Very good chance the tires alone will pay for the membership.
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If you donât absolutely need them immediately, setting up an alert on slickdeals for the size you need will often result in some amazing deals from the big tire installation chains. However, the big downside here is there is no guarantee on the timing.
Usually, itâs only been a couple of months for me, but I had a tire that needed to be replaced before itâs time and I just had a trash used tire installed with the intention of getting all new tires from somewhere I could get a good deal, but that was like three months ago and I havenât found anything. This would not be palatable except I donât have to drive anywhere these days.
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I bought snow tires last fall and Discount Tire was cheaper than Costco. Iâve been a Costco member for 15 years and I donât think Iâve ever bought any auto stuff through them.
Costco membership is almost certainly worth it independent of tires.
The thing with Costco tires is that they really only sell name brand tires (at least last I checked). Theyâre high quality and cheaper than you would get elsewhere for the same brand, but theyâre more expensive than lesser brands.
You can certainly get cheaper brands that Costco just doesnât sell at places like Discount Tire. And a lot of those brands are also pretty decent (according to things like consumer reports and reviews) but they just donât have the name recognition of Michelin (for example).
So if the goal is minimizing cost, you can definitely get cheaper tires elsewhere. Are they as good? I think for my purposes, they probably are. For daily driving and durability, I canât tell any difference.
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Iâve lived out of the country for five years and still canât bring myself to cancel my Costco membership.
The Costco in OKC isnât particularly close to me, and I eat mostly fresh produce, tofu, faux meats, etc. I grocery shop 2-3 times a week in non pandemic times and never use the free Samâs membership we have. I donât know how much utility I would get out of it. But the consumer in me still wants itâŚ
Also, I canât compare prices on discount tire and Costco without a membership. But the consensus on Reddit seems to be the tire center at Costco is a hassle and more trouble than itâs worth.
I have been a costco member for about 15 years. I donât do a lot of shopping there, maybe go in once every other month and I donât typically spend a ton. My biggest complaint is the lack of consistency, e.g. theyâll always have honey nut cheerios but they will only have the type of Kashi I eat once a year or whatever, also I donât mind buying Chobani in a 48-pack but stuff like that always has like 25% blueberry that you want and 75% rotting fish flavor.
anyway, I think membership is overall is ânot worth itâ for me if you looked at it strictly from an accounting point of view but I keep renewing anyway.
Although I do shop at Costco pretty often, I think the membership would be worth it just for the credit card benefits.
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I sponge off my sisterâs Costco account. Totally worth it, ha. I go every two weeks or so. Probably more often than I really need just to get a break from the total isolation. Itâs an adventure. Gas and a few grocery items mostly.
I resisted getting a Costco membership for as long as possible because I always thought the concept of having to buy everything in bulk was absurd. Finally caved for my daughterâs birthday party in 2019 and have been pleasantly surprised with how much use we get out of it with less waste than expected. I actually have the opposite reaction to pvn, where I like being surprised with new items, although itâs a bummer when you canât find the thing you were looking for, especially when itâs something your child prefers. Also happy to patronize them knowing how well they treat their employees.
I find that at least half the time I canât find something it is because they have moved where they put it in the store and I have to go on a fucking scavenger hunt to find it.
@JohnnyTruant can crush that happiness for you real quick.
Cliffs: They spare employees and fuck over others.
Believe he said they are bad for vendors, no? I can believe that any large enough entity like that is going to take advantage of vendors/distributors and not sure what the answer is.
Edit: Doesnât mean itâs ok to do so
Anyone use a VPN full time? Iâm thinking of getting one mostly to end the stupid regional content blocks.
Any recommendations? Needs to be easy and cover all devices behind my router, wired and wifi.
I use IPVANISH on a device and like it. Iâm pretty sure you can use it for your entire network.
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If youâre sending all your traffic through it youâll want a reputable one thatâs not free, thatâs for sure.
In my move away from gmail I use protonmail (Swiss privacy laws apply), which includes a good VPN.
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Iâve been a Costco member forever. Originally it was out of pure laziness. I could shop every other month for staples instead of weekly or bi-weekly.
Now, with a family and a house, we go to Costco at least bi-weekly. Iâve gotten good service out of their rental car service too. I can usually find a price on a legit big name rental company that compares well to the â2nd tierâ rental companies.
I think their credit card is top notch. We just got back $1150 for our spend last year, plus another $600ish for the rewards from the Executive membership.
We donât return much, but theyâve been top notch when we had to. I bought a couple boxes of the highly touted Kirkland 4-piece golf ball. They had a bad run and they cut really easily. I returned them, they refunded my money, and then sent an email and refunded it again because of the bad run and for my trouble.
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ExpressVPN has been reliable for me for the last few years. Works flawlessly for all of my out-of-region TV viewing, etc.
I want to get an inexpensive film camera to take some old school looking pictures when I can hang out with people again. Any recommendations?
Itâs old but I would look into a Canon AE-1 they were a great camera back in the day check out Ebay and they are lots of lens choices for this camera. Nikon is also worth a mention as they were as popular with a good lens selection as well.
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if you want to take pictures indoors look for a fixed 50mm lens, they are pretty ubiquitous, low-cost, and usually have pretty fast apertures which you need for low-light pictures.
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