By Andrew DePietro, Finance Writer Memorial Day weekend finally has arrived. The unofficial kickoff to summer, Memorial Day celebrates and honors American soldiers who died serving in the U.S. armed forces. Every year, Americans mark Memorial Day with parades, festivals and Memorial Day sales. Big-box retailers and stores are usually open on this holiday, but Costco is closed. However, that does not mean you cannot save at Costco during the rest of the holiday weekend -- or even by shopping online on Monday itself. Here are the best things to buy at Costco on Memorial Day weekend. Typically, Memorial Day weekend sees some of the best sales of the year on mattresses and bed sets, said Brent Shelton, an online shopping expert with FatWallet. Costco is living up to this tradition, offering $150 off queen-size Sleep Science memory foam mattresses through May 29. If you prefer a king-size mattress, you can save $500 on a Sleep Science memory foam mattress, but only until June 15.
These deals are online-only. Although Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer, there is no reason you should not buy new furniture as part of your spring cleaning. You can get up to $800 off the cost of furniture at Costco this weekend. An Austin four-piece, top-grain leather living room set is priced at $2,499.99, representing a $500 price cut, said Kendal Perez, a savings expert with Coupon Sherpa. This deal is online only. You often can get a great deal on outdoor furniture in May. Warehouse stores such as Costco tend to offer some of the best deals on patio furniture. For example, you can save around $1,000 buying a Portofino five-piece club chair set at Costco versus buying it through Amazon. For a limited time, you can save up to $600 on select Portofino patio sets before the deal ends May 29. Related: Are Banks Open on Memorial Day 2016? If you are looking for something to tie your patio together, the Aquaterra six-person hot tub might be ideal.
With savings of $1,500 off the online price, this hot tub is one of the best Costco deals on the list. This deal ends on May 29. Table tennis tables can provide entertainment long after Memorial Day and well into the summer. This Memorial Day weekend is your chance to save $150 on a Kettler table tennis bundle before the deal ends May 29. Keep the kids preoccupied all Memorial Day weekend with a new outdoor play set. Until May 29, you can take $600 off the price of a Lifetime double slide deluxe play set at Costco. This gives you a savings of $1,000 compared to buying this play set at Home Depot. Sales of barbecue grills fell in 2015 after posting solid numbers in 2014, according to the Hearth and Home trade journal. Whether this trend will affect the prices of grills in 2016 is debatable, but Costco offers affordable, high-quality grills to get Memorial Day cooking started. Costco sells the Dyna-Glo gas and charcoal grill for $499.99, less than you will pay at Walmart and Lowe's.
On the higher end, the NXR stainless steel seven-burner gas grill costs $1,099.99 at Costco, beating both Amazon and eBay's listed price for the same product. Related: 101 Ways to Save Money This Summer Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, Costco is taking up to $550 off the price of top-selling appliances while supplies last. An LG three-door black stainless steel refrigerator (model LFXS30766D) is priced at $2,549.99, a $950 reduction from the original price. "(That's) about $50 less than the next best price for this model from Home Depot," said Perez. Having a Costco membership can really pay off when it comes to buying washers and dryers this Memorial Day weekend. From now until June 8, Costco deals on washer-dryer units can save you anywhere from $270 to $700 off on brands such as Whirlpool and LG. Costco has deals on just about everything--including kitchen sinks, which are part of Costco's online-only sales this Memorial Day weekend. Savings on kitchen sinks start as low as $40 off but can run up to $220 off Hahn Chef Series single-bowl sinks.
These deals expire on May 29. Related: How to Celebrate Memorial Day 2016 for Under $30 Most of us love to find ways to save on food costs. And chances are good that you are going to need food for your Memorial Day weekend barbecue. Look for Instant Savings vouchers for Costco shoppers, Perez said. Perez singled out barbecue-related deals, such as $3 off Dreyer's Outshine fruit bars and $4 off Tyson panko-breaded chicken breast tenderloins, as good Memorial Day weekend Costco deals. Costco has monthly Instant Savings for May, notably on barbecue condiments and related items. That includes $3 off a Heinz Picnic Pack and A-1 steak sauce. You can also get $3.30 off Reynolds aluminum foil. With the NBA playoffs, Stanley Cup playoffs and Olympics either ongoing or coming up, Memorial Day weekend is an excellent time to buy a TV. Through May 29, you can buy a Samsung Galaxy smartphone from Costco and receive a free 32-inch Samsung TV. With this Costco Memorial Day deal, customers will get a free $25 Costco Member Benefit Cash Card, a $15 Costco Cash Card and a 5200 mAh portable battery.
