Price Check: Costco-nomics

When we finally took the plunge and became Costco members two years ago, I had some lingering doubts about whether our membership would actually be a good deal. I knew it would pay for itself that first year with the savings on Brian's new glasses, but I was less sure whether it would be worth sticking with in the long term.

Well, after a year and a half shopping at Costco, I'm now in a better position to answer that question. I already figured out, after less than a year, that paying extra for the "Executive" membership was not a good value. Fortunately, thanks to the special deal offered by our Costco (which they did honor, even though we never actually got it in writing), we were able to recoup the extra $60 we'd paid for it before downgrading to a regular membership at $60 a year. So at this point, if our Costco membership is saving us at least $60 a year, it's a good deal, and we should stick with it whether we happen to need new glasses or not.

The most obvious perk of our membership is the rewards we get from our Costco credit card (which we still have even after dropping the "Executive" membership). This gives us 2% cash back on all purchases at Costco itself, 3% at restaurants, a whopping 4% on gas, and 1% everywhere else - the same base rate we get with our other rewards cards. Over the last year, all that added up to $57.35.

On the face of it, this looks like nearly enough to pay for our membership all by itself. However, the figure is a little misleading, because if we hadn't been using our Costco card for all that stuff, we would have used one of our other rewards cards, which also pay 1% cash back most of the time. In some categories, at some times, they pay 5% cash back, but whenever that's the case, we use that card rather than the Costco card. So we've never actually lost money by paying with the Costco card; the question is, how much did we really gain?

To answer that question, I consulted the handy rewards summary provided by Citibank, the issuer of the Costco card. According to this, here's where we earned our rewards in 2018:

• 4% On Eligible Gas Worldwide: $34.91. If we'd put this on any other card, we'd have earned 1% cash back, or $8.72, so our card actually saved us $26.18 in this category.
• 3% On Restaurant Purchases Worldwide: $1.26. This doesn't account for all our restaurant purchases over the year; some of them were made on other cards that were temporarily offering 5%, and some were probably put on other cards at 1% by accident. So in all likelihood, we could be getting more out of this benefit than we are, but for 2018, it saved us only $0.84—$1.26 less the $0.42 we'd have saved using a different card.
• 3% On Eligible Travel Purchases Worldwide: $0.00. Spent nothing, got nothing.
• 2% On Costco & Costco.com Purchases: $14.47. Assuming that all the stuff we bought at Costco is stuff we would have bought somewhere else using a different card at 1% cash back, our actual savings on this was $7.24.
• 1% On All Other Purchases: $6.71. This is exactly what we would have earned using any other card, so no savings here.
• Total actual savings for 2018: $34.26.

That means our total actual rewards from our Costco card came to $34.26—more than half our our $60 membership cost. Not bad, but what about the other half? Did we save enough to cover that as well?

Well, that's a little trickier to figure out, since I unfortunately did not think ahead and save all my receipts from Costco over the past year. However, I have the receipt from our most recent trip, which includes:

• Raisin bran, 14.34 pounds: $21.87. Yes, I know that's a lot of cereal. Brian was stocking up because Costco doesn't always have it, and at this time there's no other store that can meet his target price of $1.60 or less per pound. Buying the equivalent amount of raisin bran at Aldi, the next cheapest option, would have cost us $24.38, so that's a savings of $2.51.
• Birdseed, 80 pounds: $27.98. Man, can those birds eat. Leaving aside the question of whether we're really getting our money's worth in entertainment (for us and for the cats) out of all the seed we stuff into them, the equivalent amount of birdseed at Lowe's would have cost $31.96. Savings: $3.98.
• Organic raisins, 4 pounds: $10.79. (These are one of the few products we always buy organic, due to concerns about pesticide residues. Grapes are part of the EWG's "dirty dozen" list of the most contaminated foods, and drying them concentrates the pesticides still more.) The same volume at Trader Joe's would cost $11.96. Savings: $1.17.
• Walnuts, 3 pounds: $10.89. These would cost $14.97 at Aldi, the next cheapest seller. Savings: $4.08.
• Brussels sprouts, 2 pounds: $4.99. This is actually the same price as Trader Joe's; we just grabbed some since they were handy. Savings: $0.
• Canola oil, 6 quarts: $7.69. Shop-Rite price: $9.00. Savings: $1.31.
• Organic sugar, 10 pounds: $7.99. This is less than half the $17.45 we'd pay at Trader Joe's, and there's less packaging as well. Savings: $9.46.
• Clementines, 5 pounds: $5.49. We only buy these when they're on sale for around this price, so no savings.
• Total savings from this trip: $22.51.

So. on just this one trip to Costco, we saved $22.51 on a total bill of $99.54, meaning we saved about 22% of what we spent. And according to our rewards summary, we spent a total of $723.50 at Costco in 2018 ($14.47 divided by 2%). And that did not include any large, one-time purchases like Brian's new glasses, since we bought those in 2017. (I didn't get new glasses last year, though I think I'll definitely need them this year.)

So if we estimate that we're saving an average of 22% on the goods we buy at Costco, we probably saved around $159.17 on everything we bought in 2018. Add in the $34.26 in credit card rewards, and our card is netting us $193.43 per year—more than three times the cost of our $60 membership.

For us, then, the numbers tell a clear story: our Costco membership is definitely paying for itself, even in years when we don't need new glasses. Your mileage, of course, may vary. If you have a Costco membership, it's probably worth going through this exercise for yourself to get an idea of whether it's a good value for you. But if your situation is like ours—you only buy a few things at Costco, but you save a significant amount on them—it probably will be.

How our new Costco membership paid for itself

Over the past few years, I've had a sort of off-and-on flirtation with Costco. It started in 2012, when I went on a trip there with my in-laws and noticed several things we buy regularly, like organic sugar and Fair Trade coffee, on their shelves at prices much lower than we usually pay. I was intrigued, but not really convinced that we'd save enough just on those few items to offset the $55 annual cost (at the time) of a membership. And when I later discovered that I didn't really like the Costco coffee anyway, and that I could get an even cheaper sustainable brew at IKEA, that seemed to settle the question.

However, one lesson I've learned in my ecofrugal life is that value, like everything else, changes over time; what's a good deal this year may not be a good deal next year, and vice versa. (A case in point: when I first compared the long-term costs of LED light bulbs to older CFLs, I found there wasn't enough savings there to make it worth switching. However, in the years since, the price of LEDs dropped sharply, changing the equation and convincing me to spring for my first LED bulb last year.) So, in a similar vein, I've revisited the idea of joining Costco from time to time to see if there were any new developments that would make it a good deal for us after all.

Up until this year, the answer was always no. A 2014 article on "9 Items that Will Single-Handedly Pay for Your Costco Membership" piqued my interest, but a quick analysis of the list convinced me that none of these items really applied to us. Either the we could find better deals on the item in question elsewhere, or it wasn't something we were likely to buy in the first place. And while the comments section below that article outlined several other Costco deals that we thought we might have a use for some day, such as the car-buying and car-insurance programs, none of them were immediate needs, so there was no way they could justify the membership cost for us.

All that changed last month, when Brian went to the eye doctor and was told he had passed through the Great Gate of Middle Age: it was time to switch to progressive lenses. Although this doctor's office also makes and sells glasses, we knew from past experience that filling the prescription there was likely to be very expensive; the last pair he bought from an independent optician came to nearly $400, and that was for single-vision lenses. So we started looking into other options, and this report from Consumer Reports (summarized here at ClarkHoward.com) tipped us off that Costco was the best overall, with good service and prices less than half what the independent shops typically charge. (Online retailers, like Zenni Optical, were still cheaper, but their service was poor—and Brian was reluctant to entrust a complicated prescription to an online seller, where he couldn't try the glasses on and deal with any potential problems right away.) If we bought his glasses at Costco, the savings on this one purchase would more than pay for the $60 cost of membership, and anything we managed to save on groceries over the course of the year would be pure gravy.

Being cautious, we made a point of slipping into the Costco optical department first (which you're allowed to visit without being a member) to check the cost of the glasses. Once we'd confirmed that they would be about $180—less than half what we could expect to pay at the doctor's office—we went round to the membership desk, where we were offered two choices. We could get the basic membership for $60 a year, or the "executive" membership for $120, which would give us 2% cash back on all purchases at Costco. My instinct was to stick with the regular membership, since I doubted we'd get enough in benefits to pay for the extra $60, until the clerk told me the kicker: the rewards would be paid out in the form of a yearly check, for which the minimum amount would be the $60 we'd paid. In other words, if we didn't earn enough in rewards to offset the $60 annual fee, Costco would refund it. This meant the worst we could possibly do was break even—which pretty much made the deal a no-brainer.

