OK, I did a search on Costco here and found that quite a few people love it, so I'm getting a membership in about a month.

I have a couple of questions that I hope someone can answer:

1) Do they sell unbleached flour?
2) Is any of their house brand laundry detergent dye and scent free?

I'll probably think of a few more questions because I can't wait to get there to know what they have! :D

I'm pretty sure their flour is bleached, but all Costcos are different so you might actually have luck finding unbleached flour.

I'm not sure about the house brand having dyes/scents or not. You might want to look for yourself.

I love Costco! :hamster:

I haven't found that there are a lot of things we can get there. My in-laws have a membership so when they come to visit, we go. They have great deals on guacamole, veggie burgers, frozen fruit, and silk milk (if you like it, which I don't), I also get the nature valley cereal bars there. But I find thats about all I get there, because they don't carry the recycled products I like, the vegetarian bath products I use, or the organic products I use. Everything fresh (like produce) looks beautiful but is in such large portions that my husband and I could never finish them in time before they go bad (when we have kids perhaps it will be easier!) Take a walk through the store first, tell them you are interested in membership and would like to tour the store. Make sure it will be worth your money - it is for many people, just not for me and my tiny little two-person family! :-)

I'm in a 2-person family and I agree about making sure it's worth your money cause like I said before, they're all different. In the Costcos we have, I can get canned tomatoes, canned olives, avocadoes (yes, the two of us can actually go through a 5-count bag of avos in no time at all), unshelled peanuts (the unsalted ones are my favorite), baking nuts, snacking nuts, frozen veggies (that 10 veg mix... :drool: ), portabello mushrooms and every now and again, bagged salad, 3 bean salad or artichoke hearts. Now that I found that the Kirkland line is not animal tested (washing powder, dishwasher soap and shampoo/conditioner), I'm considering getting that, too.

For us, it's very worth the price of a Costco membership.

Costco.... :smitten:

If you go there they will let you tour the place if you want to see what they have first. I'm not sure about the flour but I do know my Costco has excellent produce. Its just me & my husband so we looked around & for me the paper products alone it is worth the $45 yearly fee not to mention the cat litter since I have 5 I need it in bulk :D

None of the house brand laundry products are scent free, at least here in Washington (home of Costco), but they do sell unscented "ALL" which I realize is one of the big bad companies and all... but hey - when it's one of the few detergents your child can use, and your income is extremely limited, it's worth buying it in bulk at Costco prices at least...

Their flour is unbleached. At least the big bag I'm 3/4 of the way done with right now says "unbleached".

I also buy their paper products, coffee, hair care products for my kids, Silk, underwear and socks for my kids, batteries and cat litter, cat litter and cat litter. It's definitely a budget saver for this four-person family (1 adult-three kids).

I love costco! Mostly we get produce, pickled artichoke hearts, bread, and sometimes hummus there. :lick:

Thanks everyone for the info! I went there and got a one day pass, it was a big disappointment for me. I didn't find many of the things I had read they had.
I assumed that pretty much every Costco had the same products until you said they all have different things.
All of you people with good Costcos and cats are so lucky!!

I like Costco, myself. We recently just renewed our membership. We get bread (it comes in two loaf packages one I'll freeze for later, the other stays in the fridge), frozen vegetables, Annie's mac and cheese, cereal, frozen berries, paper products, baking soda, white vinegar, snacks, big tubs of hummus, veggie burgers, frozen and fresh ravioli, and my omni husband gets a lot of his meat products there.

you're not allowed in unless you have a membership?

You can get a one day pass to walk around and check it out, but you need a membership to buy stuff.

Did they have a good produce section?

They had an OK produce section, but not good enough to pay for the membership. Maybe they were running low on stuff when I went there and needed to restock.

If they're anything like Sam's you have one choice for each item. They don't care multiple brands. They do have a pretty good produce section though. I quit shopping at Wal Mart several months ago but I still have my Sam's membership. Never been to Costco, we don't have them here.

I went to Sam's and walked around too, Costco had a better produce section and there a few more things we could have bought. It's still not worth the membership money for us, but my mother in law has a Sam's membership and she'll give us one for free. I liked Costco a little better but I'll take the free stuff!

My mother also recently wanted to split a Costco membership with me, so I checked it out with her and we bought a few things.

At the location on the Katy Freeway in Houston I did not see any recycled paper products or anything organic. Nor was I impressed by the produce.

They did have both Silk and their own store brand of soymilk in twin packs, but they only had vanilla. They had huge bags of dried blueberries, cherries, and raspberries. They had big boxes of Morningstar Farms breakfast patties. They had quart containers of fresh hummus that I wanted to try, but not sure even the BF and I could go through that much hummus. They also had triple packs of Avomex guaco, which is a good guaco.

I also bought a twin pack of cheese ravioli that were really good and which I will try not to buy again, since I'm supposed to be cutting out the dairy. (I have a rule were I'm "allowed" one cheesy meal per week, no more, preferably less.)

Otherwise, it was pretty much a vast wasteland. I might go with her occasionally to pick up a few things, but it's certainly not worth the cost of a membership for me.

you can buy stuff at costco without a membership if you have a gift card.

(Completely off-topic: Everytime I notice the title of this thread, I read "I'm getting a Castro membership")

TnS: Unscented All is the ONLY laundry detergent i can use without getting all rashy.. :(

Anyone know if they carry Boca burgers?

Anyone know if they carry Boca burgers?

In Los Angeles they do. They also have Gardenburgers (original flavor) for l/o's who are interested.

They had quart containers of fresh hummus that I wanted to try, but not sure even the BF and I could go through that much hummus..

(*faints*)

I can go thru a Costco container of hummus all by myself in two or three days :sealed: (Should I not be admitting that?)

(*faints*) I can go thru a Costco container of hummus all by myself in two or three days (Should I not be admitting that?)

Ha ha! I just happen to like a little hummus on my krunchies, and the BF eats a lot more. Maybe it's just that we're not used to having THAT much hummus available at once. Who knows, if we started buying it, we might go through it that fast too. But when I saw it for the first time, I thought, "Wow, that's a honkin' lot of hummus."

That's one of our favorite snacks, though... "hummus & krunchies." Krunchies is my knickname for a product I buy under the name Gold'nKrackle, available in most grocery stores here in Houston. I think it's basically lavash bread, but they don't call it that.

But is Costco's hummus really creamy? I love Droubi's because it's the creamiest.

There's a reason hummus is one of the world's most popular foods...

*bump*

I know this is a big bump, but I wanted to warn you about a vegetarian (not vegan) product I bought at Costco last week. Falling Leaf Organics Spinach & Ricotta Stuffed Ravioli in the freezer case. I originally bought them because they're organic, they actually contain more soy cheese than dairy cheese, which of course doesn't make them vegan, but it may mean less dairy overall, and they sounded good. It was a huge bag, with pesto sauce packets included. The ravioli were in a giant icy block (possibly the store's fault for allowing them to partially thaw) and by the time we had them all separated, a full half of them either had holes or the seams had just come apart. They appear to be very poorly sealed. On top of that they just weren't very good! Don't buy them! :mad:

PS: In case anyone is wondering, I bought these last week before I recommitted to not bringing dairy/eggs into my home. They were already bought and paid for and sitting in my freezer, so I ate them-- at least the ones that weren't destroyed.

Hm, interesting thread. We don't have a Costco here (that I know of) but I get free BJ's membership because I'm a student. I really love buying bulk soymilk and bulk kiwis but other than that, I can pretty much leave it. *shrug* I bought some snacks the first time I was there.