When G came home about a year ago and told me that he had gotten a Costco membership, I was mad. It wasn’t because it was Costco – I was used to being on someone’s membership and I wanted that to continue. But he had been convinced to buy the Executive Membership rather than the normal one. It meant that instead of paying $50, he had paid $100 (those were the prices when he bought it).
“Really?” I asked in disbelief. “Why would you pay more for a membership that gets you the same thing?”
“But the executive membership gets you 2% back!” He defended.
“But in order to make up the money, we’d have to spend at least $2500 at Costco over the year! That breaks down to $208 a month. There’s no way we’re going to spend that much,” I whined. Yes, I whine.
“Well…they made it sound like a really good deal,” he said sadly.
I shook my head and we moved on.
And then, a few days ago, a year after this conversation took place, we received this in the mail:
“What is this?” I asked when G handed me the envelope. “A fake gift certificate to Costco?”
“No! It’s our 2% back,” he said with a smile.
“Our 2% back…” I trailed off. I had completely forgotten that we got 2% back.
Now that we had gotten $75 back, that meant we had actually only paid $25 for our membership – half of what it would have originally cost us. Or you could say, if we got the executive membership again, we’d only be paying $35 for it (since they raised the price to $110), instead of the $55 the normal membership now costs.
I was wrong.
Apparently, this membership works for us – and according to the numbers, we must have spent around $3750 over the year or $312/month. That’s kind of scary to be honest but it makes sense. We both get our gas from Costco – mine alone is usually around $200 for the month. Not to mention that, of course, we buy a lot of our staples from them.
So I can admit it – I was wrong. It turns out the Executive Membership really does work for us and now I look forward to getting a “discounted” membership this year.
Young Professional Finances 