She then offered us the option of also signing up for the Costco credit card, which would double as our membership ID and give us an array of perks:

• An additional 2% cash back on all purchases at Costco (on top of the 2% from our Executive membership);
• 3% for restaurants and travel purchases;
• 4% on gas—not just at Costco, where the lines are usually so ridiculous that we aren't even tempted by the low prices, but everywhere; and
• 1% cash back everywhere else.

We hadn't really been in the market for a new credit card, but it didn't cost anything extra with our Costco membership, and the benefits—especially that 4% on gas—looked better than any of our current rewards cards. So we figured, once again, we had pretty much nothing to lose.

So, having signed our pledge of loyalty to Costco, at least for one year, we set out to explore the store and see what kind of deals it had to offer. And the answer proved to be: some great, some pretty good, and some disappointing. For a lot of items on which Costco is reputed to offer great deals, like toilet paper, we found it couldn't touch the prices we're used to getting at Trader Joe's. Its prices on organic chicken legs were just a tiny bit less per pound, but they required buying four or five pounds at once. However, we also discovered a few bargains that actually looked like they could be worth the trip, such as:

• Organic sugar. We've long been in the habit of buying organic sugar at Trader Joe's for $1.75 per pound. Just in the past couple of months, we were surprised and pleased to find it at Aldi for $1.45 per pound. But Costco blew that price out of the water, offering 10-pound bags for $7.99—a mere 80 cents a pound. With regular sugar at about 50 cents a pound, that means sugar no longer needs a special exemption to the rule of 1.6.
• Organic raisins. Costco undercut Trader Joe's on organic raisins as well, offering a 4-pound box for $9.49, or $2.37 per pound. That beats the $2.99 we pay per pound at TJ's, and with less packaging waste as well.
• Olive oil. A 5-liter bottle of Filippo Berrio olive oil (not extra-virgin, just the cheap stuff) was $24.99 at Costco, or $5 per liter. The best we can do elsewhere is $6 per liter at Trader Joe's.
• Cereal. We've set ourselves a somewhat arbitrary limit of 10 cents per ounce, or $1.60 per pound, for cold cereal. Normally, this limits us to only one type: Aldi's raisin bran at $1.51 per pound. Costco couldn't actually beat this price, but it still met our criteria, at $1.53 per pound for a big box of Kellogg's Raisin Brain. 
• Oats. Rolled oats, which are also part of Brian's complete breakfast, cost us $2.29 for a 42-ounce can (5.45 cents per ounce) at Aldi. Amazingly enough, Costco was able to narrowly beat this price, offering a 10-pound box of Quaker Oats for $7.99 (5 cents per ounce). We wouldn't make a special trip just for that, but since we were low on oats anyway, we snagged a box and were quite chuffed with ourselves over the bargain.
• Walnuts. Typically, the best price we can find for these is around $6 a pound at Trader Joe's. Occasionally, we'll find them on sale for closer to $5 a pound—but the 3-pound bag at Costco for $11.99, or $4 a pound, was a steal. (We also found pine nuts for around $18 a pound, which is cheaper than any other store, but decided it was still more than we were prepared to pay.)
• Milk. We usually get the best prices on nonfat milk at the Shop Rite: between $2.50 and $3 a gallon, depending on the week. But at Costco, it was only $2.21 per gallon—a price we haven't seen in years. This isn't a huge enough savings to make it worth a trip to Costco every time we need milk, but we'll certainly make a point of picking some up whenever we're there.

So all in all, there are enough good deals at Costco to make it worth visiting regularly and squeezing all the value we can out of our membership. We'll see at the end of the year how much we've really used it—but in any case, it will probably be worth keeping it at least one year more, since I'm probably not more than a year out from progressive-lens territory myself.

Price Check: Beach wedding wear for (a lot) less

Last week, while researching something completely unrelated, I happened across this article from Elle: "13 Beach Wedding Dresses You Can Buy Off the Rack." Now, I'm not planning a wedding (beach or otherwise) any time in the foreseeable future, but curiosity—mostly about what's considered the proper attire for a beach wedding—led me to click through. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but the author's idea of "beach" wedding wear was frankly baffling to me. I mean, why would you wear a full-length dress with a train on a beach? You'd end up with a skirt full of sand. And the selections with elaborate lacework or beading looked calculated to attract debris.

What seemed even more ridiculous, however, was that the dresses that actually did look "beachy"—the ones that were basically nice sundresses—still cost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Scrolling through them, I found myself getting huffy, much the same way I did looking at the outdoor furniture "bargains" in the article I wrote about last month. It was playing on the same "anchoring bias" as the other article: if you think it's normal to pay upwards of $1,500 for a wedding dress—as the average bride does, according to The Knot—then calling a $700 sundress a wedding dress makes it look downright reasonable. But that doesn't change the fact that if you don't slap that "wedding" label on them, you can find perfectly nice, beach-appropriate white dresses for a lot less.

So I decided to go through the entire list Elle had provided—both the dresses that struck me as suitable beachwear and the ones that didn't—and show how it's possible to find an attractive dress in a similar style on a much more reasonable budget. Here's how their picks stack up against mine:

Elle Pick #1: First, we have this off-the-shoulder maxi dress from Self-Portrait, which, with its long train, isn't at all what I'd choose for a beach wedding. Actually, I wouldn't be inclined to choose it for any wedding, as its shapeless tent style doesn't strike me as flattering for any figure type—but even if I did, I certainly wouldn't pay £500.00 for it.
My alternative: This off-the shoulder dress from Bebe has the same full length and lacy detailing around the neckline, but in a much more shapely style, for only $89. Or, if you're on a really tight budget, you could pick this one from Xhilaration, which has the lace cutout section in the skirt rather than up top, for only $21 (marked down from $30) in the Target juniors' department.

Elle Pick #2: This tea-length, halter-neck sundress from Athena Procopiou, in a silk/cotton blend with a faint floral design, actually looks quite suitable for a casual setting like the beach—but its $680 price tag, not so much.
My alternative: Instead, how about this beachy halter dress, with some nice cutouts around the hem, for $27 (marked down from $38) at TB Dress? Or this similarly bare style, with crocheted detailing on the bodice, for only $25 (marked down from $30) at Make Me Chic?

Elle Pick #3: This strapless white column gown from Derek Lam looks, to my eyes, like nothing so much as like a bedsheet that a woman has hastily wrapped around her body upon finding herself caught in the nude. I realize it probably stays up better, but I certainly can't see what makes it worth $1,116 (marked down from $2,790).
My alternative: This doesn't really strike me as a practical style for a beach wedding, but if you like it, why not get this Natalie Deayala strapless column dress for $288 at Nordstrom? (Actually, $288 still seems pretty high to me for a dress that will be worn once—but apparently this deceptively simple style is quite tricky to sew, because I couldn't find a similar one for less. But if you don't mind something with a little more shape, there's always this strapless sheath dress from J.J.'s House for $100.)

Elle Pick #4: Next up is this Grecian-style Elizabeth and James maxi dress, with a plunging neckline in a sort of champagne color. At $425, it looks almost reasonable compared to the dresses Elle has been featuring so far.
My alternative: But it starts to look a lot less reasonable next to this Grecian-inspired dress from Asos, in a "silver shimmer" shade, for $45 (marked down from $89). Since that one's only available in size small, I also searched out this Asos dress, also in a Grecian style, for $48 (marked down from $80, available in medium and large.)

Elle Pick #5: Here's yet another highly inappropriate choice for a beach wedding: an off-the-shoulder mermaid dress from Reformation, with a full lace overlay, for $488.
My alternative: If you're determined to wear this style on the beach, you have lots of less expensive options. You can pay $247 (marked down from $560) for this very similar dress, complete with the lace overlay, from J.J.'s House; you can opt, instead, for a prom dress in the same shape with beading as well as lace, available in white, for $101 (marked down from $140) at Asvogue; or you can choose this less elaborate prom dress, with peek-a-boo lace at the shoulders and hemline, for $32 (marked down from $35) at OASAP.

