You want to save money at Costco. That’s why you shop there in the first place. They offer a great price on everything in the store. However, you can save more than just what you see at face value. Use Costco coupons and some other tricks to lower the prices even further.
Save Money at Costco with Coupons
Unfortunately, Costco doesn’t accept manufacturer coupons. You can’t just go into your local newspaper and get coupons to use at this store. However, you can still save money at Costco using the coupons they offer.
Costco coupons are only available for use by store members. The store issues a monthly coupon booklet where you can find the coupons for the current month. Note that the month isn’t necessarily a calendar month. In fact, the “month” isn’t always a month long. For example, the deals may be good from August 9th through September 2nd.
You can find the latest deals on the Warehouse Savings page of Costco’s website. You can also use the Costco mobile app to see these same deals on your phone. Each coupon will indicate whether you can use it in-store only or also online. That’s right — members can shop online at Costco and use these online coupons to get discounts on different items each month.
Here’s a bonus tip for online shoppers: Costco offers price protection on online purchases. This means that if the price drops within 30 days of your purchase, you can get a refund for the price difference. Use a tool such as Paribus to help you keep track of those differences.
Use Third Party Coupon Apps
In addition to Costco coupons, you can get money back for your Costco purchases by using third party apps. For example, iBotta offers cash back on some items purchased at Costco. You can go to the iBotta app and search specifically for your Costco location in order to find the items available for cash back. Checkout51 and Shopmium to help you save money on Costco purchases.
Look Closely at Price Tags
Check the price tag on everything at Costco. What are you looking for? Prices that end in anything other than $0.99. Here are some specific tips:
- Costco clearance prices usually end in a “1”; for example, $5.41 is a clearance.
- Manager specials end in 97. This is a store-specific limited-time deal.
- Manufacturer deals end in “9”; the exception is if a price ends in $0.99.
- Inventory-closing deals end in “00” or “88”; for example, $4.88. Note this is sometimes returned merchandise, and it is sold “as is.”
Get Cash Back with the Costco Credit Card
Finally, you can get cash back on all of your Costco purchases when you use the Costco Anywhere Visa credit card by Citi. This card gives you 2% back on all Costco purchases, except gas.
However, gas is an even better deal. You get 4% back on gas from a variety of stations, including affordable Costco gas. The $5 is on the first $7000 of gas per year. If you buy more gas than that in a year, you get 1% cash back on the rest.
In addition to cash back on your Costco items and gas, you get cash back on purchases elsewhere as well. This card gives you 3% cash back on restaurants and travel, plus 1% back on all other purchases.
The important thing is to remember to pay off your credit card in full each month. You don’t want to save money at Costco with coupons, third party apps and the cash back credit card only to pay interest because you didn’t pay off the bill!
How do you save money at Costco? Share with us in the comments below!
