Does Costco cost more? Costco vs. Superstore vs. Walmart showdown

In 2019 we spent $747.94 CAD or $556.10 UDS toward groceries every month. Trying to be as frugal as possible while eating healthy food, we were constantly comparing prices between different grocery stores to get the best deals. For the most part, we shop at Costco and Superstore. We also occasionally shop at Walmart. I have always wondered if Costco is the price leader when it comes to groceries. Is Costco cheaper than Superstore? Is Costco cheaper than Walmart? Or does Costco cost more?

Over a year ago I did a grocery store comparison to see whether Costco was cheaper or not. In this comparison, I was quite surprised by how expensive Safeway and Save On Foods were.

On the other hand, Walmart and Superstore led the way on having low priced non-organic items. What also surprised me was that Costco had the cheapest overall price for the 14 items that I compared. In fact, according to my 14 items comparison, Walmart was 17.76% more expensive than Costco, Safeway was 33.13% more expensive than Costco, Save On Foods was 30.54% more expensive than Costco, and Superstore was 2.58% more expensive than Costco.

This made me conclude that the most expensive grocery stores in Canada are Safeway and Save On Foods.

When I examined deeper and compared the optimized price for all 14 items, I found that Walmart was the best place to purchase grocery items if you weren’t looking for organic food and meats.

Superstore was the best place to purchase grocery items if you were looking for organic food and meats. In other words, to conclude which grocery store is the cheapest in Canada, you need to look at your shopping history.

Since our comparison, we have purchased groceries more from Superstore as a way to be more frugal on our monthly grocery expense. We would shop at Costco for meat, fish, and cheese because of the lower prices.

More than a year after my initial comparison, how we consume food has changed quite significantly for environmental and health reasons.

Nowadays, we rarely eat meat. When we do, we eat ground turkey, chicken, or fish rather than red meat. The meat/fish is then stretched out over a number of days. For example, we recently made a giant pot of curry with 3 chicken breasts. We finished the pot of curry over 4 days (effectively we only had less than 1/5 of the chicken breast each day).

We also stopped drinking milk and reduced our cheese consumption. Due to our increase in fruit and vegetable consumption, we have been buying more and more organic produce.

Lately, when I go shopping at Costco, I have noticed the availability of more organic items. This was a big change compared to when I did my comparison in 2017. Back then, Costco had a very limited selection of organic produce.

With that in mind, I decided to do another showdown between grocery stores and see if anything has changed. Rather than comparing prices between 5 grocery stores as I did before, I decided to compare prices between 3 low-cost grocery stores – Costco, Superstore, and Walmart. Which grocery store is the cheapest in Canada?

Does Costco cost more? Is Costco cheaper than Superstore? Is Costco cheaper than Walmart? Or is Walmart the cheapest grocery store in Canada? Let’s find out.

A few notes on methodology

A few notes on my comparison methodology before we get into the raw data. First of all, I did not pick the most reasonable items that many would buy.

Rather, I focused on food items that our household regularly purchase. Therefore, I didn’t compare items like steak, ground beef, cheese, and milk.

For the price comparison, I picked prices for the largest packaging and generic brands whenever possible to provide the lowest per unit/weight/volume price possible.

For example, I picked the Kirkland brand for Costco, the No Name brand for Superstore, and the Great Value brand for Walmart. When generic brands were not available, I picked the item that had the lowest per unit/weight/volume price available.

Since Costco didn’t carry as many brands compared to Superstore and Walmart, this meant I couldn’t always compare the same brand for a specific item.

Another thing note is that I only compared the regular price. I felt it was not a fair comparison if I were to include on weekly sale price.

Raw Data

Here is the raw data with the lowest cost for each item highlighted in green. The N/A items are highlighted in teal. I have also created an actual table in case you want to sort stuff yourself.