Elle Pick #6: I'm honestly not even sure how to describe this silk crepe contraption from Juan Carlos Obando. It's like a basic, full-length slip dress, but with a sort of pair of ruffled baldrics that drape over the front and hold the bride's wrists loosely to her sides. It's a unique look, no doubt, but not one I'd consider worth $1,038 (marked down from $2,595).
My alternative: I'll admit, I wasn't able to find anything quite like this on any other site. However, a long slip dress is easy enough to find, like this $84 one from Lulus. Then, for that added draped layer, you can simply add a long white scarf, like this $19 one from Bebe. Or, if you really want that draped-over-the-shoulder look, you could go for this shorter dress from Asos for only $29.

Elle Pick #7: Now here's one that actually does look rather beachy: a sort of boho maxi sundress with lacy cutouts from LOVESHACKFANCY (I swear, that's how the retailer spells it). Only does it really have to be $445?
My alternative: Well, I couldn't find an identical style, but I found a couple of other white dresses with that boho vibe, including the cutouts. This longer-sleeved style is $70 at Showpo, and this daring spaghetti-strap style is a mere $20 at CiChic.

Elle Pick #8: This one, I'll admit, is rather fetching: a long, flared, strapless dress from Marchesa Notte with butterflies embroidered on the bodice and around the hem. By hand, probably, considering the $717 price tag.
My alternative: Once again, I couldn't find anything just like this, but if it's the butterfly motif you're in love with, you could go with this ballgown with blue satin butterflies on the overskirt, available for $158 from the SarahDress booth on Bonanza. (She also offers the same style with red, black, or purple butterflies.) Or there's this little $59 number from Milanoo, though it's much shorter and not strapless.

Elle Pick #9: Aaaand we're back to styles completely inappropriate for the beach, with this Michael Lo Sordo gown featuring an ultra-deep plunging neckline and a train. Despite the simple lines, spaghetti straps, and bare back, it's hardly beachwear, especially at $1,610.
My alternative: The $84 slipdress from Lulus that I mentioned above has a fairly similar style—clean lines, spaghetti straps, bare back, and deep (though not quite so outrageously deep) neckline. Or, you could go for this even more daring dress that pairs the plunging neckline and bare back with a translucent skirt, for $27 at Shein.

Elle Pick #10: Of all the dresses in the Elle article, this one seems the most bizarre choice for a casual beach wedding. Sure, this Monique Lhuillier dress has a simple column shape, but it combines that with huge, poofy, incredibly elaborate sleeves, made of sheer fabric covered in thousands of pearl beads (with more of the same on the neckline). At least you can see why this dress costs a whopping $8,995, but still, that's more than three times what we spent on our whole wedding.
My alternative: Okay, I'll admit it: this dress is unique. I could not find anything, anywhere, that was quite like it. However, I could find quite a number of dresses that had the same general kind of Italian Renaissance look and feel. For instance, this seller on Etsy offers a dress she calls the "Juliette style" (the same name as the pricey one), actually custom made by hand to your measurements, for only $195. And if you don't like that one, there are numerous other Renaissance-style gowns available from other Etsy sellers, some more costly than others.

Elle Pick #11: This frilly little two-piece ensemble by Rodarte is rather daring even for a beach wedding: a tulle bustier top and matching skirt that leave the midriff bare. More alarming still, it was priced (when it was still available) at a jaw-dropping $8,970.
My alternative: I didn't find an ensemble quite like this, but it's simple enough to find similar pieces as separates. This cropped lace camisole top is only $14 at Shein, and this lacy skirt from Asos is a good match for it at $40.

Elle Pick #12: This long, lacy prairie dress from Temperley London is in a simple, rustic style that looks appropriate enough for the beach—all except for the $1,195 price tag.
My alternative: A quick search turned up a lot of dresses in a similar style to this one, but with one catch: all of them are secondhand. This rustic style was very popular in the 70s, so if you're willing to scour eBay and Etsy, you should be able to turn up something like it at a bargain price—such as this vintage ruffled number for $88, or this classic Gunne Sax piece for $40.

Elle Pick #13: Lastly, we have this kimono-sleeve wrap dress from Reformation. At $268, it actually looks very reasonable compared to the others in the Elle article, but it still seems rather pricey for such a simple style.
My alternative: And indeed, you can get this look for quite a bit less. This $110 Topshop dress has basically the same style with a shorter, asymmetrical skirt, while this longer-sleeved version is only $50 (marked down from $80) at GCGme.

So there you have it: 13 off-the-rack looks for a beach wedding, with prices ranging from $21 to $288 rather than $268 to nearly nine grand. And if none of these particular styles happens to be to your taste, there are plenty of others to choose from, at equally reasonable prices, on the sites where they're sold.

The main difference between Elle's selections and mine is that most of mine aren't being sold as "wedding" dresses (though some are sold on wedding sites as bridesmaids' dresses). This is yet another example of how attaching the word "wedding" to anything can at least double the price. So the moral of the story is, if you're trying to wed on a budget, try to do as much as possible of your shopping without bringing the word "wedding" into the equation at all. Look for dresses, not wedding dresses; cakes, not wedding cakes; caterers, not wedding caterers. If leaving out that one word can save you a thousand or more on the dress alone, just imagine how much it could cut the cost of an entire wedding.

Price Check: Outdoor furniture for (a lot) less

I was planning to write this week's post about how we created a trellis for our raspberry canes, and how well it's been working out for us. I still plan to post about that eventually, but it will have to wait a little longer, because right now I have another bee I need to shoo out of my bonnet. It's yet another example of something that really annoys me: so-called bargains that are really anything but.

This example comes from the New Brunswick Star-Ledger insert that comes with our weekly coupon circulars. It's just a single sheet filled mostly with ads, along with a few short articles taken from the paid edition of the paper. This week, the feature article is one picked up from the Washington Post on choosing stylish outdoor furniture for your "backyard oasis." It includes several suggestions from a hoity-toity designer for different items, including sofas, rugs, shade umbrellas, and lanterns. There are two picks in each category, one marked "splurge" and a similar-looking one marked "save," to show how you can create a stylish space no matter what your budget is.

So what's the problem with this? All the "save" pieces are priced between $129 and $1,774. That's significantly less than the "splurge" pieces, but it's not what I consider budget-friendly.

So I promptly hit the IKEA website and a couple of others, looking for comparable pieces at real bargain prices. Here's how my finds stack up against the designer's picks:

Outdoor Sofa
"Splurge": Cliffside teak sofa with white cushions from Serena & Lily, $2,498
"Save": Regatta sofa with white Sunbrella cushions from Crate & Barrel, $1,794 (currently marked down to $1,618)
Really save: KLöVEN loveseat, $140, with two KUNGSö cushions in white, $70, from IKEA. Bonus: the frame is made from sustainably harvested eucalyptus wood, not endangered teak.
[UPDATE as of September 2018: This is discontinued. Try the ÄPPLARÖ outdoor sofa with cushions, $490, made from sustainably sourced acacia wood.]

Shade Umbrella
"Splurge": Tuuci Ocean Master hexagonal Aluma-Teak umbrella in natural with Java finish, from Restoration Hardware, $2,150 (currently marked down to $1,612)
"Save": Vista umbrella by Porta Forma, rectangular in natural, from Frontgate, $1,115 (currently marked down to $669) [UPDATE: This is discontinued.]
Really save: LÅNGHOLMEN umbrella from IKEA, $148.99
[UPDATE: Discontinued, but the KARLSÖ umbrella with base is available for $118.99.]

Outdoor Rug
"Splurge": 8-by-11-foot Catamaran stripe indoor/outdoor rug in black and ivory, from Dash & Albert, $574
"Save": 8-by-8-foot Trans Ocean Sorrento rugby stripe area rug in black from The Mine, $297.50 (currently marked down to $267.75). Note that this is significantly smaller than the "Splurge" rug; the same rug in a comparable 8'3"-by-11'6" size would cost $441. [UPDATE: No longer available on the same site, but you can find it at Rug Studio for $460, marked down from $700.]
Really save: 8-by-10 foot Safavieh Mati flatweave rug in black and white from Target, $221.99 (currently marked down to $177.59). Note that this same rug is also available at Overstock.com for $175.99.
[UPDATE: Overstock no longer has this rug, and Target has raised its price to $369.99, currently marked down to $351.49. This 8-by-10 Belham Living Savannah Wide Stripe Area Rug from Walmart is significantly cheaper, at $189.99, currently marked down to $59.01.]

