Costco blog/discussion forum

Costco can save you a lot of money on your vacation.

Legoland has theme parks in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Southern California. The Southern California theme park is located in Carlsbad, California. It is about a 45 minute drive from San Diego and about an hour and half drive from Los Angeles.

The park is generally thought to be on par with, or even more fun than Disneyland for children under 9 years old. Teenagers will probably be bored to tears, however. So, don't bring them here.

Also, unlike Disnelyland, you can save money on admission by shopping around. If you buy directly at Legoland, 1-day admission is $60 for adults and $50 for children. If you buy the tickets at your Southern California Costco warehouse, the price for 1-day admission is only $45 (adults) and $36 (age 3-12). If you live in Southern California, you can get a 3-month pass for only a bit more, $52 (adults) $43 (age 3-12).

A family of four can save $58 on 1-day admission, or save $30 on the first trip to the park, and go for free for the next 3 months instead of paying $220. That's quite a savings.

This 18 piece set includes a driver (10 degrees of loft), fairway wood (16 degrees of loft), #3 and #4 hybrid irons (combination fairway wood and long iron), seven more irons (5-9, pitching wedge and sand wedge), a putter, a bag with stand, and five head covers. (Costco Item #226143 was priced at $249.99 in August 2008 at my local warehouse.) The detailed specifications for the clubs are available here.

Jack Nicklaus Golf sells golf clubs under three different brands marketed to three different types of players: Nicklaus Premium (advanced), Jack Nicklaus Signature (intermediate), and Golden Bear Golf (beginners).

The SS460X set pictured here is exclusively available at Costco Warehouses. Costco.com sells a similar set from Prince Golf, the MX2 Hybrid Golf Set, for $269.99. You can specify regular or stiff shafts when you order that online.

Costco has unveiled a new brand of mountain bikes.

The Northrock Mountain Bike (Model XC9) (Costco item number 293140, priced at $544.99 in August 2008) is a new arrival to my local Costco warehouse.

Although Northrock is a completely unheard of brand, this bike seems to be constructed from quality components including:

• Shimano Deore LX
• Marzocchi MZ Race Fork
• Avid BB5 disc brakes
• Ritchey handle bars, stem, and seat post
• WTB Saddle and tires

Costco.com sells two other models of mountain bikes on their web site, the Schwinn Delta full suspension model ($450) and the Cadillac AM2.4 ($850). The Northrock falls in between these pricing wise.

I haven't bought it yet, I simply don't have time to properly evaluate it these days. Please post your experiences with this bike.

You probably have heard of HD television, but how about HD radio? Of course, there is satellite radio, but you have to pay a subscription fee for that. HD radio is free and probably already available in your area.

Costco warehouses are now selling the Dice Electronics HD Radio Receiver(Costco Item #233826, $99.99 in July 2008). This receiver is a tabletop radio. It features 10 preset stations, a clock, headphone output jack, an optional speaker output, and an audio input (you can use it as a speaker for your iPOD). The manual is available online.

Broadcasting digitally, AM stations sound like FM stations, and FM stations sound like CDs. HD also gives FM stations the option of broadcasting multiple simultaneous channels. So stations like KROQ-FM (106.7 FM) in Los Angeles, can have their regular (analog) broadcast (alternative music, for KROQ) on the main channel and 80's music on the 2nd channel.

Broadcasters also can send text information that will appear on your radio, for music stations this is typically the artist name and song title. For news stations this may be stock quotes or traffic reports.

Costco is offering a good price on this item. The Dice Electronics iTR-100 is selling for $99.99 in the warehouses, but if you buy it direct online from Dice it will cost $149.99. As with all new technologies, the price on this will probably drop significantly over the next year or two. Of course, with the Costco return policy you could always return it, if you are not satisfied.

January and July are furniture months at Costco. You'll find a wide selection of different types of furniture during these months. At other times, you are limited to shopping for furniture at Costco.com or you to get to one of the two existing Costco-Home stores (in Tempe, Arizona or Kirkland, Washington).

Costco furniture is not cheap and inexpensive, like Ikea Furniture. Instead, you are usually getting very high quality pieces of furniture at a substantial discount compared to main line furniture stores. Costco also usually offers exclusive items, so you won't find the exact same piece at another non-Costco store. This also makes it nearly impossible to make direct price comparisons.

This piece, the Mckinley Hall Bench (Costco Item #234676, priced at $296.99 in July 2008), provides an excellent storage solution for the hall or entryway of your home.

Costco Connection describes it this way:

Constructed of birch solids, the McKinley hall bench will be the most useful piece of furniture in your home. The four wicker bins allow you to store almost anything, while the five drawers are great for organizing. The luxurious all top-grain leather
cushion provides a soft landing for you to sit on.

Finally, if you want to buy furniture at Costco, check the prices at other nearby Costco stores. I have seen 30% price differences at two Costco warehouses only about 30 miles from one another.

I previously wrote about the Sceptre 32 1080p. This finally went on sale on July 14th. I ordered it that Saturday. It was shipped on Monday from Ontario, California and we received it on Tuesday (in Southern California, about 50 miles from where it was shipped).

