We are currently Costco Gold members, the standard level. We joined because you know you’re getting a fair price (if not necessarily the best) on great variety of products, the customer service is great, and you gotta love their food court. So after spending another few hundred dollars on food and gifts today, amongst all those banners pronouncing *2% Cash Back for Executive Members*, I started to ponder if I should upgrade my membership level too?

Executive membership costs $100, regular is $50. At 2% back, basic math says you’ll need to spend $2,500 a year to break even. I probably don’t spend that much. Then I remembered a rumor I kept hearing that if you don’t profit with the Executive Membership, Costco will give you back the difference. Say you only get $20 in rebates. Bring in your rewards check at the end of the year and they’ll give you $30. So there is no risk. This is part of their 100% Satisfaction Guarantee – “We will refund your membership fee in full at any time if you are dissatisfied.”

In addition to the membership cost savings, thanks to the commenters below, I am also reminded that there are tons of other discounts offered to Executive members only on things like insurance, small business services, cheaper check printing, real estate services, and more, that don’t end up on your rewards rebates but still save you money. So not only is there no risk, there is much potential upside.

Heck, you may spend more than you think at Costco. I started doing some math on the drive home. I never spend less than $100 per trip at Costco. Since I go at least once a month, that’s about $1,500 right there. In addition, we occasionally buy things for office parties and get reimbursed. That’s another $500-$1,000. If that doesn’t put us over, add in holiday gifts and other big-ticket items, and who knows, you might just spend over $2,500. Think about signing up for before you do all your shopping!

Update 2: I have actually never experienced the “hard sell” that others speak of below, but I can see how it might happen at specific stores. I’m guessing that each store is measured by how much Executive members they have shopping there, and a manager may decide to aggressively sign up new customers.

Update 3: Earn More with Costco Credit Card: You can get 3% cash back on gasoline at U.S. stand-alone gas stations (up to $4,000 a year), 2% cashback at U.S. restaurants and on eligible travel purchases, 1% on other purchases with the TrueEarnings® Card from Costco and American Express. It even doubles as your Costco membership card. Terms and restrictions apply. More info over at my review.

“Disclaimer: This content is not provided or commissioned by the issuer. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of the issuer, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by the issuer. This site may be compensated through the issuer’s Affiliate Program.”

The Consumerist has a great before-you-go checklist for everyone who’s all hyped up for Black Friday shopping. Have fun and try not to get shot while in line. I’ll be rooting for you while under the covers.

My family is in town, so it looks like I’ll have to brave the hoards later in the day. Wee. (Or should I say Wii?)

Many of us are so busy running around that we forget to take advantage of all the benefits that we are paying for. Or maybe it’s just me. On my health plan, I am covered for an eye exam and a certain allowance for contact lenses or glasses once every 12 months. This doesn’t mean one each calendar year (as I thought), it means I have to wait at least 12 months after my last eye exam in order to get another one. Stupid me, it’s been almost two years and I haven’t gone in once. I only wear contacts when playing sports, and I finally ran out last week. I’m going in for an exam today, but I basically missed out on a two year’s worth of contacts.

I’m sure there are people who pay for dental coverage and don’t get all their free cleanings either. Also, this may fit perfectly if you need to finish using up your Flexible Spending Account balances.

In addition to the Home Energy Analysis tool previously posted, here are some more no-cost and low-cost tips for saving energy from the Alliance to Save Energy. I’ve highlighted the ones that I personally should follow up on before it gets really chilly.

Free Ideas

• Check the furnace filter each month, and clean or replace it as needed. Dirty filters block air flow through your heating and cooling systems, increasing your energy bill and shortening the equipment?s life.
• Only heat or cool the rooms you need?close vents and doors of unused rooms.

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Click for bigger pics. Skiers: How much do you think they cost?

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We just bought a 1/3 cord of firewood for $50 off of Craigslist (only partially shown above), figuring we’d try out our new fireplace this winter. But then I ran across this article about how conventional fireplaces are useless:

As a fire burns in a conventional fireplace lot of warm house air is sucked past the leaky door and up the chimney. The air sucked up the chimney is replaced by cold outside air that has to be warmed up to a comfortable temperature by your oil, gas or electric furnace.

Now, this may be true, but does that counteract the radiative heat from the flame/hot fireplace surface area? Oh well, I’m not paying $2,000+ for a new fireplace insert. We set up our couch right in front of the fireplace so it is very toasty and romantic.

Winter is a comin’, which means higher heating costs for much of the country, so you should try out the energy audit tool at Home Energy Saver, a government site which uses advanced simulations to find out cost-effective ways to cut down your utility bills. According to their potential savings calculator, we’re talking 50% off here.

First, you give it your zip code, and it pulls up some initial information on your house based on your geographic area. You can then go with those estimates or enter in more details for a more accurate analysis. The tool then calculates your home’s energy consumption and potential energy-saving ideas. You can even choose a specific payback period and they will only give you recommendations that will be profitable within that period.
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Since it’s November, it’s time to talk about Black Friday AKA the day after Thanksgiving. Somehow, this has turned into the #1 shopping day of the year with stores offer deep discounts like $200 laptops to get people in the door. In turn, these deep discounts have led to special websites which leak the upcoming deals way ahead of time.

Why? So people can game the system by doing one of the following:

Rebuy. If you know that, for example, the Xbox 360 is going to be on sale for $50 on Black Friday, you go and buy it a week or two beforehand for retail price. Then, on Black Friday, you strut past all the hordes, march up to the customer service desk, asking for a pricematch to the new price. In essence, you are (1) returning the item for full price and the (2) buying it back right away for the sale price. Thus the term “rebuy”. Worst case scenario, they refuse and you simply return the item.
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Wal-mart has a new program that offers certain generic prescription drugs for only $4, with or without insurance. Available in-store only, no mail orders. I don’t know much about drugs, but that sounds pretty cheap to me. From their press release:

The $4 generics program includes 314 generic prescriptions available for up to a 30-day supply at commonly prescribed dosages. According to www.rxlist.com, the list also represents 14 of the top 20 prescribed medications in the United States.

The 27 participating states currently are: AK, AL, AR, AZ, DE, FL, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, MD, MI, MO, MS, NC, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, SD, TX, VA, VT.

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How much is your TV costing you even when it’s off? How much money would you save if you powered down your computer every night? You can answer these questions with the Kill-a-Watt Electric Usage Monitor The term frugal gadget is no longer an oxymoron 😉

In short, you stick it in between the power outlet and any electrical device, and it’ll tell you how much energy it sucks. Many objects keep using electricity even if it’s not turned on. Get how much you pay per kilowatt-hour from your electric bill, and you can easily find out how much you’re paying to run everything in your house. I really want one of these. At about $25-$30 shipped, I’m trying to justify buying one by getting it to pay for itself in energy savings.
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WikiHow has a good article on How to Get out of a Cellular Service Contract. While most of the methods involve smooth-talking your way out of the contract, they do point out my favorite way to get out of a cellphone contract: Wait for them to change your contract terms. This actually happens quite frequently, and I’ve done it successfully myself. In my case they raised the late payment fee from $25 to $39 or something like that. They’ll bury this in your statement in tiny print, sometimes on the back of page 6 of 7 or something.

But the law says if they change your contract, you can either accept or cancel within 30 days. Cancel! This is perfectly fair as they are changing the rules on you! Note that they may cancel you that very second, so be prepared. In fact, I remember my conversation with Verizon Wireless like it was yesterday:
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