For many, retirement means pinching pennies on everyday expenses, which could explain why retirees are so fond of Costco. Research even shows that older shoppers tend to prefer the discount warehouse club over other popular big-box retailers such as Walmart and Target, and are more likely than millennials to spend more while shopping there.
As a boomer and regular Costco shopper, I've learned over the years that some of the best values can be found in the warehouse club's own Kirkland Signature line of products. In fact, one in five products on Costco's shelves carry the Kirkland brand. Many of these exclusive items hold unique appeal to retirees as well as near-retirees. Oh, and don't let an empty nest discourage you from buying in bulk. Check expiration dates, stock up on items with long shelf lives and remember that a surprising number of foods can be frozen.
Take a look at our list of retiree-friendly Kirkland products from Costco.
In 2016, I first explained “Why I Bought My Prescription Glasses at Costco," and since then I bought another pair at Costco and had lenses replaced in older frames. Why Costco? Put simply, the warehouse club offered the best product and service at the best price, especially compared to the retail eyewear outlets conveniently tucked inside your eye doctor’s office. Heck, even my eye doctor recommended I buy my prescription eyeglasses at Costco and not at the franchise tucked in her practice.
The ultimate cost of your eyeglasses (or contacts) from Costco depends, of course, on the frames and lenses you choose, but that goes for any retailer. However, Costco's eyeglasses start at just $59.99. And though you may be tempted to use online eyeglass services, remember fit is crucial. Try as it might, the Internet isn’t going to hand-fit you and adjust your frames to best fit your pretty face, but Costco does provide free adjustments in-store. Oh, and you can also get an eye exam at Costco, done by a licensed optometrist.
A good night's sleep becomes increasingly challenging as you age. However, you can improve your odds of sweet dreams with a new mattress set. The Kirkland Signature mattress I was eyeing at Costco was made by top mattress manufacturer Stearns & Foster, and a queen size is going for just $1,099.99 online — including set-up and delivery. (Costco notes mattresses sold in-store may be less expensive but don't include set-up and delivery).
And don't be surprised at the co-branding. "Store brands" typically manufactured by name brands don't often co-brand, but Kirkland Signature is no ordinary store brand. You'll find name brand names on many Kirkland Signature products.
When Costco released its Kirkland Signature golf balls in 2016, they were an immediate sensation, highly lauded by pros and amateurs alike. They also quickly sold out, as they were compared to the vaunted Titleist Pro V1.
Costco-branded golf balls typically retail for 60% less than a Titleist, and currently you can pick up a 24-pack of Kirkland Signature 3-piece urethane cover golf balls for just $34.99. You can also score a Callaway Edge 10-piece golf club set for $549.99, as well as a Pebble Beach cart golf bag for $134.99.
And while you're at it, pick up a four-pack of Kirkland Signature golf gloves — sizes vary — for $29.99.
One Kirkland Signature-stamped vacation pack features a five-night stay at Secrets along the Gulf of Papagayo in Costa Rica — all inclusive, of course — so you can "enjoy the natural scenery and tranquility of Costa Rica in this beautiful, beachfront setting."
This travel package includes airfare (we priced it from the Washington, D.C., area), five nights for two in a bungalow suite with a tropical-view and transportation from the airport to the resort (and back to the airport). The total price for two: $4,930.85 for a June 2024 stay.
And if Costa Rica doesn't sound exciting, you can choose from a number of other exciting destinations when booking an affordable trip through Costco Travel.
Doing a lot of traveling in retirement? You should watch your pennies at the gas pump. Think Kirkland Signature gasoline.
Not every Costco has a gas station adjacent to it, but the club locations that do have them see steady, and strong, business. What gives? The savings. A Costco in central Virginia was selling regular Kirkland Signature Gasoline for roughly 9% less than nearby national brand stations. Sure, the difference is a few pennies per gallon, but on a fill-up you might save $3 or more — not bad if you’re heading to Costco anyway.
Factor in how valuable your time is, though. Even on a weekday afternoon, at least seven vehicles were waiting in line, sometimes for 20 minutes or longer, to get to Costco’s gas pumps. That’s a lot of idling.
And one pro tip, fellow Costco gas guzzlers: Costco's hoses are extra long, meaning you don't have to drive up to the pumps on the side of the car where your gas tank door is located. If you're close enough to the pump, the hose will reach either side. Many people waste precious minutes waiting to pull up to the "right" side of the pump.
All those rock concerts. All those portable listening devices, from Walkmans to iPods, Beats and iPhones wired to your ears. Many boomers are paying the price with hearing loss — and boomers who already turned 65 know that Medicare doesn’t cover hearing aids, which can run as much as $3,000 per ear.
Costco’s made some assertive moves into the business of selling and servicing hearing aids, offering an array of devices at reasonable prices. Free hearing tests are even conducted in-store at Costco Hearing Aid Centers. Costco not only carries its own store brand, but also carries three major suppliers of hearing aids.
You'll need plenty of calcium as you age to stave off osteoporosis. Here's one place to get it. Kirkland Signature cheeses are all the rage among cheesemongers. Seriously. They're that gouda (sorry).
