The Costco Anniversary
How a corporate entity helps me remember something personal
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My wife and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary last week.
It’s a date that I never forget, not because I have a perfect memory or am especially sentimental about the day (although of course it is very special to me).
The reason that I always remember my anniversary is because Costco gives me ample reminders every year beginning a few weeks in advance.
My wife and I bought our old house before we were married. One of the biggest draws was its large backyard that overlooked a brook. The first time we had toured the house, we had both excitedly remarked that we could host a wedding in the backyard. A year and a half after purchasing the home, that’s exactly what we did.
We were young and trying to save money any way that we could. Rather than offer an open bar, we hired a friend who was a professional bartender to serve a simplified menu of drinks: 2 types of wine from a winery we loved to visit in Pennsylvania (one red, one white), 2 choices in beer (served in the bottle), Coke, Sprite, or bottled water. That’s it. With the exception of the wine, every other drink would come from Costco in bulk. We also relied on the superstore for bulk quantities of disposable plates, cutlery, napkins, and other various party planning necessities.
As young soon-to-be-weds, we couldn’t imagine ever needing a Costco membership. We thought Costco was for families with lots of kids that lived in ridiculous McMansions and drove giant SUVs. We were the antithesis of that picture: dual-income, no kids, who shopped at local farms and drove a Toyota Matrix hatchback.
So when it came time to purchase the items at Costco about a month before our wedding, a close family member loaned us their membership card so we didn’t have to enroll on our own. After all, we were likely only going to be shopping at Costco two or three times specifically for the wedding and then never again after that. There seemed to be no point in paying for an entire year’s membership.
Per company policy, Costco memberships are non-transferrable. If we had the cardholder with us when we paid, it likely wouldn’t have been an issue, but they lived a few states away and had only lent us their physical card. We rolled up to the register with two carts full of soda, beer, water, and paper goods, and as soon as the cashier scanned the membership card, something in their system flagged it for review.
A supervisor was called over to check our IDs against the name and grainy black and white photo on the membership card. When they didn’t match, we were offered two choices: we could enroll as Costco members and complete the transaction or we could leave the warehouse empty handed. We were young, proud, and stubborn and chose to leave.
Heading home, we brainstormed another way to purchase vast quantities of soda and alcohol and realized being a Costco member might pay off, even if we only had the membership for the time of our wedding and then cancelled afterwards.
The next day, we reluctantly went back to Costco and stopped at the “Membership” desk to pay our dues and have our photo taken. We retraced our steps from the day before, recollecting all of the items we had abandoned the day before, and made our way to the register as legitimate Costco members.
That was 15 years ago. And somehow we still renew our membership every single year.
These days, membership cards are digital, and for the last several years, every time I scan my app at the register in the month of May, there’s a little red bar above my membership card that reminds me to renew.
For me, this is a good reminder of not only when I first became a member at Costco, but also when I got married. I always look back and remember loading carts full of party supplies, the embarrassment of being called out for having the wrong membership card, and the shame of having to collect the same items for a second time. And I remember my anniversary.
This year, as the deadline to renew loomed, I hesitated for a moment. A basic Costco membership is now $65 per year- was the savings and the convenience of buying in bulk really worth that much?
After all, we don’t buy a ton of necessities at Costco. I prefer buying paper goods like toilet paper, tissues, and paper towel with recycled content; Costco’s is all virgin wood fiber. Now that we’re even more purposeful about where our food comes from and cook most of our own meals, we rarely purchase any of the “convenience” foods like frozen noodle dishes, frozen pizzas, or premade dips.
There are still plenty of staples we buy at Costco. Their organic extra virgin olive oil is a staple in our kitchen and is often highly rated for its purity. Chlorine tablets for our pool are significantly cheaper at Costco than anywhere else we’ve found. And we can buy cheeses and almond tortillas compliant with our diet at a fraction of what they cost in the grocery store. The rare times when I need to make a large purchase, like unexpectedly upgrading my laptop, Costco is also much cheaper than buying directly from Apple.
We’ve even used Costco services beyond the warehouse walls in the past. Our house insurance is now through Costco, saving us about $200 per year compared to our old carrier. I almost always book rental cars through Costco’s travel service. We’ve even taken bundled trips through Costco, one that included airfare to Italy, beautiful hotels in Rome and Florence, private airport transportation, and train travel between the cities all for about the same cost as buying only the airfare directly from an airline.
There’s a lot that’s been written about the psychology behind how Costco gets people to spend money, from the intentional chaos of their parking lots, to making you scan in at the door like it’s an exclusive nightclub, to the role of one-time offers that only last a weekend (what they call “roadshows”). I’m not going to rehash all of that, other than to say whatever it is they’re doing, it seems to be working.
This is not any kind of sponsored post. It’s more a reflection on how one life event, in our case a wedding, spawned an entire relationship with a company that was unexpected and that gives me yearly reminders to reflect on being young and DIYing a wedding.
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First of all, Happy Anniversary! 15 years! And hands down, yours was one of the all-time best receptions ever! Yes, Costco does have certain gems that makes the trip (9 miles for us) worthwhile - the organic olive oil is #1 on our list along with organic mushrooms. I am forever disappointed that toilet paper sold there is not a recycled product and that I have to buy it elsewhere. But, also, I believe, Costco continues to maintain their DEI standard and that's saying something!