In case you didn’t know and you’ve been putting off shopping for your Independence Day festivities, you will need to get to Costco today.  That’s right, for those of you in the U.S., Costco is CLOSED on July 4th.  So, if you need some hamburgers or buns, or maybe lots and lots of soda, or perhaps you’re going the healthy route with some fruit salad, no matter what you’re needing, if you’re looking to buy it at Costco you have got to get there today.  Costco will resume regular business hours on Sunday, July 5th.

And don’t forget that this is the last weekend to take advantage of the savings in the current Costco Coupon Book.

You may have read about the latest beef recall for e.coli that started about a week ago.  The JBS Swift Beef Company from Colorado initiated a voluntary recall of more than 40,000 pounds of various beef products.  The affected beef products were produced on April 21 and 22, 2009, and were shipped to distributors and retail establishments in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin.  And some of it was supplied to Costco. At Costco the beef was made into steaks, ribs, and ground beef.

This recall affects products purchased between April 28, 2009 and May 28, 2009.  According to the JBS Swift Recall Letter posted on Costco’s Product Notices page, no products purchased after May 29, 2009 are part of this recall.  Here’s some additional information from the USDA Food Safety recall webpage regarding the products that are part of the recall:

Each box bears the establishment number “EST. 969″ inside the USDA mark of inspection as well as the identifying package date of “042109″ and a time stamp ranging from “0618″ to “1130.” However, these products were sent to establishments and retail stores nationwide for further processing and will likely not bear the establishment number “EST. 969″ on products available for direct consumer purchase. Customers with concerns should contact their point of purchase.

There have already been at least 18 illnesses associated with this recall, so it is best to check any meat products that you bought between April 28 and May 28, 2009.  If you have meat that is part of the recall you should return it to Costco (or whatever store you bought it from) for a refund.

For more information:

• USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service
• Costco Product Notices: JBS Swift Recall Letter
• JBS Swift Company
• You can also contact the JBS recall hotline at 1.800.685.6328.
  

Starting tomorrow you will be able to enter the Costco International Photo Contest with the theme ‘Give Us Your Best Shot’.   Anyone that is a Costco member, and over 18 can submit an entry, professional and non-professional photographers alike.  What’s nice is that there is a whole separate contest for Costco employees since they can’t enter the member contest.  The bad news for all of you really gifted photographers is that you can only enter one photo.  So, you’ll have to pick from all of the really great photos, to get the perfect one.  You can even digitally enhance your photos, but that won’t really figure into the judging in any way; they’re just looking for really great photos.  But, in any case, your photo must fit within their size parameters of 4″x6″.  If you’re submitting it online it will also need to be a JPEG; you can also submit an entry via snail mail.

You might be puzzled by the ‘international’ portion of the content title, as was I.  However, it isn’t that your photos need to be from some far away or exotic locale, it’s just meaning that anyone that is a member of any of the Costco’s around the world can enter.  There will be one International Grand Prize Winner, and then 3 winners from each nation.  Here’s a list of what you could actually win:

• International Grand Prize
  • $1,500 Costco Cash Card
• National Prizes
  • First Prize: $1,000 Costco Cash card
  • Second Prize: $500 Costco Cash card
  • Third Prize: $250 Costco Cash card
• All winners will also receive:
  • A two-pack leather photo album. Value of prize is $20.00. (Honorable mentions to be awarded at judge’s discretion.)

The deadline for entry is September 30, 2009 so you have 3 months to figure out or take the perfect photo.  The winning photos will be selected by December 2009 and the winners will be notified through the mail and the winning photos will appear in the Costco Connection’s 2010 February and March issues.  The winners from the employee contest will be printed in the January/February 2010 issue of Costco Today (guessing that is an employee-only publication).

For more information about the contest or to enter (after July 1, 2009) check out the contest website.  From here you can also follow a link to the Costco Connection featuring last year’s winners.

We didn’t use too many of the coupons this week, just the one for Charmin.  Though we’ll probably also use the pizza and pie coupons before they expire.  We were lucky enough to get one of the last sets of the solar landscaping lights.  Either they were just low on stock or are selling out of them because there were only about 6 more left.  They had a lot of new furniture items at our Costco this weekend too, which is strange because this isn’t usually the furniture season.