And why stop at a chunk of cheese when you can have your own wheel. Excessive, yes, but there’s an odd appeal to having your own 72-pound wheel o' cheese. Costco knows this and complies. The Kirkland Signature Whole Wheel Parmigiano Reggiano, imported from Italy, can be yours for $949.99 or $13.20 per pound. I’ve had a piece of said wheel and it’s exceptional.
That per-pound price is a bargain, by the way, compared to the chunks of Parm-Regg sold at a Wegmans supermarket in Charlottesville, Va. They were going for $21.99 a pound (in various size chunks). But alas, the question inevitably arises: What do you do with a whole wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano? One answer: Pasta — lots and lots of pasta. And some foodie sites note if properly stored, the aged cheese can last for many months, and some say it can be frozen.
There are always long lines at the Costco hot-food stand, especially during the lunch rush. The food is inexpensive: An all-beef Kirkland hot dog with a 20-ounce soda and refills goes for a mere $1.50. An 18-inch whole pizza is $9.95. And for dessert, a twisted churro, for $1.49. If you're not a member, you're out of luck. After April 7th, $1.50 hot dogs will be for Costco members only.
Still hungry? Dining at Costco doesn’t only mean eating at the food court. After a COVID pause, the warehouse club is back swimming in food-demo stands. Employees cook up small bites for shoppers. If the first sample wasn’t filling enough, you can always circle back and wait your turn again. Costco doesn't mind and neither does the manufacturer of that dumpling or meatball you keep sampling. By the time you check out, you’ve had a free meal.
You can't count on Kirkland cheese for all of your calcium. Active retirees need the right multivitamins, and Costco has stepped up to the plate. A bottle of 400 tablets of Kirkland Signature Mature Multi Vitamins is just $18.99 at Costco.com (you may also find it in warehouse clubs). That's under 5 cents per vitamin. If name-brand is how you roll, that lifestyle's going to cost you more. A bottler of Centrum Silver for adults 50 and over is $18.16 on Amazon.com for a bottle of just 200 vitamins. That's just over 9 cents per vitamin.
The Party Planning Committee at your office determined a sheet cake would do for your upcoming retirement party. They'd save money if they ordered that half-sheet cake from Costco's in-store Kirkland Signature Bakery. Your custom-designed theme will be baked for you in the store, for $24.99 for a half sheet. For comparison: A custom-baked half-sheet cake costs $42.96 online at Walmart or $46.99 at Publix.
The Kirkland Signature affordable sheet cakes are also a hit at grandkids' birthday parties.
You can't beat the price, or the taste and convenience, of those store-cooked Kirkland Signature rotisserie whole chickens, selling for a fixed price of just $4.99. And Costco stores churn out a lot of them— 137 million rotisserie chickens were sold last year — spinning in the giant ovens all day long.
The Costco I go to in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley must roast hundreds of chickens a day in its giant rotisserie oven, which is constantly getting loaded and off-loaded by the white-coated chicken changers. These Kirkland Signature Rotisserie Chickens are always tasty, and what’s not sold is repurposed in other Costco fresh foods made onsite. You can find some of that leftover poultry in Costco’s Kirkland Signature chicken noodle soup and packages of shredded chicken, great for creating a variety of your own dishes at home (and it freezes well).
The best part: Costco has consistently kept the price of each roasted chicken at $4.99, likely looked at as a loss leader. At a nearby Walmart, a lone rotisserie chicken was selling for $7.67 with nary a rotisserie in sight.
Proteins can be budget-busters for many retirees, especially fresh fish and seafood. But Costco's back-of-the-store cold cases are chock full of Kirkland Signature seafood, and at bargain prices compared to most supermarkets. A three-pound bag of Kirkland Signature wild sockeye salmon, for example, sells for $39.59 (or $13.20 a pound). At Publix, a 12oz bag of wild sockeye salmon costs $19.89, which comes out to a pricey $26.40 per pound.
Additionally, you can get a two-pound bag of shrimp from Costco for just $15.20. At Kroger, a one-pound bag of Simple Truth raw shrimp costs $9.99.
Some breakfast syrups are primarily a blend of high fructose corn syrup and caramel coloring. The only ingredient listed for Kirkland Signature maple syrup is...maple syrup. It's also organic and a relative bargain at $14.99 for just over a quart, making it an affordable luxury for pancake and waffle lovers. At a Kroger supermarket, Kroger's Simple Truth house brand of Grade A organic maple syrup was selling for $17.99 a quart.
Costco is sweet on its Kirkland Signature brand of 100% U.S. raw, unfiltered honey. The price goes down easy: You can get a 3-pack of 24 ounce Kirkland Signature organic raw honey jars for $17.99 (or $0.25 an ounce). A single 16-ounce jar of Walmart's Great Value organic raw honey costs $5.97 (or a little over $0.35 per ounce).
Looking for a heart-healthy snack to replace the potato chips your doctor told you to put away for good? Kirkland Signature is nuts for nuts, and you should be too. Costco's Kirkland Signature Whole Cashews are a prime example. That’s not just this nut speaking.
