They say the American dream is something about opportunity, being able to build yourself up from nothing, or some other patently false bullshit. I say the American dream is owning a chest freezer and stocking up on things in bulk. The evidence is definitely there. Having a dedicated freezer always felt like it was treated as some sort of life goal, one of those moments similar to getting married or having a baby. Also, the existence of giant bulk box stores like Sam's Club or Costco.

Growing up, my family went through a phase of frequenting Sam's Club and buying ridonkulous amounts of food, mostly to keep the ridonkulous amounts of people in the family fed. When we acquired a stand alone freezer, there were grandiose plans of buying a side of beef and making oodles of freezer meals that never really panned out, for whatever reason. That freezer mostly because a place to lock up Christmas cookies, keeping me from depleting the supply of those delicious morsels before Christmas actually arrived. Side note: I really developed a taste for frozen cookies; there's just something about them...

Fast forward a couple decades and I wound up marrying into a Costco membership. While we may not have ascended to the level of adulthood that would see us having a stand alone freezer, there are definitely benefits to be gained from shopping bulkly at Costco, namely quality, though at an upfront cost.

For example, one of the our standard restock items is USDA prime ribeye steak. These chonky, inch-thick bois usually come in packs of three for somewhere around $50. That probably seems like a lot at first glance, but one steak is large enough that it will feed both of us for one meal, giving a cost of $8 per person per meal. For a steak that fancy, it winds up being cheaper than a lesser cut of meat of similar weight at Safeway. It's a similar story for all of the meats we buy there, and when we get home, I spend an hour or two measuring, cutting, vacuum packing, and freezing all manner of meat.

Similarly, their prices on booze has elevated the level of snobbery of my mixed drinks. Prior to Costco (and meeting my father-in-law), Woodford Reserve is what I considered a nice, sipping whiskey. At your general liquor or grocery store, a normal 750ml bottle would run somewhere around $35-40. At Costco, you can get double that for roughly the same price. So, now my nice whiskey gets diluted with Coke Zero, and I spend the money I've saved on actual nice whiskey when I want something to sip on.

I haven't said much about Costco's in-house brand Kirkland Signature, but following the paragraph about alcohol seems like the best place to mention it: their products are legit. You could spend $60 for a 1.5 liter bottle of Grey Goose vodka at Costco... or you could get buy the 1.5 liter bottle Kirkland Signature "french style" vodka that tastes basically identical... FOR $18! Now, my bar looks a little ridiculous with all these giant bottles of booze (and/or just makes me look like an alcoholic out of control), but this shit lasts months.

Of course, it shouldn't need to be said, but since all of this product is bought in bulk, it's a trip we make once every couple months (give or take some weeks). So, again, the up front cost may be high, but averaged out over that period of time, we're saving in the long run. I can only imagine what life would be like if we had a chest freezer...

...or if I had a much larger bar...