(affectionately sub-titled: The Day I Woke Up And Decided to Join Costco).
I don't know exactly why, but on Saturday morning, the first thing I said to my husband was: "Let's join Costco today!"
I think he was stunned for a minute, before agreeing with me.
See, when we first moved to Melbourne, he had been really keen on the idea. I'd done some research and found that not everything was cheaper, as he had imagined it would be. I didn't think it was worth the joining fee ($60), and we'd be pretty much throwing that money away. I didn't know of any Ketoers in Melbourne who were Costco members, so I wasn't sure if they'd have Keto friendly stuff at decent prices.
But I decided to get it a chance. We had nothing planned for that Saturday, so we decided we'd head over to their warehouse in Docklands, which I had seen hundreds of times before.
And, wow, it seemed like half of Melbourne was there. It was raining, so that probably made everyone want to go shop there! So many trolleys, unruly children and well, SO MANY GIANT TROLLEYS!
I have to say I was pretty impressed by what they sold. I did think their produce prices would be a bit lower, but their meat is what really sold it to me.
So many giant packs of meat, at some pretty good prices. I wish I'd had more freezer space, I would have bought more!
They also had giant packs of literally everything you could think of- cereal, nuts, chips. Giant bottles of sauces, mayonnaise, vinegar, hot sauce. Huge tubs of ice cream, sour cream, yogurt. The freezer section contained pretty much every frozen food you could ever need! The bakery section had giant trays of muffins, huge cfheesecakes, and giant bags of bread rolls.
I think we purchased the least out of everyone in the whole store- their trolleys were overflowing!
Here's what we got:
250g bag of jerky - $8.99
Corned beef (just under 2kgs) - $11.87
Beef bolar roast (just under 3kgs) - $23.04
Tofu (900g) - $2.99
Japanese BBQ marinated chicken thighs (just under 3kg) - $11.34
Bag of 48 string cheese - $11.99
Blue Diamond Smokehouse almonds (1.08kg) - $19.79
Organic coconut flour 1kg - $6.29
Cream 1 litre - $3.29
Pack of 4 BBQ lighters - $4.89 (not pictured)
Total: $104.48
We cooked roughly a third of the roast beef for dinner on Saturday night. It was amazingly flavourful, juicy and tender- just rubbed with salt and cracked pepper. Possibly the best roast beef I'd ever had! I had leftover this morning for breakfast.
The beef jerky is great, too. I am eating some as I type. It's an unbelievable price, considering I usually pay $6 for 100 grams when it's on special.
I am so in love with the string cheese. It is different the usual Australian string cheese- which is normally yellow and tastes like a cheddar blend. These seem to be pure mozzarella and are white. They are a super amazing deal, with 48 for $12 working out to be 25c each, compared to 8 for $5 (when on special), which is 62c each.
One of the reason I finally caved and joined Costco was to get Blue Diamond almonds. They used to be hard to get here, but Woolworths has started stocking a few flavours- for $3.99/150 grams- $26.60/kg. I really like the smokedhouse ones, they are salty and smoky and delicious, and a bargain for $19.79!
The coconut flour was roughly half price I was going to pay, and I would have had shipping costs on top. The cream was 1 litre for the same price as I paid for 500mls. We have a gas stove and oven, so we use our BBQ lighters constantly, I'd paid $6 for one from Coles, so 4 for less than that was a great price!
Costco also has a food hall. You can buy hot dogs, giant slices of pizza, sodas, churros, ice cream, and some other snacks. The slices of pizza are HUGE american style ones, for $2.99. The hot dogs are great (yes, I ate the sausage only), and comes with a bottomless soda for $1.99. Pretty cheap lunch, if that;s your thing!
I'm really looking forward to going again in a few weeks. Hopefully my freezer will be emptier!