Wild King Salmon

Wild King Salmon Fillet - It’s really not the norm to see wild salmon at Costco, usually they have the nice farmed stuff (which I’m okay with) but this weekend they had both Wild King and Sockeye Salmon available.  We decided to go with the king salmon though because the pieces were gorgeous and thick. We cooked it in a low-key way with just some lemon and dill to accent the taste and it was excellent.  It definitely has more flavor than the farmed fish and I think it because of all the fat under the skin.  At first glance, it might look like it isn’t even as fatty as the farmed stuff but it’s because you have to remove the skin to see where all the fat really is stored.  Did I mention that it was delicious?  I wish they would have the wild stuff more often but it is a bit more expensive than the farmed salmon; $10.99 vs $5.99 per pound.  And because of that, it probably isn’t necessarily something I would want to buy every week.  Although, it isn’t like you could go out to a restaurant and get such excellent quality fish for such a price.  We were fortunate enough to find some pieces that were cut for two or three decent servings, instead of the normal big fillet.  1.10 pounds for $12.09; $10.99 per pound. Item #: 337735.

Healthy PopChips

All-Natural PopChips - This is my latest chip find at Costco that is a more healthy, though still snacky, choice.  I mean, it’s not like it will ever be a substitute for a piece of fruit but they do quite a bit of work to make it a more healthful snack food.  First, there are no preservatives or artificial flavors or colors, no cholesterol or saturated fat and no trans fat.  But what is really cool is that they are not fried or baked but ‘popped’ through the application of heat and pressure to the potato slices.  So, the result is something like a cross between popcorn, regular potato chips, and puffed rice in texture; very light, yet somehow substantial and crunchy still.  I really like them.  There are just 120 calories per 19 chip serving and just 4 grams of fat, which is amazing for chips.  Especially chips that actually have such a good taste and texture. I guess that’s because they only use a little bit of safflower oil in the seasoning process, not the cooking process.  The ones they have at Costco are barbeque flavored, more sweet than spicy as per the chip formula of barbeque, so they have a nice amount of flavor combined with the unique texture.  I’d love to try some that are sour cream and onion flavored.  If you look at their website, you can find all the details about how they make them, and the many flavors they produce.  So, after doing that, I’m also thinking the Parmesan and garlic sound yummy too.  11 ounce bag for $4.99. Item #: 293453.

Chocolate Dipped Cookies

Chocolate Dipped Chocolate Chip Cookies - Fresh from the Costco bakery is something new to tempt us with.  Why do they do this to us?  So, basically this is one of the tasty chocolate chip cookies from the Costco bakery, with half of it dipped in chocolate.  Lots of chocolate taste going on, obviously.  What can I say, they are delicious, even better than the cookies normally taste (because the addition of chocolate to a cookie is rarely a bad thing).  I am hoping that these were something special they whipped up for Father’s Day and won’t be around on a normal basis, to taunt us.  This just makes me love the Costco bakery people all the more; sure it might wreck my healthy eating for a bit but it is so worth it.  How are they always coming up with all of these good things?  And why is their stuff so much better than the stuff you find in other grocery store bakery departments?  I guess it’s just better quality, like most things at Costco.  15 cookies for $9.99. Item #: 28556.

Adidas Tennis Shoes

Adidas Deflect II Women’s Athletic Shoes -  If you read my blog regularly, you probably caught my post about a month ago when I bought the new EA Sports Active for my Wii.  It’s a really hard workout with quite a bit of running.  After doing all the running in my bare feet on my carpet, I realized that I needed a pair of indoor exercise shoes.  So, Costco totally had me covered with a pair of inexpensive shoes that still offer me support and a decent sole.  This is one of the things I appreciate about Costco, there are just certain items that they will always have in stock, and sneakers are one of those things.  I’ve never been looking for a pair and they haven’t had something.  Now, granted, when I’m looking it’s for something to either just wear in general or for some kind of basic athletic pursuit like walking.  And I’m old enough to not really care what brand or even what color they are; I’m not choosy.  But really, where can you get a decently made, name-brand athletic shoe for just over $30?  I currently have another pair that I bought a while back that I actually run in and they are quite acceptable.  Would I go out running a marathon in them, no, but for the bit of running that I do, they are perfectly fine.  Plus, because of the low price, I can actually replace them every 6 months or so and not be so bitter about it.  $31.99. Item #: 388978.