ItemsCostcoSuperstoreWalmart
Avocado, each$1.60$0.75$0.59
Boneless cod fillet, per kg$19.99$21.90N/A
Broccoli crown, per lbN/A$2.97$1.29
Brown rice, per kg$2.00$2.50$3.30
Canned coconut milk, per can 400 mlN/A$1.39$1.27
Canned diced tomato, per 100 ml$0.15$0.12$0.11
Canned organic coconut milk, per can 400 mlN/A$3.48$4.97
Canned tomato sauce, per 100 mlN/A$0.27$0.11
Chicken breast, per kg$11.99$22.29$14.60
Extra lean ground turkey, per kg$9.49$12.22$15.40
Large organic eggs, each$0.48$0.48$0.52
Organic almond milk, per 100 ml$0.17$0.28$0.21
Organic baby spinach per 100 g$1.28$1.76$2.11
Organic bananas, per lb$0.87$0.87$0.69
Organic broccoli, per lbN/A$2.98$3.97
Organic carrots, per kg$1.98$3.29$2.72
Organic frozen blue berries, per kg$7.99$7.20$11.28
Organic gala apples, per kg$3.96$4.39$4.38
Organic oranges, per kgN/A$6.58$5.11
Organic peppers, each$1.67$2.49$1.99
Pacific snapper fillet, per kg$13.99$23.90N/A
Spaghetti, per kg$2.38$4.10$1.30
Wild sockeye salmon fillet, per kg$29.99$30.82$29.82
# Cheaper Prices w/o N/A925
# Cheaper Prices for N/A items224
Total Cheaper Prices 1049
Total PriceIncomplete$158.02Incomplete
Remove all N/A Prices$75.99$94.55$89.18
% More expensive than optimized price4.08%22.92%18.28%
% More expensive than CostcoN/A24.43%17.36%
Exclude fish & meat$24.52$28.22$29.20
% More expensive than optimized prices w/o m&f14.44%31.74%36.31%
Optimized Total Price (exclude N/A items)$72.88
Optimized Total Price w/o meat & fish$21.42

Note: We are a bit messed up here in Canada when it comes to food unit measurements. Technically we are supposed to the metric system, but prices for produce are typically displayed in dollar per pound, then gets converted to dollar per kg on the receipt (sometimes meats too). Hence for my usage of both $/lb and $/kg

Update: Readers might be interested to know how the prices from Costco, Superstore, and Walmart have kept up with the high inflation rate.

Analysis – The cheapest grocery store in Canada

As expected, there were a number of items like broccoli crown, canned coconut milk, and organic oranges that Costco did not carry. Interestingly enough, Walmart did not carry fresh cod and snapper fillets. And Superstore carried all the items that we compared.

When it came to the cheapest prices, Costco had 9 items with the cheapest price, Superstore had 2 items with the cheapest price, and Walmart had 5 items with the cheapest price.

If we compared the 15 items that all 3 stores carried, Costco came out ahead at $75.99 for all 15 items. Walmart came in second at $89.18 or 17.36% more expensive than Costco. Superstore came in last at $94.55 or 24.43% more expensive than Costco.

If we picked the cheapest 15 items regardless of the store, the optimized total price came out to be $72.88. This meant Costco was 4.08% more expensive than the optimized price, while Walmart was 18.28% more expensive, and Superstore was 22.92% more expensive.

I was very surprised by this result because I had the assumption that Walmart would come out ahead for the optimized total price comparison as the cheapest grocery store in Canada.

When I looked at the prices for ground turkey, chicken breasts, and salmon fillet, I noticed that Costco offered the best deal. I wondered, what would happen if we were to take out these items?

When I did that, I found the optimized price to be $21.42. Even with these 3 costly items removed, Costco was still the cheapest, at 14.44% more expensive than the optimized total price. Interestingly, Superstore overtook Walmart and came out 2nd at 31.74% more expensive while Walmart came out last at 36.31% more expensive.