“Costco's nuts are always super-fresh and high-quality,” raves food and cooking website TheKitchn.com. “Unless you're a big-time baker, 2- and 3-pound packages of nuts might seem like a daunting purchase, but don't forget that they freeze beautifully.”
A 2.5-pound container of Kirkland Signature whole fancy cashews goes for $14.99, or $5.99 per pound, a good savings over the going rate for a 1.63 pound canister of Planters whole cashews on Amazon, which are selling for $17.09.
While the proof isn't definitive, some studies have indicated that caffeine can slow cognitive decline and decrease the risk of dementia. And if you know beans about coffee, you know Kirkland Signature’s line of coffees, from ground coffee to K-cups, has a legion of fans.
If K-cups for the Keurig brand of coffeemakers help power you through your day, Costco has something for you to brew. Its lineup of boxes of Kirkland Signature K-cups include boxes of 120 dark roast pods for $37.99, or about 32 cents a pod.
Not a podster? Costco also features a whole lineup of Kirkland Signature ground and whole-bean coffee, plus those of competitors.
Kirkland Signature batteries can keep all your devices charged up at bargain prices. A 48-pack of Kirkland Signature AA batteries — made by Duracell — is $15.99, or about 33 cents per battery.
Stepping into name-brand batteries will cost you more at Costco (and much more at other places). A 40-pack of Duracell CopperTop AA batteries is $20.99, for example, or 53 cents per battery. (Costco often puts Duracell batteries on sale, however, so check the flyer or shelf tag if you must have a name brand.)
Meanwhile, Walmart was selling 24-packs of Energizer AA batteries for $14.89, or 62 cents per battery.
Costco is the biggest seller of wine in the U.S., with estimated annual wine sales of $2.5 billion, and the warehouse club’s Kirkland Signature wines are a big reason behind the booming demand. As Annette Alvarez-Peters, who heads Costco’s wine-buying team, told Wine Spectator, "The Costco consumer is very loyal to the [Kirkland Signature] brand. They will always give the item a shot.” And why not? Wine rating websites typically give Kirkland Signature wines high scores in the mid-to-upper 80s out of 100.
One hint for picking especially good Kirkland Signature wines: When you see the Costco brand on the front label, turn the bottle around. You just might find the name of the source winery on the back label. That can tell you a lot about the experience of the winemaker and the quality of the grapes. Alternatively, read reviews online. This Costco-centric wine blog, for one, has taste-tested plenty of Kirkland Signature wines. In my taste-testing of whites, I found a nice Kirkland Signature Cabernet Sauvignon and a Kirkland Sonoma County Chardonnay for $7.99 each. These are big boys, too, 1.5-liter bottles, not the typical 750 milliliters for mass retailers' house wines. Those include Walmart, with its private label wines called Winemakers Selection, selling for about $5 to $12.99 per bottle, and Aldi, with its Winking Owl varieties, including chardonnay, pinot grigio, shiraz, zinfandel, merlot and cabernet sauvignon, selling for less than $5 a bottle.
Olive oil is at the heart of the famed Mediterranean diet, which purportedly contributes to the longevity of the region's inhabitants. And Costco’s olive oil rises to the top, notes the University of California, Davis, which conducted a chemical and sensory study of olive oils. Kirkland Signature Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil was one of only a few imported oils that met international and U.S. standards for extra virgin olive oil. The many brands that fell short in the testing were diluted with cheaper oils and exhibited problems with quality and flavor.
What's also nice is the price. A 2-liter bottle of Kirkland Signature EVOO is $25.99.
Walmart does have its own branded EVOO. Its Great Value organic extra virgin olive oil is $14.68 for a 51-ounce jar, or just under 29 cents per fluid ounce, but we're not sure if it's received accolades.
Note, too, the Kirkland Signature name is on a wide lineup of other cooking oils, including coconut, canola and corn.
If you're retired and eating at home more, you're running the dishwasher more. And you've probably noticed the mounting cost for those convenient dishwasher pods, especially if you’re buying name-brand detergent. You don’t have to.
Kirkland Signature Premium Dishwasher Pacs get the job done at a fraction of the price of national brands. You’ll pay $13.99 for 115 pods, or 12 cents per load. Costco also stocks packages of Cascade Complete Action pods for $20.89 for 90 pods, or 23 cents per load, around twice the cost of the Kirkland brand. In tests performed in 2022 by Consumer Reports, Kirkland’s pods bested all competitors including name-brand pods from Cascade and Finish.
My home has become a Kirkland Signature paper products home: facial tissue, TP and paper towels, all better, in our experience, than most national brands we previously used. During cold season, we use a lot of tissues, and need only one Kirkland Signature tissue versus two with national brands to get the nose job done.
Need more proof? We found a 30-roll pack of Kirkland Signature 2-Ply Toilet Tissue (380 sheets) cost $23.49, while a 30-roll pack of Charmin Ultra Soft 2-Ply Toilet Tissue (224 sheets) is $32.98 at Walmart. A 12-roll pack of Kirkland Signature Premium Paper Towels (160 sheets per roll) is $22.99, while a 12-roll package of Bounty Advanced Paper Towels (101 sheets per roll) priced at $29.99. It all adds up.
