Appreciate everyone’s suggestions. I’m glad we looked through the clothing - my husband got some new shoes for $12 and a couple pairs of pants. We often try to shop thrift, but it was nice to not have to spend time combing through racks to find the right stuff. We also found some great rugs on sale - saved me a 3-hour trip to ikea that I’ve been dragging my feet on. And motor oil! Had no idea there was a Kirkland brand! No melonas at my warehouse but that means more freezer space for pesto.
As for why we’re giving it up: at one point in the past costco was our neighborhood grocery store. Literally equidistant from our old apartment compared to a Whole Foods and Harris teeter, so it made sense to run into Costco weekly for cheap milk, their great natural peanut butter, their house roast fair trade coffee, regional honey, dried fruit (great price on prunes), etc… not to mention $10 takeout pizza on lazy nights.
But when we have to make a big trip, personally, we’re too tempted to over-buy and go off-list. So when we live further away we have found it useful to get a membership every other year or so. Now that I know how cheap kids uniform clothes are there, I’m sure we will re-up the membership in a couple years once my kids are that age. But we’ll try to hold off for a while- now that we can fill our basement with bulk dry goods we should be able to just make a quick aldi trip for milk, a little meat, some produce, which I find makes it easier to stick to our list, plus saves half a Saturday morning.
As long as you wait a certain number of months (I think it’s 6?) your new membership will start from the new date; otherwise they charge it as a renewal from your previous expiration date.