In other words, when it comes to the cheapest grocery store in Canada between Costco, Superstore, and Walmart…

  • Costco is the price leader
  • Walmart sits in the middle
  • Superstore is the most expensive

But this is based on our more health conscious grocery shopping style. Your experience may vary.

Based on the three different scenarios I ran and the respective results, I concluded that Costco is the cheapest grocery store in Canada based on our household food consumption.

Wait… but we can’t just compare prices!

Unfortunately, it would be too simple if we just compared prices per what I did above. It’s actually more complicated because of weekly sales, store reward points, and credit card rewards.

For example, Superstore and Walmart have weekly sales, resulting in lower prices items. I’ve seen a bag of 5 avocados go for $2.50 ($0.50 per unit) at Superstore.

This price is a lot cheaper than Walmart’s regular price. So take a look at the weekly flyers from Superstore and Walmart and price comparison is definitely a good idea. Not to mention both Superstore and Walmart do price matching.

Similarly, some Costco items are marked down each week although the number of marked items typically aren’t as many compared to Superstore and Walmart. Another thing to consider is that the avocados from Costco are usually bigger. So if you do a per gram comparison, Costco most likely will come out ahead.

Out of all 3 stores, Costco is the only store that requires an annual membership. The basic annual membership is $60 plus taxes and the executive membership is $120 plus taxes. While the executive membership is $60 extra, if you shop a lot at Costco, it the Costco executive membership is definitely worth it.

We have the execute membership, which gives a 2% reward on most items up to $1,000 each year. Furthermore, thanks to our Capital One Aspire Travel Mastercard, we get another 2% travel reward points on all purchases from Costco.

This meant if we purchased $200 in grocery items (no GST and PST), we would get $8 equivalent back in points. The points could add up pretty quickly.

Both Walmart and Superstore offer points program and you can also apply for rewards credit cards to increase your points earning.

For Walmart, Walmart Rewards Dollar MasterCard (no annual fee) allows you to earn 1.25% for every dollar purchase. For our household, the Walmart Rewards Dollar gives no benefit though. We would just use the Capital One Aspire Travel MasterCard to earn 2% on all Walmart purchases. Some other credit cards like Rogers World Elite Mastercard and Scotia Momentum Visa Infinite also offer higher earning rate.

Superstore has a very intriguing rewards program – the PC Optimum points program. When you sign up you’ll get specialized weekly offers based on your shopping habits.

These weekly offers allow you to earn extra points for buying special products at Superstore. For example, one of the weekly offers I got recently was 200 PC points for every $1 spent on apples. Since a bag of organic apple was ~$5 at Superstore, that meant we would earn 1,000 PC Optimum points if we were to purchase a bag of organic apples that specific week.

This would result in a cheaper per kg price than Costco. In addition, you could apply for a PC Financial credit card to boost your PC Optimum points earning.

The best credit card is the PC Financial World Elite Master Card (no annual fee), which allows you to earn 30 PC Optimum points per $1 at Superstore (i.e. 3% points earning rate). So for a bag of organic apples, we would earn 1,150 PC Optimum points for the transaction or an equivalent of $1.15. An earn rate of 23%.

That is a way better earn rate than what I would be able to get at Costco.

If you buy organic produce regularly, another way to maximize the PC Optimum points is to join the PC Insiders program.

By joining PC Insiders, we managed to earn over $300 in PC Optimum points and saved over $140 in PC Express pickup fees after one year.

Furthermore, if are already collecting PC Optimum points via PC Travel, it means you are more likely to shop at a Loblaws store. Although PC Travel is a neat website, there are lots of restrictions so you may not want to book trips via PC Travel.

From time to time when I can stack the personalized PC Optimum weekly offer, the weekly flyer offer, and the 3% PC Financial Mastercard earn rate, I would get crazy amount of points

https://twitter.com/Tawcan/status/1096181912203337728
This did not include the 3% earn rate from the PC Financial card!

So, price comparison gets A LOT more complicated when you take point rewards and credit card rewards into consideration.

