Pure maple syrup: Yes, I miss it, but I guess we aren’t properly middle class at this stage in our lives. We don’t have Netflix or Costco, but when I saw Krazy Coupon Lady’s 19 unbeatable deals only at Costo, I wondered if she might talk me into it.
- Maple Syrup:We make syrup with 1 part water, 1 part sugar, and 1 part brown sugar. Sometimes we make a fruit syrup with the dregs from jam bottles. It doesn’t have the complex overtones of pure maple, but it’s always hot.
- Cooking spray: don’t use really. One set of nonstick pans we bought said not to use it.
- Applesauce squeezes: What?
- Vanilla extract: For environmental reasons, I’m okay with imitation. My husband still buys real, but who does more cooking?
- Taco seasoning: We still have the can of this from when we got married 26 years ago. We would buy cinnamon, but Costco’s “Saigon” cinammon seems kind of weak.
- Nutella: We get small jars for special occasions. We already have weight struggles, so I don’t see an unlimited supply of this as a plus.
- Stretch fruit: Wouldn’t buy anyway, bad for teeth. I would buy gummy vites, though.
- Cat litter: Not my 1st world problem.
- Active dry yeast: I am a breadmaker. So much so that I get my bread stuff at an actual wholesale warehouse for that.
- Construction paper: My children are deprived. Also, you use like 4 of the colors. I guess Halloween stays popular to use up orange, brown, and black.
- Organic Spinach: I’m not really into spinach, but I do miss the tub o’ mushrooms. They used to disappear fast like the nutella, but I was less concerned about the endocrine footprint of those binges.
- Cheese: Before the cheese glut, this was more compelling. Mozzarella, in particular, was good, but my husband is always trying to eat paleo so I seldom make pizza anymore.
- Cakes: I would only buy one of these if I had an “I Love Lucy” day that coincided with a cake need. We score half price cakes at our local grocery store sometimes.
- Rotisserie Chicken: My husband doesn’t like these. We miss the turkey burger, though. My husband doesn’t like that either but me and the kids like it enough to offset that. The RC as a fast, kind of nice dinner doesn’t work for us, though. Pricing these by the pound highlights a problem with Costco: portion size inflation.
- String Cheese: This falls in the same category as Nutella. It gets eaten so fast you are basically dividing your savings by zero.
- Peanut butter: You got me on this one, though I bought the Kirkland’s natural instead of Adams.
- Carters: We actually do still buy jammies for our kid who has autism, though he’s out of their size range, and gerbers from Amazon are cheaper.
- Gift cards: We did sometimes get these, but they tended to be in higher increments than we would have gotten. Another offset between unit cost and net price, like the chicken.
- Hot dogs: Would you believe my husband thinks hot dogs are the very devil? I did sometimes get the slice pizza or fro yo.
Other things I would still get at Costco if I could afford to be picky:
- Classico pasta sauce
- Muffins: Mostly bad for you, but actully decent portion control if eaten by 1/4s.
- TP
- Breath rite strips used to be a thing for my husband. But when we quit I bought him a six pack online, and he still hasn’t gotten through them.
Necessities we can’t get at Costco:
- Kid with autism needs training pants without velcro. Only one local grocer still has these.
- Frozen mixed vegetables (beans, peas, carrots and corn).
- Yogurt without getting stuck with a row of blueberry.
- Yellow bananas and the one thing that keeps Costco from taking over the world.
http://thekrazycouponlady.com/tips/couponing/19-unbeatable-deals-you-can-only-find-at-costco/
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