The Buck Fifty Project Buy us a hot dog $1.50

Warehouse 302 · stop 7 of 648

West Springfield, Massachusetts

September 18, 202637 road milesAll four of us70s clearOrder 391Food court $33.7534 photographs

Two receipts, forty-five minutes apart. Order 391 at 6:56pm: two chicken strips, a chef salad, three 20oz Cokes, a cheese slice and a bottled water, $28.42 all in. Then order 457 at 7:41pm, on the way out, for two double chocolate chunk cookies, $5.33, served warm, decided somewhere between the registers and the door. No hot dog on either one: we came at dinner time and everybody wanted something else, which has now happened twice in seven warehouses.

In the warehouse, $44.30 across 6 items. Groceries and the Kirkland allergy tablets. ’Tis the (allergy) season. $5.50 came off in instant savings.

Customer Service Dog named Buttercup. End of the shift so maybe that’s why she looks a little sad. Or maybe because they don’t have the churro yet.
The food court receipt, with the card number blacked out.
The food court receipt. Tap it to read every line.

What we found

West Springfield, #302. Seventh warehouse, 95.8 miles round trip, and the first one outside Connecticut.
$549.99, with an asterisk in the corner. The asterisk is Costco’s way of saying this warehouse is not reordering it, and it is never explained anywhere, you have to be standing in front of the sign.
A lit snowman the height of the racking, on September 18.
Go-backs, at the end of the day. Four carts of returns and second thoughts waiting to be walked back to their aisles, with a rolled rug across the top. Costco’s return policy is the reason a pile this size exists, and the reason nobody seems bothered by it.
The board. A quarter-pound-plus all-beef hot dog and a 20oz soda with refill, $1.50, which is the number this whole project is named after.
Kiosk 235, $8.32 into the order: the printer is out of paper, please see a Costco Employee. We started again on 234.
The order, read back before paying for it. $28.42, and not a hot dog in it.
Double chocolate chunk, $2.49, 750 calories, served warm. Filed away for later.
Order 391. Chicken strips twice, a chef salad, three Cokes, a cheese slice and a bottled water: $26.58 plus $1.84 of tax, 7.0% here against Connecticut’s 7.35%, and the first receipt of this project that is not Connecticut’s. The last four digits of the card are blacked out.
Still marked NEW here, two weeks after Enfield had it marked NEW. Five pieces and a dipping sauce, $6.99.
The whole order. Second stop out of seven with no hot dog on it: we came at dinner time and everybody wanted something else.
A fourteen-piece hand-painted nativity, $119.99, indoor use only. Halloween is still on the floor.
Item 1746086, the Orvis Outdoor Tech Hat. The sign over the pallet says $4.00, and the pallet under it was still full.
An Orvis sun hat, $4.00, with an asterisk. One size, UPF 50+. We did not need one and we wrote it down anyway.
The same hat out of the bin. One size, UPF 50+, four dollars. We did not need one.
$9.97 and an asterisk on the same sign. At Costco a price ending in .97 is a markdown and an asterisk means the warehouse is not reordering, so both marks together are the rarest thing we look for, and here they are, on a dog toy shaped like a llama.
Five crescent bowls laid out in a pinwheel on the pallet. Jes saw the old SNET logo in it, which is a thing you only see if you grew up with a Southern New England Telephone bill on the kitchen counter.
$14.99 less a $3.00 instant rebate. The rebate expires September 27, which is one way to tell what season it is indoors.
Caramel flan, $14.99, which the sign works out to 31.2 cents an ounce.
Mathew, behind a jumbo plush raccoon. It is most of his height.
Kirkland matcha, twelve ounces for $19.99. The sign does the arithmetic: $26.65 a pound for powdered green tea.
Carter, behind a thirty-count case of protein shakes.
The box it ships in: a 3.6-foot Disney Mickey pumpkin with infinity mirrors, on the floor in front of the Halloween pillows. The price sign is the next photograph.
A 3.6-foot Mickey pumpkin with infinity mirrors, $219.99. 346 LEDs, fifteen of which twinkle.
The animated vampire butler, stacked on pallets in the Halloween aisle. The price sign is the next photograph.
A six-foot animated vampire butler with a light-up candelabra, $99.97. A Costco price ending in .97 is a markdown, so these were not moving, which is a strange thing to conclude six weeks before Halloween.
Item 2081210, the 250th Anniversary ten-ounce round. Limit of ten, no returns, $689.99, and the sign is dated 9/18/26. Brookfield had the same item number at $709.99 on August 30.
Item 2073574, a PAMP Lady of Freedom ten-ounce silver bar. $689.99, limit of ten, no returns, the same price as the anniversary round in the case beside it.
$239.97, asterisked: marked down and not being reordered. The Watch9 is sitting on the table behind it, which explains both marks at once.
A board near the front, congratulating seven people on thirty-five years or more. The longest has been here forty-one. Costco’s reputation as an employer usually arrives as a statistic; this is what it looks like on a wall.
Carter and Mathew heading for the doors.
Out at 7:45 and dark. Seventh of six hundred and forty-eight.
Order 457, 19:41. Two double chocolate chunk cookies, $4.98 plus $0.35, bought on the way out, which is why this stop has two food court receipts and not one. Card digits blacked out.

Costco Casino

5 things on this trip had an asterisk or a price ending in .97. The whole record is here.

What we thought

Chicken strips, $6.99 Would order again

Ordered two again, and still marked NEW on the board here two weeks after Enfield had them marked NEW. Five pieces and a dipping sauce. Everything came out extra crispy tonight, and the strips are the one thing that did not want to be. — Jes and Carter

Rotisserie chicken chef salad, $7.99 Would order again

Rich’s, and the first salad anybody has ordered in seven warehouses. It is the most food on the menu for the money if you are not counting the hot dog, which everybody always is. — Rich

Cheese pizza slice, $1.99 Would order again

A slice instead of a hot dog, which is a thing Mathew can now do without anybody making a point of it. The whole order came out extra crispy, which on a slice is the good version of that. — Mathew

20oz soda with refill, $0.79 Would order again

Three of them this time. Jes did not do the lemonade-and-Sprite thing here and would not say why. — All four of us

Double chocolate chunk cookie, $2.49 Would order again

Bought at 7:41pm on the way out, forty-five minutes after dinner, on a second receipt. Served warm, 750 calories each. This is why the stop has two order numbers. — Carter and Mathew

Bottled water, $0.25

Twenty-five cents, and the only item on the first receipt Massachusetts did not tax. — Rich

Not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or connected to Costco Wholesale Corporation. We just really like the hot dog.