All things considered, it is not possible to conclude that one single grocery store is the cheapest in Canada. Therefore, I believe it makes sense to continue to shop at Costco and shop at Superstore for items that are on the weekly offers, and items that can earn more points via the PC Insiders program.

Grocery shopping strategy for Canadians

Since our original grocery store comparison, we have become even more price-conscious. We have tried to optimize our grocery expenses as much as possible by shopping at Costco and Superstore mostly.

Because we are a one-car-household and Costco and Superstore are far from our house, I am the one that usually does the bulk of our grocery shopping. Mrs. T, meanwhile, would get the smaller items from Save On Foods and other local stores.

Looking at the price comparison chart above, here’s the grocery shopping strategy we should deploy moving forward:

Do:

  1. Plan ahead. Create a meal plan each week base on what’s on sale so we can determine what we need to purchase. Then determine which stores provide the best pricing.
  2. Check the weekly offers and flyer from Superstore. Take advantage of sales and PC point offers.
  3. Purchase majority of what we need from Costco and Superstore.
  4. Buy meat and fish from Costco, dividend them up in smaller ziplock bags, and freeze them for later consumption.
  5. Visit Walmart every few months to stock up on canned coconut milk and spaghetti.
  6. If we need something on the day of, and I don’t have time to go to Costco or Superstore, it’s OK for Mrs. T to buy from Save On Foods or local grocery stores.
  7. Save the price comparison on Google Drive so we can compare prices with something on sale at a store.
  8. Consider the amount of time that takes to shop. Going to multiple stores to save $5 doesn’t make sense if we had to spend an extra 30 minutes. Time = money.

Don’t:

  1. Shop without a list.
  2. visit grocery stores too frequently. The more visits we do, the more money we spend.

Conclusion – Does Costco cost more?

In this 3 stores price comparison, Costco came out ahead in all 3 scenarios that I created and earned the title of the cheapest grocery store in Canada.

With the increase choices of organic food items, it makes more and more sense to buy groceries at Costco, especially considering Costco has great prices for many non-perishable items too. Therefore, if you buy quite a bit of organic food items, like us, it makes sense to shop at Costco.

Having said that, we can’t just blindly shop at Costco and ignore weekly sales and possible reward points. It makes sense to compare Costco prices with Superstore weekly sale prices and do some calculations to determine the best place to shop.

Stacking up PC Optimum points via weekly sales, a PC Financial credit card, and the PC Insiders program can drastically reduce the total grocery price. We simply can’t ignore this powerful compound effect. I have to say, it feels pretty awesome to redeem PC Optimum points at the checkout and only have to pay a few dollars for a big pile of groceries.

We also need to consider the amount of time spent each week on shopping for groceries. Spending an extra hour to shop between stores only to save an extra dollar or two simply isn’t worth it.

One thing we have been doing more and more is to utilize PC Express (Superstore’s online grocery shopping) to save us time.

Dear readers, where do you shop for groceries? How much are you spending per month on groceries? What’s your experience in terms of determining the cheapest grocery store in Canada?

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48 thoughts on “Does Costco cost more? Costco vs. Superstore vs. Walmart showdown”

  1. I run an Excel file on the various grocery stores in my area. It compares the 100 items we always buy. In conjunction with the Flipp app, I try to buy wherever is cheapest. Yes, reward points make the choices more complicated. I also factor in lineups, human resource policies, etc. I do find individual items like Mayo, KD dinners, peanut butter, etc., far better priced at Walmart. So I go there for bread and milk and pantry items, though if I’m needed, say, Farkay noodles, I’ll wait for a big sale and grab the whole shelf (I have international students to feed). I don’t like the Costco experience and can’t handle the crowds, though all my price conscious friend do a big run there once a month, especially for meats, Whey protein powder, fish oil, razor blade refills – it can’t be beat for those things absolutely fantastic bulk buying. The closet I can get to that with groceries are other stores during case lot sales though you have to check expiration dates.