Outdoor Chair
"Splurge": 1966 lounge chair by Richard Schultz for Knoll in white with white mesh and strap, from Knoll, $1,427
"Save": Kingsley-Bate Tivoli club chair in cream from authenTEAK, $820 (currently marked down to $738). Note that the article appears to have the "splurge" and "save" picks mixed up, but I checked the prices and the Tivoli chair is cheaper.
Really save: LACKO outdoor armchair in gray from IKEA, $45. (If you object that this chair isn't white like the others, the VÅDDö outdoor chair in white is only $25, but it doesn't have arms.) [UPDATE: IKEA now offers the INNAMO armchair in white for $35.]

Outdoor Candle Lantern
"Splurge": Teak stainless rope lantern from homenature, $350 [UPDATE: Discontinued.]
"Save": Wood-and-rope lantern, tall, from West Elm, $129
Really save: Burgess indoor or outdoor wood lantern from Pebble Lane Living (via Amazon Marketplace), $49.99. If you don't mind a smaller wooden lantern without the rope, you could get the Zings & Thingz weathered wood lantern from Wayfair for $19.99; if you don't particularly need it to be wood, you can get the BORRBY lantern in black from IKEA for just $7.99.
[UPDATE: The Pebble Lane lantern is discontinued, but a similar one from Craftmore sells for $29.99.]

The juxtaposition of the "splurge" and "save" picks in the article is an example of the anchoring bias (covered in my article on cognitive biases for Money Crashers). Basically, when the first price you see for an outdoor umbrella is $2,150, an umbrella priced at a mere $1,115 suddenly looks like a really good deal. But if you saw the $1,115 umbrella on its own, your reaction would more likely be, "Over a grand for an umbrella?"

So I hope the addition of my picks, which are not just cheaper but much cheaper, helps counter the anchoring bias for you and shows what a stylish outdoor room on a reasonable budget can look like.

Money Crashers: 11 Things You Can Get for Free

My latest Money Crashers article is about something everybody loves: free stuff. There are lots of articles out there about "freebies," of course, but this one's a little different: instead of telling you where to find a coupon code for a free movie download or a free sample of hair gel, I talk about how to cover major expenses - food, housing, clothing - on a budget of nothing. This article discusses, among other topics:

How extreme couponing can whittle your grocery bill to nothing
How (and when) to dine out for nothing
How to get new-to-you clothes in exchange for your old ones
How to get a free ride to work every day
How to get free cell phone service
How to enjoy free books, music, video, and live entertainment
How to get free flights, car rentals, and accommodations

Naturally, this involves a bit of creativity, and in some cases, a bit of luck. You won't be able to use this article to shrink your entire household budget to zero. But you'll pick up some interesting ideas that you may not have known before, and if even one of them is useful, it can make a big dent in your budget. And even if none of them is useful, reading about them should provide a bit of entertainment—also for free.

Here's the article: 11 Things You Can Get for Free – How to Get Free Stuff

Money Crashers: Is a Warehouse Store Membership Worth It?

My latest post at Money Crashers is a detailed look into the pros and cons of shopping at warehouse stores. You all know this is a subject I've felt torn about ever since we visited Costco with my in-laws one Christmas and I got a gander at their prices on organic sugar and Fair Trade coffee beans. Was it worth paying an entry fee of $55 a year just to gain access to these bargains? Would we spend enough at the store to make the cost worthwhile—and would the array of cheap luxuries tempt us to spend more than we would at our usual grocery haunts?

For us, I've concluded, the answer is probably no, especially since I've determined that (a) Costco's house brand coffee is undrinkable, and (b) all the items that are supposed to be such unbeatable bargains at Costco are as cheap or cheaper elsewhere. But what's true for us isn't necessarily true for anyone else, so my new article goes into the pros and cons of warehouse stores and the various factors that might make a membership a good deal for you. And I also talk about how to get the most value out of your membership if you do decide to join. Check it out here: Is a Warehouse Store (Costco, Sam's Club, BJ's) Membership Worth It?

Ecofrugal Living podcast #10: 9 ways to beat Costco at its own game

Here's the lastest Ecofrugal Living podcast, based on the blog entry for July 30, 2014.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Price Check: Organic savings? Not so much

Early this year, the Dollar Stretcher site ran a story called, "Using the Web to Reduce the Cost of Organics." Naturally, this headline grabbed my attention right away, because eating organic, using the Internet, and saving money are a few of my favorite things (cue The Sound of Music score). So I perused the article and then checked out the three sites it recommended for eating organic on a budget. Sadly, though, I didn't find any of them particularly helpful—and at least one looked actually counterproductive.

The first site was called Organic Deals. It's basically a coupon site like CouponMom.com or The Krazy Coupon Lady, but it specializes in coupons for major organic brands and retailers. The biggest problem with it is the same one I have with such sites in general: most of the available coupons are for highly processed and packaged foods, such as cereals, baking mixes, and frozen meals and sides. Unfortunately, these are exactly the types of organic food that, at least based on my observations, tend to cost a lot more than their conventional equivalents. A bag of Alexia sweet potato fries may cost only $3.24 with a coupon as opposed to $4.49 without it, but a pound of whole sweet potatoes for $1.16 is still a much better deal. Not to mention that it doesn't leave you with all that packaging waste to dispose of.

(Now, to be fair, Organic Deals also lists a few deals on whole, fresh produce, but these are mostly at a store called Sprouts Farmers' Market, which is based in Phoenix and doesn't extend into the Northeast or most of the Midwest. If you're lucky enough to have a Sprouts store in your area, it's probably worth checking out, as there seem to be some really nice deals there. But in most cases, they're just sale prices, so you don't need Organic Deals to help you find them.)

The second site, Abe's Market, is an online grocery store that deals in natural and organic products. According to the Dollar Stretcher article, the site has a loyalty program that lets you earn points for shopping and cash them in for savings on future purchases. However, when I checked the site, I could find no information about this program. The site did offer a "Best Price Pledge," promising to refund the difference if you could find the same price for less anywhere else—but unfortunately, the types of products sold here are bound to be expensive anywhere. Like the ones advertised on Organic Deals, they're mostly processed foods rather than whole foods: crackers, fruit leathers, baking mixes, chocolate. Also, they appear to be mostly obscure, high-end brands—so while Abe's may guarantee you that its price of $20 for three is the best you'll find for New Tree Pleasure Dark Chocolate Bars, that's still a lot more than the $2 a bar you'll pay for the Organic Truffle Bar at Trader Joe's.

The third site was the most dubious of the lot. Called Find A Spring, it helps you locate sources of fresh spring water in your area. The article said this was a great deal because "many of us pay for drinking water," which is true—but no one in this country actually needs to pay for drinking water. We can get perfectly drinkable water right out of the tap for free, or virtually free. Municipal drinking water, in fact, is subject to far more rigorous safety standards than bottled water. Moreover, blind taste tests of bottled water in New York City, Boston, and Cleveland show that to most people, it also tastes as good or better.

The Dollar Stretcher article claims that spring water is better than tap water because, first of all, it "contains many natural minerals that are mechanically or chemically removed by your city's municipal water supply," and second, it "has high levels of hydrogen, which is the main antioxidant in water." The first claim is clearly inaccurate: according to this page on water quality from Duke University, "few brands of bottled water offer a significant amount of minerals." The second one is trickier, partly because it's confusing. If the author is suggesting that spring water has "high levels of hydrogen" because it contains more than two hydrogen atoms per oxygen atom, that's ridiculous; if it did, it wouldn't be water. More likely, she's talking about hydrogen gas that's dissolved in water. I did a little searching and managed to locate one or two papers (here and here) that suggest hydrogen-infused water may indeed be linked to better health outcomes in mice and rats. It's a big jump from there, however, to saying that drinking it will reverse health problems in humans. Moreover, when I tried to find out whether spring water was a good source of dissolved hydrogen, the only info I could find was about sulfur springs, which contain hydrogen sulfide—which the Water Research Center describes as poisonous and foul-smelling. It's definitely not something you want to drink more of.

What scientists do agree on about water and health is that the most important thing is to drink enough of it. I'd say it stands to reason that you're likelier to do this when you can simply turn on the faucet to get some than when you have to haul it home in jugs from some remote area. Moreover, most of the sources listed on Find a Spring aren't really free; you have to pay for access to the land, in addition to hauling home the water yourself. This doesn't seem like a money-saving strategy to me.

