Grandpa Gotta Cook—A Cost Analysis Of The Costco Hotdog

It's Time To Play—Which. Is. Cheaper?!?

On this edition of Grandpa Gotta Cook, we take a look at another cost comparison between buying a popular meal out, or making the equivalent at home.

It's been a while since I did one of these. Of the two so far, the cost savings was very much with buying the individual ingredients and making the food at home. That, even though fast food places like McDonald's can buy by the ton and spread their savings out over many restaurants, while in my case, I was only preparing for four adults.

This time, though, I take aim at the famous Costco Hotdog meal, available in Costco foodcourts everywhere.

The Costco Hotdog Meal

For those who might not be familiar with the Costco Hotdog meal, you get a footlong hotdog, in a matching sized bun, with your choice of toppings—ketchup, regular mustard or deli, and if you're lucky, there's also relish and sauerkraut to choose from. The hotdog also comes with a fountain drink in what I'm told is a 20 ounce cup.

Now, none of that might sound very special, and it's not. Not really. If you like hotdogs, they are pretty good, and the buns are generally soft and tasty, too. However, aside from the size of the dog and bun, it's not really a big deal.

What is, for the hotdog, toppings and drink, is the price.

It's just $1.50 USD. That's right, $1.50 USD.

And it's been that way since 1985, when the first hotdog and soda went on sale.

It's the cheapest meal that I know of. If one hotdog and what amounts to a medium-sized drink isn't enough, you can get two for $3.00 USD. Still a bargain!

But could I beat that price buying the ingredients and making it at home?

Let's find out.

First Stop, Costco

Actually, my first act was to look up online to see how much footlong hotdogs and buns cost anywhere. Surprisingly, a Google search didn't pull up very much. I knew, however, that Costco did sell the hotdogs in packs to make at home, so without any prior knowledge of what I might be getting myself into, I headed off to our local area store.

As usual, the parking lot was full at around 11 AM on a Saturday morning. It never ceases to amaze me just how many people go to that place every day.

Finding a parking space is usually the only issue I have when I go. Other than that, I know what I want, I have a good idea of where to find it, and I get in and out as quickly as possible.

I'd not bought the hotdogs in a pack before, so it did take a little bit of searching. I finally found them—a pack of 14—in one of the refrigerated aisles in the back near where the meats and some prepared food can be found. That's when I saw the price.

$13.99.

That meant each dog, then, cost nearly $1.00 USD.

Truthfully, I wasn't expecting the franks to be so expensive. Two-thirds of the price I was trying to beat was just in the dog!

Since they had some polish dogs there, too, I got another pack of 14. Then, I went looking for the footlong hotdog buns.

Strangely enough, there were none. I came across the Kirkland brand sandwich rolls, which were longer than regular hotdog buns, so I bought those.

With hotdogs and buns in hand, I still needed a few more items to make this comparison as true as possible. We had ketchup and regular mustard at home, but I would need the deli mustard, sauerkraut and relish. What I didn't need was any of that in bulk, since most of the household doesn't eat all of that stuff. That meant going somewhere else where I could find some cheap pricing on some smaller sized items.

Next Up, WinCo

Just across the street is a WinCo. It's another place where the parking lot is always full. It's got fewer spaces to work with, though, but still, finding a spot to leave the car is the hardest part of the trip. Once inside, I made the rounds as quickly as I could.

The above image shows what I eventually brought home:

• Coca-Cola and Dr. Pepper for the soda.

• Kirkland Beef Dinner Franks and Beef Polish Sausage.

• Steinfeld's sauerkraut and relish

• Beaver Deli Mustard

In addition, I decided for the purposes of our own meal to add some Ruffle's potato chips, potato salad I bought from the barbecue joint down the road and some Bush's baked beans. Those items were just to round out the meal, and won't be a part of the cost analysis.

A Tale Of Two Receipts

It wasn't like I was doing the math in my head, but I already knew from the dogs and buns that I was behind the 8-ball when it came to cost.

The rest of it wasn't going to make it any better.

The math looks something like this:

• 14 beef franks at $13.99 a pack = 99.9¢ each.

• Kirkland Sandwich Rolls—Three pack for a total of 18 rolls—$3.69 = 20.5¢ each.

• 2 liter Classic Coke or Dr. Pepper—$1.98 each.

Two liters isn't quite 68 ounces, but for the purpose of my cost analysis, I needed 80 ounces, so after invoking some fancier math, I came up with $2.34 USD for the equivalent of 80 ounces, which meant 20 ounces = 58.5¢, more or less.

Ehhhhhhhhhnnn!

You know what that sound means? That's the "I lose buzzer" because I'm over the Costco price. In order to be cheaper, I needed for the ingredients to come in under $1.50 but with just the hotdog, bun and drink, I was already a tick away from $1.79, or 29¢ above the cost of buying it prepared at Costco.

Adding on what was left, even in small doses, would just make the cost go up, however slight. A guesstimate puts my total cost at roughly $1.85 to add deli mustard and sauerkraut.

What About The Meal Itself?

Well, it tasted like the ones you buy in the food court. Except I had beans, potato salad and chips, too.

As you can see, I pretty much devoured the hotdog before I remembered to take a picture of the finished plate.

There isn't much to tell about preparation. I boiled the hotdogs for several minutes, but ended up microwaving them for a little more to finish them off. I warmed the buns up a little in the oven, and opened up the condiment containers. Everyone was left to choose and pour their own drink and dress their dogs as they wished, picnic style.

Conclusion

This experiment took place about a month ago, and we still have hotdogs, polish dogs and buns in the freezer. I think the only things gone are the sodas, the chips and the potato salad. Maybe the sauerkraut, since only my wife and I eat that and there wan't a whole lot to begin with.

If you like hotdogs, the Costco Hotdog meal is hard to beat. I doubt there are many like it. Which is fine. I'd just as soon let Costco do the cooking for me, since I much prefer the eating part of all this anyway.

With that, this edition of Grandpa Gotta Cook comes to an end.

Until next time, stay healthy out there and...

...Enjoy!

_{All images courtesy of Glen Anthony Albrethsen}