how much of a game changer the iPhone really is. The touchscreen of the IPod Touch/iPhone is so intuitive that when I recently picked up an iPod Nano and iPod Classic at the Apple Store, it took me about 30 seconds to get reacquainted with the scroll wheel, which feels less than cutting edge at this point.

Crest Whitening Toothpaste + Scope

Another Target v. Costco showdown. This time, Target is having a sale!

Target sells an 8-oz tube of Crest Whitening plus Scope toothpaste for $2.99. Regular price $3.79. Is this sale item a bargain or not?

Costco sells 5×8-oz. tubes of Crest Whitening + Scope toothpaste for $12.99. If you buy 5 tubes from Target, the sale price is $14.95 while the regular price would have been $18.95.

So, even when Target has a product on sale, Costco’s regular price beats it, but only by $1.96 provided you are willing to buy in bulk.

Crest Glide Deep Clean Floss

I’m standing in the dental products aisle at Target. I can buy 1x40M pack of Crest Glide Deep Clean Floss for $3.54 or a 2x40M pack of Crest Glide Deep Clean Floss for $5.99. I don’t even need a calculator for this one. Buying the value pack costs around $2.995 per pack.

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Now, Costco sells a 6x40M pack of Crest Glide Deep Clean Floss for $12.99, which is $2.165 per pack.

Costco wins. 6x40M is around 787 feet of dental floss. If you use 1 1/2 feet of floss a day, that 6 pack will last you almost 1 1/2 years. So, while you will be saving 28% by buying a 6×40 pack instead of 3 2x40M packs, in terms of dollars, you’ll only be pocketing a difference of $4.98 excluding taxes.