OneAndOneIs2

Some years ago, some friends introduced me to a very big shop called Costco, where you could buy stuff at wholesale price if you were lucky enough to have a membership card. A few years later, through a small amount of deception I admit, I obtained a card of my own.

I stopped going there 3-4 years ago because I was too busy, in too much turmoil, and (latterly) too damn poor to be able to go there. Because although it's incredibly cheap in theory to shop at wholesale prices, the amount of stuff you have to BUY on a Costco run makes for a large up-front investment.

But then a year ago I got this programming job, but money was still a bit tight, so it seemed to make sense to suggest to Tina that we go take a look around. And so it began again...

The nearest Costco is 80 miles away, so it's not something we do on a weekly basis. In fact, we aim to buy enough stuff to get us through 2-3 months. Now, what we buy is around half price, so it's unquestionably cheaper to do it this way. But it means that our average shop at Costco comes in at around 300 quid.

On the plus side, when we'd done all our Christmas shopping at the end of last year, realized we were utterly broke and would have to live off only the food we already had in the house, it meant we spent a month living off prime ribeye steak & aberdeen angus beef...

Anyway. We went on another run this weekend, and it turned out to be one of the cheaper ones - a mere £250. Plus £25 to renew membership. But this wasn't because we'd finally managed to stock up on so many necessities that we didn't need to buy so much. If only!

No, this was because of the helpful system they have at Costco where they allow you to leave big and/or heavy items in your trolley, which they will then scan in-situ for you as they pull it past.

Very helpful, and we've made use of it pretty much every time I've ever been to Costco.

Only thing is, on this occasion, the checkout guy was so preoccupied that he appeared to fail to notice the stuff we had put at the bottom of the trolley, on the low-loader platform. Which means that a box of 6 bottles of wine and two 8-packs of 2-litre bottles of cola went unscanned.

Sadly, by the time we noticed the error and had double-checked the receipt and made sure of the fact that we hadn't been charged for £50 worth of stuff, we couldn't be bothered to go back and tell them.

Kinda makes me wish we'd picked up a few more items, to be honest ;o)

I'm sure my rum and coke will taste all the sweeter for knowing that the main ingredient was free of charge!