    Reply
  2. With the best price match policy , PC points and on the top of that PC Points offers and bonus PC Points resumption offers I believe RCCS is better then Costco specially then it’s very far and have long lines,
    after they scrape their price match policy Walmart has no comparison at all and clearly they are the worst

    Reply
  3. Thank you for the comparisons and identifying the various advantages and disadvantages. However, is it worthwhile shopping at Shoppers Drug Mart one day, every week because of a 20% discount? I realize it’s a very general question but my elderly parents seem to think it’s the cats meow for all of their grocery needs as they are on a very limited fixed income and surviving on OAS and CPP only. Between paying rent, a monthly car payment for a small used car and pet expenses for a small dog which they dearly love, there’s not much left over for food and other expenses. Any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you.

    Reply
    • You’re welcome Doug. I think it’s always good to compare prices and see which place has the best offer. As mentioned, I didn’t compare sales pricing so you definitely need to keep that in mind when comparing prices.

      Reply
  4. This is super informative, interesting, and useful. My husband and I spend a crazy amount on groceries each month, so I’m trying to find ways to bring our grocery spending down. Thank you so much for this!!

    Reply
  5. Thanks for this analysis! I’ve always wondered and I do mental math but sometimes the mental math fails and also complicates things with using this card or that card that gets you these cash backs and rewards.

    The toughest thing I think is having a tool to compare apples-to-apples on the same day, no pun intended.

    The other thing to factor in is location-location-location. Costco means I need to drive, whereas in the city in Canada that I live I’m in walking distance of some perhaps more expensive but easier options. I need to factor in the gas, depreciation of operating a vehicle or transit costs too. That and also the energy it takes to lug all the stuff home.

    One thing that as a Costco member I find more value today is that their ecommerce store is more stocked now and I get some staples there. I know for some items it costs more than in store and also for some items it costs shipping while others don’t at all. It’ll be great if you can do that comparison between the Walmart and Costco online stores — would love to read that post.

    Reply
  6. Great analysis!

    We don’t have a Costco here (small city) but we do have a lot of grocery stores around here. I tend to shop mostly at Independent as I find they’re generally cheap for most of the food that I buy not to mention getting everything done in one trip. In addition, I use the PC points to get some free groceries. They also allow price matching so it’s a matter of showing them the flyer and they’ll match it. They also have sales that come up frequently so I tend to stock up on items that I normally buy.

    There is a Walmart in town but I try not to support it as I don’t support their cost cutting methods resulting in food not stocked up and poorer quality and only 3 cashiers on a Saturday resulting in waiting in line for 20mins. No thank you. It’s great though if you’re looking for party foods although I tend to go to Food Basics for that as it’s the cheapest.

    Reply
  7. Finally! A grocery budget comparable to mine! I’ve been failing monthly to match Mr. Tako’s expenses. 🙂

    Great post as always!

    Reply
  8. Good tips! I’d love it if I could find a way to only spend US $500 or $600 per month on food. For us the hour-long drive to the nearest Costco or Sam’s Club is the deal-breaker. Twice over the years, we’ve gone and bought a membership (about $40 I think?) so we could purchase a buggy full of groceries and dry goods, but then we didn’t go back until after the membership had expired – making the initial purchase, for a single visit to the store, a pretty pricey option. The warehouse clubs sometimes have things we can’t find at Wal-Mart though. I’m currently the holder of one expired, and one soon-to-be-expired membership card, and as always, I’ll tell myself we aren’t going to fall for that again…but we’ll see.

    Reply
      • No Frills and the like (Freshco, Food Basics) are often stores that used to be Superstores, Metros, Sobeys etc.
        So at least in the GT-HA, many are within a 5-10 minute drive for almost anybody.

        Reply
  9. We signed up for the PC insiders program this year when we received a promotional price of $50. It works well for our family because it offers double points for all baby products (diapers & Formula) which can really add up. It also covers the cost of click and collect pick up which can be $3 to $5 in out area. For a family with working parents and young kids it is a very good deal. But as mentioned in previous comments, location and convenience is everything. We live down the street from a superstore vs a 20 to 30 min drive to a Costco!

