The Costco Shopping Hack That Saves Your (And Your Friends) Money

There's no doubt about it. A trip to the grocery store produces plenty of sticker shock these days. Egg prices have gone up over 30% from 2023 to 2024, per Nerd Wallet, though the price hikes aren't limited to just eggs. It doesn't look like most shoppers will get relief from steep food prices anytime soon unless they take matters into their own hands. One way that some savvy shoppers are doing just that is by partnering with family, friends, or roommates and shopping in bulk at places like Costco or Sam's Club.

For most people who shop using this kind of system, working out the logistics is Job No. 1. This includes trying to figure out how to divide the costs fairly. Say, for example, you're part of a group of eight shoppers. Five of you want to buy a box of individual bags of Goldfish crackers. There are 45 bags in the box, which runs just under $19. You must have a system to figure out how to charge only the five people who want the crackers instead of all eight of you once it comes time to pay the bill.

For some groups of bulk shoppers, this means making a tracking sheet in a program like Excel. The price of the item, the 45-pack box of individual chips, would be indicated on the Excel sheet and divided by five to come up with a final cost for each person. Such a system allows everyone to see where each of their grocery expenses is coming from in one place.

Bulk shopping at Costco comes with some other issues besides how to divide up the cost of the groceries. For example, some foods, like bananas, lettuce, and green onions, go bad very quickly. At Costco, those don't just come in small sizes. Often, they come packaged as dozens of bananas, multiple heads of lettuce, and 10-pound bags of onions. Larger amounts of produce usually go bad before one person can eat it all. Sharing those foods with others means they get eaten before the bananas get overripe and the onions have a chance to rot in the pantry. 

However, it's not only the fresh stuff that comes in impressive sizes. Costco carries plenty of frozen foods, too. Frozen broccoli, for example, comes in a 2-kilogram bag. That's nearly 5 pounds of frozen broccoli. You might eat all of that by yourself. The broccoli might also sit in the freezer until it gets freezer burned. You can divide something like this up, too. Just separate the bag into equal portions and stuff those portions into smaller zip-top plastic bags, which you'd distribute to all the people in the group who ordered broccoli on the group spreadsheet.

Despite the savings you'll enjoy by shopping in bulk at Costco, you could wind up paying more for your groceries than you need to if you don't look for other deals while you're there. This doesn't have to be complicated. One of the easiest ways to do this is to make a point of buying the Kirkland brand when you have that option. Kirkland is Costco's "generic" brand. As such, it comes with off-label prices.

For example, if you and yours are Italian food lovers, then it's likely that olive oil has a place of honor on your shelves. And while it may not be practical to divide up a bottle of olive oil into smaller bottles, though it can be done, this Costco hack is an especially savvy one if you and your roomies plan meals and cook together on the regular.

Here's how you'll save. Two liters of Kirkland brand extra virgin olive oil costs $25.99. Two liters of TRE brand olive oil run for $44.99. That's a $19 difference. You'll buy the bottle of olive oil together and split the cost. If there are five of you, for example, then going this route means the difference between paying nearly $9 a person for the TRE brand and a little over $5 a person for the Kirkland brand.

According to ABC News, many people who shop together in bulk are being met with success. One shopper reportedly saves at least $75 a week on groceries thanks to her bulk-shopping habits. That's about $300 a month in savings or $3,600 a year. However, those kinds of savings aren't isolated to just her.

LendingTree did an analysis of how much people saved by shopping in bulk. The average savings came in at 27%. While some of the reduced costs were for non-food items, like paper towels, other savings were related to food or food-related buys. According to U.S. News and World Report, a family of four spends just under $12,000 a year on groceries on the low end and nearly $19,200 a year on the high end. While you and your friends may not be a traditional family, the numbers will still hold true. That is, you'll save something between $3,240 and $5,184 per year, respectively, if all of you shop in bulk together.

Finally, Costco, Sam's Club, and other similar stores have membership-based shopping models. If you don't have a membership, you can't shop there. However, there are ways around this issue. For example, Costco allows two people who live together, regardless of their connection to one another, to share a Gold Star membership. Gold Star memberships cost $65 a year, and in the bulk-shopping world, even those expenses can be shared.