Super Sliders

Waxman SuperSliders Furniture Movers and Floor Savers - This is one of the cooler household items I’ve found at Costco in a while.  But I probably just think that because I’ve been wanting the adhesive felt circles to go on the bottom of some chairs for a while now.  Sometimes it really is just a beautiful conincidence that I’m looking for something kind of weird or out of the norm and Costco has it.  In the pack at Costco you get 62 pieces all together with 4 each of the 2 sizes of super sliders and the 2 sizes of hard surface protection pads, plus 32 one inch felt pads, 12 one and a half inch felt pads, and then two 4.5 x 6 inch felt blankets (as they call them).  The super sliders are really great for putting under heavy furniture when you want to move it across carpet; they really do just allow you to slide ridiculously heavy things like a sleeper sofa.  It’s almost unbelievable how much easier it is to move stuff.  I also like the little pads for protecting wood floors.  But really I wanted the felt pads to put on all of the furniture in my kitchen to keep them from scraping and scuffing up my tile floor, plus it just makes a horrible sound sliding across the tile.  So, with this set I should be able to cover all of the legs on my kitchen furniture and have a few replacements even.  62 piece set for $16.49. Item #: 244293.

Unlike a lot of companies, Costco actually makes submitting and finding information about rebates pretty painless. At Costco.com they have a whole section of pages all about rebates. I came across this recently when I submitted a rebate online for some contact lenses that Dave and I bought at the end of May.

When you purchase something from Costco that is eligible for a rebate from them (not directly from the manufacturer), you get a special rebate receipt that has all of the information that you will need to submit your request online or by snail mail. The receipt also has full instructions about how to submit your rebate online, which is very helpful of them. In any case, if you choose to submit it online you’ll go through a couple of pages where they ask for some standard member information such as your email address and your membership number. And you will also need to provide some information from the receipt: date of purchase, warehouse number, register number, and transaction number. All of this stuff is very clearly labeled on your receipt, so it’s very simple to do. There are a couple of other pages in the process asking for contact information and such but all in all, it will probably only take you at most 10 minutes to fill out the rebate request. And then you wait…four to six weeks for rebates from Costco. I’ve been waiting for 20 days for my rebate and they are still processing it apparently.

How do I know they are still processing it? Because you can also check the status of your rebate request online. How handy is that? And how many rebates have you never gotten and never been able to check on from other places? In any case, to check the status of your rebate you’ll need either the confirmation number from the email you will receive after you put in an online request for a rebate or you will need your membership number, your last name, and your zip code to find your refund. The only slightly confusing aspect of looking for your rebate status is that you have to click on the same link that you would for submitting your refund request: under the Submit Online header there is a ’submit’ button that you’ll need to click and then the next page will have a menu item for Check Your Rebate Status. It’s a little bit of a poor usability thing but now you’ll know the correct way to navigate it at least.

But wait, there’s more. From the rebate section of the website, you can also find information by location on what current rebates are available. For instance, if I look up Austin, Texas I find that we have rebates on three items in the store currently, all look to be air conditioners (I’m guessing). There is an item description, item number, the limit of how many you can buy, the expiration date, as well as the amount of the rebate. However, they can’t guarantee that the items will be in your store because they only update the inventory listings daily. But at least you would be aware of the possibility.

There’s also a section for looking up manufacturer’s rebates; mailed directly to the manufacturer without Costco involvement. You can view a list of those items online too, as well as print out the necessary forms to submit your rebate request to the manufacturer. The items are listed under big categories like ‘appliances’ or ‘cameras’ and for each item you can see the description, item number, amount of rebate, dates the rebate is offered, and get the mail in form as a PDF.

Lastly, there’s a page about how to reimburse the manufacturer if you got a rebate for something that you returned.  Why do I not see this being an often used page?  But this is only good if you have received, but not deposited, the rebate check after you returned something.

In the past I have had excellent results from submitting rebates through Costco.com.  The last time I did, I think the rebate was for some software, the check was here in a month.  So, I’m hoping that my rebate check will be here in the next couple of weeks for my contact lenses.  On the other hand, I’m still waiting for a rebate from a certain software comapny, that I’m guessing I’ll never receive since it’s been years and years.