So this article was pretty much 0 for 3 in terms of useful advice. Instead, I'll be sticking with my tried-and-tested strategies for saving money on organics:

1. Prioritizing my organic purchases. My biggest concerns are animal welfare and the impact of factory farming on the environment, so I make a point of buying all my meats organic, as well as rainforest products like coffee and cocoa. Other products, like grains, I'm more willing to let slide if it'll save me a buck. If your reasons for eating organic have more to do with health than ethics, you might prefer to choose your organic purchases based on the Environmental Working Group's latest report on pesticide residues in produce.
2. Cooking from scratch as much as possible. With a few exceptions, like breakfast cereal, Brian and I tend to eschew processed foods and buy mostly whole foods that we can turn into meals and snacks in our own kitchen. This saves us money on the foods we buy organic, and it also saves us money on the ones we don't—leaving us more leeway in the grocery budget to splurge on the organic foods we really care about.
3. Comparison shopping. I keep a price book that shows what all the stores in our area charge for foods we buy regularly, from apples to yeast. I track the price for whichever version of the product we buy most often, organic or conventional. This means that (a) I know which store to go to when we run low on something, and (b) if something goes on sale, I know whether it's a good enough price to make it worth stocking up.
4. Buying in bulk. The best example I can think of is baking cocoa, which we buy five pounds at a time from Dean's Beans. A five-pound bag costs $45, or nearly $55 with shipping, which is about $11 a pound—but buying Fair Trade, organic cocoa in a store would cost us closer to $18 a pound.
5. Buying store brands. Lots of stores now have their own lines of organic products, which rival the cost of name-brand conventional versions. Indeed, as I showed back in June, many of the organic goods sold at Aldi can whip the prices of their conventional competitors hollow.

Yeah, organic food does cost more. But if you shop sensibly, it doesn't have to cost a lot more.

Price Check: Health and Beauty Items (Aldi vs. Rite Aid vs. Stop & Shop)

Last week, I embarked on a little investigation into Aldi's prices for health and beauty products, in response to an article on Daily Finance showing that Aldi charged much more for these types of products than other chains. I checked the store's prices for ten health and beauty products I use on a regular basis and found that, if there was a store brand available, it was likely to be a good deal, but if there wasn't, the only option was usually a midrange brand selling for a midrange price. This made it clear that Aldi isn't nearly as great a deal for health and beauty products as it is for foodstuffs, but it didn't tell me the whole story. Were the prices of the non-Aldi brands really higher than the prices of similar items at other stores, and if so, by how much? The Daily Finance article showed, for instance that Aldi's prices in the health and beauty section were nearly twice as high as those at Stop & Shop; would the prices at my own local Stop & Shop bear out that finding?

To answer this question, I took my little shopping list of health and beauty items to two other stores. First, I checked the prices on all the items at Stop & Shop; then, since I tend to buy these sorts of items at drugstores rather than supermarkets, I checked my local Rite Aid as well. In every case, I looked for the lowest-priced brand available at the store, without considering quality or ingredients.

The results, I have to say, were quite surprising to me. Here are the numbers for all three stores, with the cheapest one in italics:

Multivitamins: Aldi, store brand, $3.79/100
     Stop & Shop, store brand, $8.49/100
     Rite Aid, store brand, $7.49/100 ($6.74 with Wellness Plus)

Toothpaste: Aldi, Crest, $2.89
     Stop & Shop, Crest, $2.19
     Rite Aid, Ultra Brite, $1.00

Deodorant: Aldi, Old Spice, $2.99
     Stop & Shop, Speed Stick, $2.49
     Rite Aid, Suave, $1.99 (on sale, $3 for 2)

Shampoo/conditioner: Aldi, Pantene, $3.69
     Stop & Shop, VO5, 99 cents
     Rite Aid, VO5, $1.27

Ibuprofen: Aldi, store brand, $1.99/100
     Stop & Shop, store brand, $6.99/100
     Rite Aid, store brand, $7.49/100 ($6.74 with Wellness Plus)

Cotton swabs: Aldi, store brand, $1.39/375
     Stop & Shop, store brand, $1.99/100
     Rite Aid, store brand, $2.49/100 ($2.24 with Wellness Plus)

Bar soap: Aldi, store brand, $2.49/3 bars
     Stop & Shop, Dove, $2.49/3 bars
     Rite Aid, Ivory, $1.99/3 bars (on sale, buy one, get one half off)

Body wash: Aldi, Dove, $5.39/24 oz.
     Stop & Shop, Great Value (ultra cheapo generic), $2/24 oz.
     Rite Aid, St. Ives, $4.99/24 oz. (on sale, buy one, get one half off)

The first thing you'll probably notice is that, whenever Aldi had a store brand available, it beat the pants off the best price at the other two stores—even if they were store brands also. That's not the surprising part. What I didn't expect to see was that, for half the items on the list, the best price at Rite Aid was higher than the best price at Stop & Shop. Rite Aid typically had a much larger selection, but even so, its bottom-priced item could only beat the supermarket's half the time. And moreover, in cases where the cheapest item at both stores was a store brand, Stop & Shop beat Rite Aid two rounds out of three. Even ibuprofen, the one thing on the list that's an actual drug, was cheaper at the supermarket than it was at the drugstore.

Moreover, in cases where both Rite Aid and Stop & Shop carried the same brand, it was usually cheaper at the Stop & Shop. Sometimes Rite Aid had an alternate brand that was cheaper, like Ivory soap, but Dove at Rite Aid was pricier than Dove at Stop & Shop. Indeed, compared to Rite Aid's, Aldi's prices for non-store-brand same items didn't actually look all that bad. Crest at Aldi is more expensive than the obscure Ultra Brite brand toothpaste, but it's cheaper than Crest at Rite Aid. 

So what I learned from this experiment is that it's probably a mistake to look to the drugstore first for my health and beauty products. Yes, if there's a specific brand I need, I'm likelier to find it at the drugstore—but if the supermarket has it, it'll probably be cheaper there. (And, of course, if Aldi has a store-brand equivalent, that's probably the cheapest of all.)

Price Check: What not to buy at Aldi

As my regular readers will know, I'm a big believer in Aldi. For those who aren't familiar with that name, Aldi is a bare-bones supermarket that sells mostly its own store brands. You won't find any frills there like free samples, free bags, or even free shopping carts; if you want a cart, you need to pay a quarter deposit to unlock it, which you get back when you return it after shopping. (This ensures that most shoppers return their carts, and the few that aren't returned get picked up by other keen-eyed shoppers eager to save a quarter, thus sparing Aldi the cost of paying employees to go round up stray carts.) The chain doesn't accept either coupons or credit cards; it's cash, debit, or SNAP (a.k.a. food stamps) only.

For those who are willing to put up with these minor inconveniences, however, Aldi offers some fantastic bargains. When Brian and I first discovered the chain, about five years ago, we were blown away by how cheap the breakfast cereals were, even compared to other store brands. (Aldi's Millville Raisin Bran is only $1.60 a pound, a price we never find elsewhere without stacking sales and coupons.) From cereal, we gradually branched out into other staple foods, including oats, peanuts, chocolate chips, cheese, and more recently, OJ and milk. Produce is less consistent, as prices vary from week to week, but when they're good, they're better than anyplace else's. I would venture to guess that buying our staples at Aldi probably saves us more money on our grocery bill than any other shopping strategy we use.

So you can only imagine my surprise when I came across a story today at Daily Finance saying that Aldi isn't the cheapest chain to shop at. In fact, in a comparison of six discount retailers, it's actually one of the worst. The study, done by Kantar Retail, compared prices for 21 products, including "edible grocery, non-edible grocery, and health and beauty aids." For the entire basket, Dollar General came out on top, closely followed by Walmart and Family Dollar. Aldi fell second from the bottom, with only Target doing worse.

How did this happen? A closer look at the numbers shows that Aldi's Achilles heel is apparently health and beauty aids. In the "edible" category, Aldi actually beat its competitors handily; its foodstuffs rang up at only $11.40, while its competitors' prices ranged from $13.20 to $14.79. Its prices for "non-edible groceries" were middling: $12.44 on a scale that ranged from $9.26 to $19.97. But for health and beauty, it came in dead last, at $14.05—nearly three times as much as the $5 total for the same items at the two leading stores.

It was comforting to know that we haven't been overspending all these years buying our edible groceries at Aldi, but I was still puzzled to see that it did so poorly on health and beauty. I haven't tried very many items in this category from Aldi, but the few that I have bought, like multivitamins and facial cleanser, have all looked like really good deals. Unfortunately, the press release on the Kantar Retail site doesn't say exactly what items the researchers included in their market basket, and I'm not willing to pay for a copy of the full report just to satisfy my curiosity. But since we already had a trip to Aldi planned for this evening, I figured I could do the next best thing: come up with my own list of health and beauty items that we buy regularly and check the prices for myself.

