Costco Gas
Costco is raking in the money as drivers flock to their gas stations for their lower-priced fuel. Since moving to our new home, we’ve been considering fueling up at the nearby Costco to save a few pennies at the pump. At our old place we never made a point to go to Costco for gas. We would get it if we were there, but never did we purposely go there for it. But now that we are so much closer to a Costco, we thought we can now fuel up at Costco purposely.

Last night we made our first trek to Costco for gas. Bad idea! The line was 20 minutes long! I’ve never waited more than 2 minutes at a regular corner gas station. The line to get into the fueling area snaked around the warehouse’s parking lot. I had to do a double take to make sure I was in the correct lane to be in line rather than to get into the parking lot. It was ridiculous. We almost decided to leave when we saw the line. We probably should’ve.

What we saved - $2.56. Yes, we saved a measly $2.56 while waiting idle in line for 20 minutes. Instead of paying $4.15 a gallon for regular at the Chevron near work, we paid $3.99 at Costco. I’m wondering if we SPENT the $2.56 we saved just for being in idle for 20 minutes! Then add to that the 20 minutes we could’ve spent doing something else. That’s an opportunity cost that I don’t even know how to calculate. Not to be snobby, I don’t think it’s worth the agony to save $2.56. So lesson learned for us. Forget Costco. Just fuel up at the corner gas station and save ourselves the agony.

For Costco though, they are laughing to the bank with this fuel crisis we are in. Look at our case last night for example. Within the 20 minutes we were there, I estimate the line was 4 cars deep at each of the 10 pumps (that’s 40 cars) plus another 20 cars snaking around the parking lot. That’s 60 cars, each fueling an average of let’s say $65 per tank. That’s $3900 in 20 minutes. I can’t even fathom how much they make a day!