    Reply
    • If both of our kids are still using diapers this might make sense. I guess you get online pickups for free right? That might be worth it for us maybe. Looks like if you sign up for the annual program you get a $99 travel credit so you don’t “lose” anything.

      If I discount the Superstore prices by 23% (20% on PC Insider, 3% on using PC Financial Card) and discount the Costco prices by 4% (2% executive + 2% credit card reward), Superstore comes out ahead on some items. However, not all items are PC Organics products.

      Having said that, I think the idea of saving time on online pickup is really appealing to sign up for the PC Insider program. It’s something to consider for us.

      Reply
  10. Superstore wins for me because I can get everything in one trip. I can’t get everything I need at Costco, but will pick up certain items there if I happen to be driving by on my way home from work. Never go there on a weekend, its too crazy.

    Reply
  11. You forgot about the PC insiders program. It’s a yearly 100 dollar fee but you get 20% back on organic as well as several other perks.

    Reply
    • Right, I did forget to mention the PC insider program. It’s something I’ve looked into but not sure if it makes sense to sign up. What’s your experience with it so far?

      Reply
    • That’s a good point. We have noticed that the Costco avocados are the larger variety. Having said that, since avocados tend to ripe about the same time, from time to time we can’t consume all of them before they get too ripe.

      Reply
  12. Maybe you don’t have these stores in your market area, but Loblaws’ “No Frills” stores are considerably cheaper than Costco here in the GT-HA region of Ontario. Superstores are considered to be in the same price range as Metros and Sobeys. The you have the No Frills, Freshco, and Food Basics level. More or less basic stores.

    Reply
      • The No Frills in Langley and Surrey and Abbotsford all have good prices I like going to Real Canadian Superstore for the fresh baked buns and bread great deals here and also chichen and extra Lean hamburger and shrimp

        Reply
  13. Interesting analysis, Bob! I am too lazy to go to Superstore (the crowds are overwhelming I find), I usually go to No Frills. Costco also is terrifying on the weekends too but I should make it a point to get groceries on weekdays. For my produce, I usually just get it from a local store, and whatever is on sale for organic produce I get- sometimes I can get organic broccoli for $1 a bunch! I don’t buy organic bananas routinely because pesticides don’t penetrate the thick skin of the banana.

    There’s a Consumer Reports Guide that tells you what is safe to buy non-organic and what you should definitely try and buy organic.

    Reply
    • When we used to live in Vancouver we’d go to No Frills a lot. Now we’re in the suburb, there’s no No Frills around us. Luckily Superstore is nearby.

      Reply
  14. Costco: Meats, Cheese, Eggs, Milk
    Superstore: Fruits, Veggies
    Kim’s Mart: Rice, Kimchi, Ramen
    T&T: Fish, Veggies, 1.80/lb chicken drums
    Safeway: Hams, Pies, Old people
    Wholefoods: Local produce, Rich people

    Reply
  15. Costco’s avocados are the best in the market. Even if they cost double, I only buy them there. Meats and chicken are fresh, probably the best quality too. You will find better deals on weekdays. More specials and less people compared to weekends.

    Reply
  16. Interesting post. Thanks for the analysis. As a house of six people we use Costco a fair bit for things like toilet paper, and household supplies. Our produce is from a local, organic co-op. We are vegetarian so we don’t worry about meat! Local/organic produce is more expensive, but our ensures purchases are offered to small-scale, local farmers over big-box stores.

    Another thing we factor into our shopping habits is working conditions/labour practices. Costco is known for providing full-time hours at fair wages as well as benefits for their workers – so we’ll shop there for things that our household needs. . Labour practices at Walmart (in particular) have been less favourable. We will not shop at locations that limit the financial security of others, or place our gain (cheaper prices) on their backs (poorer labour conditions).