After a quick search of our bathroom, I jotted down a list of 11 items: multivitamins, toothpaste, deodorant, bandages, shampoo, conditioner, ibuprofen, antihistamines, cotton swabs, bar soap, and body wash. (That's probably more than the Kantar researchers included in their basket, but I figured it couldn't hurt to be thorough.) After we finished our regular shopping at Aldi, I went to hunt down these additional items and check their prices.

It took me a while to find the "health and beauty" section, since it was quite small and tucked away at at the end of an aisle. Even once I managed to track it down, there were a couple of items on my list that didn't appear to be on the shelf at all. But as I scanned the items they had, I quickly realized why Aldi's prices on them were so much higher than the other stores': unlike most of the items sold at Aldi, they were nearly all name brands. There were a few Aldi-branded items, under the label "Welby Health," and these actually did appear to be competitively priced: $1.39 for 375 cotton swabs, $3.79 for 100 daily multivitamins, and $1.99 for 100 ibuprofen tablets. But most of the items were well-known name brands, like Old Spice deodorant ($2.99), Pantene shampoo and conditioner ($3.69), Dove body wash ($5.39), and Crest toothpaste ($2.89). Moreover, in most cases, there was only a single name brand available, so consumers shopping for these items at Aldi can't compare prices and choose the cheapest option. The only choices are take it or leave it.

So it looks like a better answer to the question of what you should and shouldn't buy at Aldi, in order to get the most bang for your buck, is simply, "Buy the store brands." Any of Aldi's house brands—Millville cereal, L'Oven Fresh baked goods, Simply Nature organics—is likely to be a better deal than you'll find anywhere else. However, for the few products at Aldi that are name brands only, you're almost certainly better off looking elsewhere.

Price Sensitivity (or, the $16.72 Quart of Ice Cream)

Last week, as you may recall, I wrapped up my $1-a-day local shopping challenge with a trip to the library, where I picked up a copy of The Economic Naturalist by Robert H. Frank. I'd paged through the book before, so I was familiar already with a lot of the ideas discussed in it. When I read through the whole thing at once, however, I found one concept that seemed to come up over and over again was "price sensitivity." What this means, in a nutshell, is that some shoppers—like me, and, if you're reading this blog, probably like you as well—care much more about how much things cost than other shoppers. But it's a bit more complicated than that, and it has a great deal of influence on the actual prices we pay for just about everything.

Here's an example. Let's say the World Wide Wicket company (famously portrayed in the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying) can produce wickets for $1 apiece. Their factories are capable of producing 5 million wickets a year, and their goal, obviously, is to make as much money as they possibly can for those wickets. The problem is, not all buyers are willing to pay the same price for a wicket. There may be as many as 2 million potential buyers out there who just want the best-quality wickets they can get, and they're willing to pay as much as $10 per wicket for them. However, there are an equal number of buyers who aren't willing to pay that much. Maybe they're on a tighter budget, or maybe they just don't have as urgent a need for wickets, but for whatever reason, these "price-sensitive" buyers won't spend more than $5 per wicket. And there may even be another million shoppers out there who normally wouldn't want to buy wickets at all, but they could be persuaded to if they were an especially good deal—say, $2 per wicket.

What should the company do in this case? If they set the highest possible price for their wickets, $10 each, then they'll only sell 2 million of them, making a $9 profit on each one, for a total of $18 million. If they drop the price to $5 each, they'll sell twice as many, but for only half as much per wicket. Minus their production costs, they'll make only $4 each on the 4 million wickets they sell, for a profit of only $16 million. And if they drop the price to $2 each, they can sell all 5 million wickets they make, but they'll only make a dollar on each one, for a measly $5 million profit.

Under the circumstances, it looks like the $10 price is the best one. But that will leave an awful lot of the World Wide Wicket company's production capacity going to waste, and an awful lot of buyers who would be willing to buy wickets at a lower price will be going without them. What the company would really like to do is charge customers different prices based on what they're willing to pay—$10, $5, or $2 per wicket. Then they could sell all the wickets they make and earn the maximum possible profit. But they can't just mark some wickets at $10 and others at $2 and pile them all on the same shelf, or everyone will buy the $2 wickets and leave the $10 ones. So how can World Wide Wicket charge the appropriate price to each buyer?

Well, as it turns out, there are a lot of different tricks companies can use to squeeze the maximum profit out of non-price-sensitive buyers while still selling their products, at a lower profit, to price-sensitive ones. For example:

• They could set the regular price of their wickets at $10 each, but also hold sales once or twice a year in which the price drops to $5 or lower. Non-price-sensitive buyers, who don't mind paying $10 a wicket, will buy at retail price, while price-sensitive ones will wait for the wickets to go on sale before they buy. This is why so many department stores seem to have sales on different items every month; they can rope in the deal-seekers during these sales and still sell the same items at full price to the spendthrifts during the rest of the year.
• They could offer their wickets for $10 each, but charge a special reduced rate for slightly damaged wickets. You may have seen the "scratch and dent rooms" at major appliance retailers, where they keep the still-working appliances that have been damaged during shipping or display. Price-sensitive buyers will happily accept a fridge with a small dent on one side (which may end up against the wall anyway) in order to get it for half price. In fact, Frank notes that back when Sears pioneered the scratch-and-dent sale, there were rumors that Sears had employees in the warehouses deliberately hammering small dents into perfectly good appliances so that they could be included in the sale. These appliances could have been sold at full price, but only if there were enough non-price-sensitive shoppers willing to buy them; by deliberately scuffing them up, the store could sell them to price-sensitive buyers without lowering the price they charged to non-price-sensitive ones.
• They could set the regular price of their wickets at $5 each, but sell them at an inflated price of $10 each in locations where non-price-sensitive shoppers are likely to find themselves in need of wickets (such as, presumably, on croquet courses). This is the same technique used by hotels when they stock their minibars with $3 chocolate bars that you could buy at the corner drugstore for 50 cents. Price sensitive buyers will shake their heads at these ridiculous prices and trot round the corner to the drugstore, while non-price-sensitive ones will just pay the inflated price to avoid the trouble. By hitting the less price-sensitive lodgers with higher prices on extras like minibar items (or dry cleaning, or other services), hotels can in effect charge these customers a higher rate for the room, while still advertising a low rate to attract the price-sensitive folks. Similarly, airlines will advertise low fares to appeal to price-sensitive travelers, but then charge extra for meals and headphones.
• They could charge $10 for their wickets but offer a $5 mail-in rebate. Less price-sensitive buyers will consider it too much trouble to mail in the rebate form, while price-sensitive ones will use it to get the wickets at a price they consider reasonable.

After reading this book, I found myself noticing examples of this sort of differential pricing in my daily life. For example, on Friday, as I passed by the local Baskin-Robbins, I noticed a sign outside offering "pre-packed quarts, 2 for $9.99." It only took a moment of mental math to realize that this worked out to $5 per quart. By contrast, a 1.5-quart container of ice cream at the local supermarket sells for anywhere from $2.49 for the store brand to $4.49 for Edy's—that is, $1.67 to $3 per quart. However, as Brian pointed out, customers at Baskin-Robbins wouldn't be comparing the price of the ice cream quarts to the supermarket price; they'd be comparing it to the price they'd pay buying it by the scoop, which is $2.09 for a 4-ounce scoop. Since 4 ounces is half a cup, that works out to $16.72 per quart. Compared to that, $10 for 2 quarts looks like a real bargain.

This price structure separates the price-sensitive chaff from the non-price-sensitive wheat; the least price-sensitive buyers will just go in and order a cone apiece, because they came here to go out for ice cream and, by gum, they are going out for ice cream, even if it costs 10 bucks to feed the family that way. More price-sensitive buyers may decide instead to pick up a couple of packed quarts; that way, for that same $10, the whole family can have double scoops tonight and tomorrow, too. And the most price-sensitive buyers of all will see the "2 for $9.99" sign, realize that's more than twice what they'd pay at the supermarket, and make a half-mile detour to pick up a container of the store brand ice cream for $2.49.

So the good news, for all us price-sensitive folks, is that there's usually a way to pay less than full price for just about anything. It may involve waiting for a sale, or comparison shopping online, or going half a mile out of your way for ice cream, but it's usually there if you look for it. The bad news is that the lower price almost certainly won't be easy to find—because it if were, everyone would be paying it. But that's actually good news too, because it means that the bargains are being distributed in the fairest possible way. To get the lowest prices, you don't have to be rich (which would be absolutely unfair, since rich people need them least) or have special connections (which would still be somewhat unfair, because most people would still be shut out from the lower price). Instead, the best deals go to those who are most willing to work for them.

