time to renew the costco membership ... downgrading to gold this time.

i signed up last year for a costco club membership. i was never a huge bulk buyer -- it's hard to go through that much food and household supplies for just a household of two. we have also been really bad at eating at home this last year. despite that, i thought i'd try costco just to see.

what were our savings?
the savings weren't too bad. there were certainly some gems out there. the main savings were:

• gillette fusion razor blade refills. normally 8 for $30 at superstore, but costco had them for 18 for $54 ($3.75 vs $3.00/razor)
• but then i later caught a super sale at london drugs: 8 for $20 ($2.50/razor).
• for whatever reason, we go through 60 a year, so we've purchased the package twice
• frozen mixed veggies. normally $4 for 750g at superstore, costco had them for $8.79 for 2.25kg. ($5.33/kg vs $3.91/kg). i think i bought about 8 bags throughout the year because i'm that lazy to cut everything up.
• tropicana orange juice, normally $14 for 4 at superstore on sale, costco sold for $11.79 for 4. we took advantage of this a lot.
• stamps: normally $0.61 per stamp, they were selling 100 for ~$58, or 0.58c. i bought a whole bunch and sold them to friends and family where needed

the rest of the things that i ended up buying pretty much cost the same amount as superstore. the meat always seemed to last a bit longer than superstore's. the vegetables always seemed fresher, although i never bought them because there was no way that we could use that much in bulk. their kirkland frozen products were also unique. overall, from a savings standpoint, i think we pretty much broke even.

executive membership = 2% bonus return
when i bought the membership though, i did it in conjunction with the aeroplan promotion that ran last year (up to 1,500 bonus miles). they said i could sign up for a gold membership ($55) or an executive membership (110$). the executive was like the gold except for my purposes, you would get a 2% rebate on all of your purchases. that meant that you'd need to spend roughly $2750 a year to break even. optimistically, i said yes.

so i arrived in calgary to find my rebate reward from costco today. i signed up using my alberta address so that a) my mom could have a family member card, and b) so that i could save on the 7% provincial tax. the dates were a bit off on the rebate reward, and after calling in to head office, i found out that i would get a grand total of $33.28. my powers of estimation were completely off.

they told me over the phone that i could just bring in my reward voucher and exchange it for another year of a $55 gold membership. "basically, your voucher is worth $55 now," she told me.

to renew or not to renew?
but despite the bare break-even, and despite the fact that i only spent $1664 there in the last year, i am too in love with the good meats and the giant bags of frozen veggies to go without a membership. and i'm also too much of a follower to be the only one of my friends to not have a membership. this means that i'll have to renew it again this year ... in alberta, of course, to save an extra 7%.