So, this highly anticipated TV/monitor arrived looking good. It was packaged well, it included a detailed manual along with a quick setup guide. It took me about 15 minutes to get it out of the package and mounted on the stand. You need to screw in eight screws to attach the stand to the TV. They even give you a screwdriver, so you won't need any tools.

After setting it up, I powered it on and, well, nothing. I couldn't get a picture. I tried various inputs, reading the manual, etc, and I can not get anything to display on the monitor. I can't even see the "on screen menu". Nothing. It definitely has power. A red LED lights up when it is connected to power. After I press "on", the red LED flashes blue for a few seconds and then gives a steady blue color, indicating it is on and I can see the backlight flashing on momentarily, but I never see anything displayed on the monitor.

So, back to Costco it goes. Thanks for the great return policy Costco! I believe this may have been a fluke, and I am considering purchasing another one, but I'm going to have to decide quickly since the sale ends in a few days.

It's hard to describe this Powerstation PS5000M (Costco item #179852, priced at $79.99 in July 2008), which is available at Costco warehouses. It is an air compressor, a portable power source, a worklight, and a car battery all rolled into one. I've owned this for about a year, and have used it only a few times but it was worth the $80 each time I used it.

First let me describe what you get: the Powerstation PS5000M contains an 18 amp-hour battery, two 46 inch 6 gauge cables that have heavy duty 400 amp clamps, a 400 Watt inverter, a 140 PSI compressor, and a bright LED worklight.

Now let me describe how you use it. When you buy this, unpack it and plug it into the wall somewhere out of the way. I have it in the garage.

• One day you go to your car and it won't start, the battery has died. Just get the Powerstation PS5000 out from the garage, open your hood, connect it to the battery, and a ground. Start the car. You just saved yourself a call for a tow truck.
• You notice your tires are low on air. Go get the Powerstation PS5000M, unplug it from the wall, bring it out to your car and inflate the tires. It's that simple. You can also use it to inflate basketballs, volleyballs, etc.
  

If you have asthma or allergies, one of the first things to do is make sure you are breathing clean air. One way to do that is to purchase a Therapure 300D air purifier, available in Costco warehouses (Costco Item number 176245, $129.99 in July 2008; this item currently has a manufacturer's instant rebate of $30 making the total $99.99).

A standard exists to quantify how well an air cleaner works. This standard is called CADR, clean air delivery rate. The standard setting body, AHAM, publishes a list of certified air cleaners, along with their effectiveness, measured with the CADR number. Therapure claims a CADR of 180 (at high setting), however the AHAM database does not list Therapure as a certified manufacturer. Furthermore, CADR numbers are measured for three contaminants separately: dust, tobacco smoke, and pollen. So, it isn't clear what Therapure is referring to when they claim a CADR of 180.

As usual, Costco is offering the best price I can find. If you buy this direct from the Therapure web site, it will cost $150 plus shipping. If you hunt around the internet, most other sites will sell it for about $175.

Have you had vandalism or a burglary in your neighborhood recently? Maybe you should install a home surveillance system. Police are increasingly using these systems to capture criminals. Costco warehouses are selling the the Astak CM-818DVR4V (Costco Item #277301, priced at $489.99 in July 2008). Costco occasionally has a $100 coupon on this item.

This item features four cameras and a four channel digital video recorder. The digital video recorder works like a TIVO, allowing you to store the video from the four surveillance cameras on a hard disk, and then instantly review the video at a specified time. The digital video recorder comes with a 250 GB disk, which should be enough to store several days worth of video from the four cameras. The exact amount of storage depends upon the compression rate and the number of frames per second you choose to store.

It has many features. You can also hook this up to your home network and remotely monitor the cameras over the internet. It has a USB port for data backup. The cameras can be mounted outdoor, and they have infrared LEDs for night vision. (You can see in the dark, but the criminal won't know it.) Each camera comes with 100 feet of cable, so you are going to need to do some installation, drilling through walls, and hiding some cable.

If you buy this, the first thing to do is update the firmware. See the product page at Astek.com to download the updated firmware.

For comparison, the same system is available at Walmart.com for $550, that's $60 more.

The Little Giant Model 17 Type 1a Aluminum Ladder is being sold at both Costco warehouses and Costco.com (Costco item number 269470, priced at $199.99 in June 2008 at both my local warehouse and at Costco.com (shipping and handling is included!).

This ladder is made of aerospace grade aluminum. Its rated load is 300 pounds, but it can probably handle twice that without a problem. The ladder weighs 31 pounds, and folds up for easy storage.

If you order this Model 17 from the Little Giant website, it will cost you $359.80, which includes shipping and handling. That's 80% more than it costs from Costco.com!! Amazon.com has similar prices, about $350.

Although many people first heard of Little Giant Ladders from their series of infomercials starting in about 2004, the company is much older. It was started in the 1980's, but sold mostly to industrial and government clients. They were known for quality ladders for some 20 years before they started selling direct to consumers.

I missed all the infomercials, but first discovered Little Giant Ladders at a Costco Special Event a few months ago. The Little Giant Ladders special event has many other ladders displayed and for sale. I had my eye on the four step Little Giant Safety Step Stepladder pictured to the left, but I didn't buy it that day. I'm still regretting it. If anyone sees this at an upcoming roadshow, please post the price.