In other words, when it comes to bargains, seek and ye shall find—because it's in the seller's interest if you do.

Price Check: 9 ways to beat Costco at its own game

Recently, in my peregrinations about the Web, I came across an article called "9 Items that Will Single-Handedly Pay for Your Costco Membership." I read it with interest, since this is an issue on which I've personally gone back and forth repeatedly. Back in 2006, I used a free day pass to check out BJ's Wholesale Club and concluded that the prices there weren't good enough to offset the membership fee. However, in 2012, I visited Costco with my in-laws and discovered that this club offered much better deals than those found at BJ's, including great prices on Fair Trade coffee and organic sugar, which could make the cost of membership worthwhile. But then, when I finally tasted the Costco coffee, I found that I didn't like it at all, so I flipped back to my original position: for us, a Costco membership wouldn't pay for itself. Now here was this financial blogger, Joel Larsgaard, claiming to have identified nine different items that could each pay for the cost of a membership all by themselves. Could he be right? Might this article be the key to justifying the membership fee after all?

Sadly, the answer was no. I read through the list and found that most of the items on it were things we either don't buy at all or don't buy nearly often enough to justify paying $55 a year for a better deal. Moreover, for most of them, I could immediately think of alternatives that would cost just as little as Costco's price, if not less, and without the membership fee. So here's my line-by-line list of 9 Items You Can Get for Even Less than They Cost at Costco:

1. Tires. Larsgaard starts off his list with the question, "Where’s the last place you got new tires? If it wasn’t a warehouse club you probably paid too much." Well, as it happens, I just bought three new tires last month, and I got them for 27 percent less than the price quoted by my trusted local mechanic. The tire they recommended, the General Altimax (one of very few tires that's available in the correct size for our Fit), wasn't familiar to me, so I went to check out some customer reviews of it at TireBuyer.com—and I discovered that the price there was over $30 less per tire. When I asked Schwartz and Nagle about the price difference, they admitted quite candidly that they couldn't compete with the prices of a "tire wholesaler" like TireBuyer, and they thought it would be perfectly reasonable to order from there and have the tires shipped to them for installation. (The fact that they didn't try to talk us out of it is one of the reasons I love these mechanics so much.) So, even with the cost of shipping, I saved $95 on just three tires, which is better than the "$70-80 off certain brand of tires at different times of year" Larsgaard says you can get at Costco. (Even he admits that buying tires online is a "legitimate" alternative to getting them from Costco, though he recommends TireRack.com instead.) Moreover, when I went to the tire finder at Costco.com to see what their price would be on the same tires, I found that they don't offer them—or any other tire sized for a Honda Fit. So if you drive a Fit, you can't save a penny by buying tires at Costco. Next?

2. Lunch. Larsgaard says Costco makes "a fantastic place for a date": just stroll around munching on free samples, then top it off with a big 1/4-pound hot dog and a frozen yogurt from the lunch counter for just a couple of bucks. The problem with this for us is that I don't eat meat unless it's free-range, which I assume a $1 hot dog is not. For those who do, I'll admit, the Costco cafeteria looks like probably the cheapest place you'll ever find to go out for lunch—but as several folks point out in the comments below the article, you don't actually have to be a member to eat there. (Note, however, that according to this post on LifeHacker, nonmembers can use the lunch counter only if it's located outside the main store, so you don't need to show your member card to get in.) Alternatively, you could just put together a picnic lunch of some home-baked bread (47 cents), Aldi string cheese (93 cents), and a bar of IKEA chocolate (99 cents) for the same "just over $2" you'd spend at Costco, and take it down to the park to eat, say, on a blanket beside a lake. That seems like a much more "incredibly romantic" date to me than chomping on a hot dog at a noisy lunch counter.

3. Movie tickets. According to Larsgaard, these are a little-known deal at Costco: $17 or less for a pair of tickets, as opposed to the $11-$13 per ticket you'd pay at the theater. That's a significant savings, to be sure, but there are plenty of ways to see a movie for even less. For instance, you can go to a discount theater, if there's one in your area, and pay as little as a dollar per ticket; you can go to a preview screening for free; or, my favorite, you can take home a DVD from your local library, snuggle up on the couch, and skip all the annoying previews, screaming kids, sticky floors, and overpriced snacks. You can even pause the film when you want a bathroom break, rather than climbing over the laps of several disapproving strangers.

4. Baby formula. Larsgaard calls this "probably the sickest value proposition Costco offers," costing less than half what you'd pay at the grocery store. Obviously, this is a savings only for those who have a baby to feed. But if you do, you'll save significantly more by breast-feeding. Trent Hamm of The Simple Dollar calculates the cost of a year's worth of formula at over $1,700; by contrast, a good breast pump, which makes breast-feeding feasible for a working mom, only costs about $225. You'd have to cut the cost of formula by over 80 percent to beat that. (Of course, there are all sorts of other considerations to factor in when choosing between breast-feeding and bottle-feeding, and every mother has to make the choice based on her own individual situation. However, if you're looking at the question strictly in terms of cold, hard cash, the breast definitely wins. (How often do you see that phrase in print?))

5. Luggage. Larsgaard says Costco gave him a great deal on his last purchase of luggage: just $100 for "two fantastic pieces" with a lifetime guarantee. I'll admit that, if you have a genuine need for two new pieces of luggage, this deal is pretty hard to beat. But how often do you actually need to replace your luggage? I've been using the same carry-on bag for over ten years now, and while I'm not exactly a frequent flier anymore, it certainly got plenty of use when I was flying across the country to visit Brian several times a year. And when it finally gives up the ghost, I'll probably replace it with a simple duffel bag like this $45 one from L.L. Bean, which is lightweight, fits in most luggage bins, and is also backed by an unconditional lifetime warranty. I guess if you're a real frequent traveler, you might need something more elaborate, but even so, if the luggage Larsgaard bought is really built to last a lifetime as he claims, then it's only a one-time savings. At best, this purchase could offset the cost of his membership for one year–not every year. So perhaps if you happen to need a new set of luggage, it's worth getting a membership for one year just for this purchase (and then get as much use out of it as you possibly can before it expires).

6. Guarantees. Luggage isn't the only purchase that Costco backs with a money-back guarantee; according to Larsgaard, they actually pledge to refund the full cost of your membership at any time if you're dissatisfied. I think that's a commendable policy, but I don't see how it can actually "pay for the cost of your membership." If you keep your membership, then you don't save anything; if you rescind your membership, you're back to where you started. The only way to actually come out ahead would be to sign up for a membership, buy lots of stuff at a discount, and then ask for your money back, which seems unsportsmanlike to say the least.

7. Wine. Larsgaard admits that he doesn't buy wine at Costco himself, not being a wine fancier, but he claims that those who know their wines say Costco offers some surprisingly good vintages at bargain prices. There's even a blog devoted entirely to reviews of Costco wines; I checked out their "best of 2013" list and found a dozen recommendations ranging from $12 to $40 a bottle. Now, I'm not a wine drinker either, but I've always assumed that if I were, my go-to store would be Trader Joe's. It doesn't have an entire site all to itself, but this article from the Wellesley Wine Press recommends eight TJ's wines, all priced under $11. In other words, all eight of them beat the prices of the top Costco wines. (Trader Joe's famous "Three-Buck Chuck," from Charles Shaw, did not make the list.) I don't know if anyone's ever held a head-to-head taste-off between Trader Joe's wine and Costco's, so I couldn't actually tell you which ones taste better, but if all you want is a decent, drinkable wine at a bargain price, it looks to me like Trader Joe's is the place to go. And they won't hit you up for $55 before letting you in the door.

8. Rotisserie chickens & pizza. Apparently, at Costco you can buy a whole rotisserie chicken for only $5. This, like the hot dogs, is only a good deal if you eat meat (or meat that isn't free-range, which I'm assuming a $5 chicken is not). However, if you don't care about how the chicken you eat was raised, you can get one at the supermarket for about $1.50 a pound—so around $4.50 for a 3-pound bird—and roast it yourself. Get it on sale, and you might pay as little as $1 a pound. As for the pizza, I don't know what Costco charges for it (Larsgaard doens't say, and it's not listed on their website), but I absolutely guarantee you that a homemade pizza will cost less. Plus you can make it exactly the way you like—whole-wheat crust, gluten-free crust, extra cheese, fancy toppings, whatever—without paying an arm and a leg for it.