    Financial security is important to us, but we also strive to balance frugal living with ethical practices.

    Reply
    • Costco is great and cheaper for things like toilet paper and household supplies. During summer time we tend to buy from produce from the farmers market to support local farmers. Good point on labour practices. I’ve heard lots of poor working conditions/labour practices for Walmart. I believe Superstore employees are treated better compared to Walmart employees.

      Reply
      • When an accounting student I did a course project on WalMart. From that project I learned that WalMart is America’s 2nd-most litigated party. Behind the federal government. They do considerable unethical things to save money. Like managers pressing employees to put in extra time they don’t get paid for.

        Reply
  17. Costco has been very focused on organic food lately and dropping a lot of more conventional food items from their inventory. We don’t buy *everything* organic, so I find myself shopping there less and less. They also have a lot of processed food, which we don’t eat a lot of.

    We definitely shop weekly sales too. There are great deals to be had if you create a habit of checking the weekly flyers. I do it every week. I bring up the grocery store websites and create a meal plan based around what’s on sale (and what we have in the freezer). It takes about 5 minutes a week and saves hundreds of dollars a month.

    Easy-peezy and it keeps the food budget low.

    Reply
    • It’s interesting that Costco is adding more organic food items. If we take the points/rewards into consideration, it gets quite hard to determine where to shop. I think for the most part Superstore makes sense if we can get more than 4% rewards points back. And yes, we’ve been doing weekly meal plans too based on what’s on sale.

      Reply
  18. I hate CostCo. It’s always too busy there and we don’t buy big packages of food.
    Safeway has good sales. Their store brand products and sales are good.
    Surprisingly, Walmart isn’t that great for us. I don’t think the price is much better than Safeway.
    We usually go to WinCo once every 2 weeks to stock up. Then, we go to Safeway and Trader Joe’s to pick up a few needed items. It works okay. I don’t think we’d save much by going to CostCo. We just don’t eat fast enough to prevent spoilage. Bulk doesn’t work for us. We spend around $550/month on groceries. GOod post!

    Reply
    • For us Safeway is just too expensive to buy food. Save-On-Foods is better. Yea Costco is super busy like all the freaking time. I get frustrated shopping there from time to time. I just try to limit my time in Costco. 🙂

      Trader Joe’s has pretty good prices as far as I know but we don’t have Trader Joe’s up here.

      Reply
  19. Great break down and grocery shopping comparison Bob. We usually didn’t shop much at Superstore but because the one near us installed a high speed EV charger we now visit it. Once there we discovered just how low the prices are. We balance our bigger frequently used bulk items between there and Costco. That being said we pay a lot for our groceries for the day to day but when you live in a town of 4000 people it is the price you pay for location.

    Reply
      • Every Tuesday I check out http://www.cocowest.ca to see what Costco has on sale. Makes life way easier for us as that way I decide if I “need” to go to Costco that week or not.
        I avoid Walmart, so what’s left is SS for us. ( Good to know they are lower then Walmart) They can have good sales on organic produce and I agree with the optimum card we’ve saved quiet a bit. Meat we get delivered from a farmer as that is one thing we don’t settle on. The difference of taste/flavor between hormone/ free run chicken, beef or turkey and hormone chicken, beef, turkey is to big. As soon when farmers market are out, we buy our produce their as 95% of our meals are made from scratch.

        Reply
        • Yup we check out cocowest regularly too to see if there are any good deals. We need to look into buying meat from a farmer…but then we don’t eat meat all that often so not sure if it’s worth buying meat and keep them in the freezer for a long period of time.

          Reply
    • In Ontario “No Frills”, “Freshco” and “Food Basics” are cheaper than “the Real Canadian Superstore” and if you shop the sales, also cheaper than “Walmart” and “Costco” once you factor in the cost of membership and irritation of those very long lines at Costco!! I won’t tolerate long line-ups!

      Reply

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