9. Gas. Larsgaard says he doesn't use this one much himself, as the line at the Costco is usually too long, but he claims that if you catch it when it's short, you can save up to 30 cents a gallon. I checked the price on a site called NewJerseyGasPrices.com, and it says our nearest Costco currently charges $3.17 a gallon, while our local Sunoco charges $3.19. So by driving to the Costco to get our gas, we could save as much as 15 cents on each fill-up—but the extra 6.6 miles of driving would burn up 52 cents' worth of gas, leaving us 37 cents to the bad. Of course, presumably if you're a Costco member you simply take the opportunity to fill up when you're there—but if the lines are as bad as Larsgaard says they are, the gas you burn just waiting to fill up might be enough to use up your 2-cent-per-gallon savings.

So it looks like my current position on Costco remains unchanged: while it would probably be lots of fun to have a membership, it wouldn't actually save us money. At this time, the only item I'm aware of that we could save a significant amount on by shopping there is organic sugar—but even at a savings of 75 cents a pound, we'd need to get through over 70 pounds a year to pay for the membership. And I think consuming that much sugar would probably end up costing us more than $55 a year in health care bills.

Price Check: The Aldi Organic Face-Off

Aldi sells organics now, doo-dah, doo-dah...

Early this year, Aldi rolled out its Simply Nature brand, which includes both natural and organic products. The term "natural," according to the FDA, has no legal meaning, but "organic" foods have to meet to meet specific standards laid out by the USDA, and eco-conscious consumers like me are often willing to pay a premium for them. In my case, as I've noted before, that premium is set somewhat arbitrarily at 60 percent—though we'll go higher than that for certain foods that are particularly destructive to grow conventionally. In general, that means we focus our organic purchases on fresh produce, which usually falls within the "rule of 1.6," and pass over the organic pasta, milk, and breakfast cereal, which typically cost two to three times as much as their conventional counterparts. Or at least, they used to.

Yesterday, however, on a trip to Aldi to pick up a few staples, I happened to notice that their Simply Nature Organic Toasted Oats (an equivalent to Cheerios, available in both regular and Honey Toasted versions) were priced at $1.99 for a 9-ounce box, or $3.54 a pound. Sitting right next to them on the shelf was a much larger box of Honey Nut Cheerios, one of the rare products Aldi carries that isn't its own house brand, priced at $3.67 a pound. On sale. The sale price of the conventional breakfast cereal was more than the regular price of the store-brand organic cereal.

Well, needless to say, that set my little mental cogs a-turning. I wondered: if the cereal is cheaper, how do the prices of other Simply Nature products compare to conventional versions of the same products? Could it be that buying organic at Aldi actually costs less than buying conventional name brands?

This wasn't a question I could answer right there in the store, since Aldi carries so few non-self-branded products. So instead, I went to the webpage for the Simply Nature line and jotted down the prices of about a dozen products (including only those labeled as organic rather than merely "natural"). Then I went to the local Stop & Shop and jotted down the lowest price I could find for a similar name-brand product that wasn't organic. For the sake of comparison, I wrote down the prices of the Stop & Shop store brand as well, if there was one.

So without further ado, here are the results. Each product is listed separately, and the one with the lowest price is in boldface. However, if the Simply Nature product falls within the "rule of 1.6"—that is, it's less than 1.6 times the price of the cheapest competitor—it's in italics.

Toasted oat breakfast cereal
Simply Nature toasted oats: $1.99 for 9 ounces / $3.54 per pound
Cheerios: $3.99 for 12 ounces (largest box they had) / $5.32 per pound
Stop & Shop Oats & O's: $2.99 for 14 ounces / $3.41 per pound
Price premium for organic: 13 cents per pound (4 percent)

Pasta (spaghetti or linguine, same price)
Simply Nature pasta: $1.19 for 1 pound
Barilla pasta: $1.39 for 1 pound
Stop & Shop pasta: $0.99 for 1 pound
Price premium for organic: 20 cents per pound (20 percent)

Pasta sauce (marinara)
Simply Nature: $1.99 for 25 ounces / $2.55 per quart
Francesco Rinaldi: $1.69 for 24 ounces / $2.25 per quart
Stop & Shop: $1.49 for 24 ounces / $1.99 per quart 
Price premium for organic: 56 cents per quart (28 percent)

Salad dressing (ranch or vinaigrette, same price)
Simply Nature: $1.69 for 8 ounces / $6.76 per quart
Wish Bone: $3.39 for 16 ounces / $6.78 per quart
Stop & Shop: $2.39 for 16 ounces / $4.78 per quart
Price premium for organic: $1.98 per quart (41 percent)

Chicken broth
Simply Nature: $1.79 for 1 quart
College Inn: $2.79 for 1 quart
Stop & Shop: $1.99 for 1 quart
Price premium for organic: none

Soup (lentil or chicken noodle, same price)
Simply Nature: $1.99 for 17 ounces / $1.87 per pint
Progresso: $2.49 for 19 ounces / $2.09 per pint
Stop & Shop: $1.29 for 19 ounces / $1.08 per pint
Price premium for organic: 79 cents per pint (73 percent)

Milk (reduced fat)
Simply Nature: $3.39 for 32 ounces / $6.78 per gallon
No name brands of conventional milk were available
Stop & Shop: $3.89 for 1 gallon
Price premium for organic: $2.89 per gallon (74 percent)

Soy Milk
Simply Nature: $2.49 for 1/2 gallon
8th Continent: $3.69 for 1/2 gallon
No store brand of conventional soy milk was available
Price premium for organic: none

Bagged greens (baby spinach or spring mix, same price)
Simply Nature: $2.49 for 5 ounces / $7.97 per pound
Dole: $3.69 for 8 ounces / $7.38 per pound
Stop & Shop: $3.69 for 5 ounces / $11.81 per pound
Price premium for organic: 59 cents per pound (8 percent)

Frozen strawberries
Simply Nature: $2.69 for 12 ounces / $3.59 per pound
Welch's: $4.79 for 1 pound
Stop & Shop: $3.99 for 18 ounces / $3.54 per pound
Price premium for organic: 5 cents per pound (1 percent)

Frozen blueberries
Simply Nature: $2.69 for 10 ounces / $4.30 per pound
Wyman's: $10.49 for 3 pounds / $3.49 per pound
No store brand of conventional frozen blueberries was available

Price premium for organic: 83 cents per pound (24 percent)

As you can see, the Stop & Shop store brand usually—though not always—came out on top. However, in every case except two (bagged greens and frozen blueberries), Simply Nature beat its name-brand competitor—and in both those cases, the competing product was sold in a bigger package, so its lower price may simply be the result of buying in bulk. Moreover, in every case except two (soup and milk), Simply Nature was within the rule of 1.6 compared to its conventionally grown competitors, sometimes costing only pennies more. And in two cases (soy milk and chicken broth), Simply Nature was the cheapest of all, beating even the Stop & Shop brand.

The category in which the Simply Nature brand was most thoroughly trounced was milk. The contest may not have been a completely fair one, since the Stop & Shop didn't have any name brands of milk to compare with it, but the store-brand, conventional milk in a gallon jug had Simply Nature beat by about 75 percent on price. However, this too may be the result of a different package size: conventional milk sold by the half-gallon cost $2.69, bringing the $3.39 half-gallon of Simply Nature well within the rule of 1.6. Still, since most consumers will probably buy by the gallon if given the option, it's fair to say that milk is still much more expensive to buy organic than other products. You may also note that no other animal products appear on my list; the Simply Nature line doesn't include eggs, and the only meats it includes are "natural" rather than organic. So animal products remain an expensive choice for organic eaters (a disappointing discovery for us conscientious omnivores). For all other products, though, it looks like Aldi is bringing the cost premium for buying organic lower than it's ever been before.

So what's the takeaway? Well, if your goal is simply to keep your grocery bill as low as possible, then generally speaking, you're still best off sticking with conventional store brands (though Aldi is probably still the cheapest place to find them). But if you'd like to buy more organic foods and have been put off by the price, you may be able to add more organic edibles to your cart and barely ding your budget at all (particularly if you've previously been buying name brands). And if you're already buying organic as much as possible, but you're cursing the prices every time you load up the cart, then looking for an Aldi store in your area could lighten up your grocery bill significantly.