Computers and laptops are included in Costco online-only deals. Through May 29, you can save up to $400 on a Dell XPS 8900 desktop computer. When it comes to laptops, Costco can save you hundreds of dollars this Memorial Day weekend, including $350 off an HP Pavilion laptop. Costco deals on cameras can save you money and prepare you for taking photos throughout the summer. From now until May 29, you can save $50 off and get free shipping on a Panasonic travel camera bundle. Even better, you can save $250 and get a $50 Costco Cash Card when you buy a Sony a6000 Digital Camera. This deal also ends May 29.The last time I bought a mattress for myself was about 11 years ago. I bought a fairly new full-sized one off a coworker. Four moves and a decade later, we’ve decided it’s time to replace it with an adult (and sometimes an extra toddler)-sized bed. When we started looking, I was shocked at the prices. $3000 for a mattress? What the heck are these things made of? Knowing very little, we went shopping for a mattress and other things on a Saturday morning.
The first place, we stopped, Sleepy’s, seemed nice enough. We laid on a few and honed in on the one that we both felt most comfortable in. Meanwhile, Audrey discovered the fun of letting herself fall backwards onto mattresses and did it all over the store. She was giggling and the whole store couldn’t help but look and smile at her. Unfortunately, we soon stopped smiling. When we found something we liked, the seemingly helpful salesman started to get more aggressive. He asked how much we were looking at paying and I made up a number on the spot, something way below the listed price on the bed. The said he would “talk with his manager” and see if he could get us that price. Then he started asking us if we could commit and have it delivered tomorrow. Anne had walked outside to give Audrey a break by that point, so I said I had to go out and talk with her about it. We talked about it for a bit, then decided we didn’t like the high-pressure sales pitch, so we got ready to leave.
I had the car started up when the salesman came out and approached the car window. He then said that he had “talked to his manager” and he could give us the price we wanted AND a free “platinum package”. I said we would talk about it and let him know. We again decided this was sketchy, but to make good on my promise, I went in and gave him my phone number and left. Later that day we went to Jordan’s Furniture, generally known to be a reputable place with reasonable places. The salespeople there were nice and NOT high-pressure. Prices were generally lower, but strangely, we couldn’t find the mattress we found at Sleepy’s. They had Sertas, but not the one we liked. Being indecisive, we left with a couple new names of ones we liked. Later, we went to Mattress Discounters. The woman there was not pushy and told us about the BBB complaints that Sleepy’s (a 700-store chain) had gotten. We decided to think some more and head home. At home, I did some research online and I found something strange – I couldn’t find much of anything on the mattresses we saw that we liked.
I found some mattresses, many of the same brand, but not the same models. I later came to find out that this was completely intentional. The mattress industry is one big scam. There is no way to make an objective decision on a mattress using actual facts. Here’s a few things that the mattress industry does to get you: 1. They mark up their prices 100% to 200%!! No wonder the first guy was able to get his “manager” to give me such a steep discount. They were probably still going to make hundreds of dollars of profits on it. 2. They give the same mattresses different names in different stores or they set up exclusivity agreements by mattress line in certain stores. This makes it impossible to comparison shop because… 3. They make it really had to get actual facts about the mattresses. Stuff like coil counts, materials, overall construction are shrouded in secrecy. But that doesn’t really matter because… 4. There’s no objective measure of mattress quality.
Consumer Reports won’t rate them because they can’t get the data and there’s no testing that actually says higher coil counts are better or the number of wires in the coils makes a difference in any way. You’re left to deciding how much you believe the marketing. Is a pillow top made of alpaca hair any better than one made of cotton? Your guess is as good as mine. 5. There’s very little online reviews of mattresses, probably because the model names are so fractured. The ones I did find looked more like content-free sites designed to attract referral credits. With some more research, I found out that it was somewhat possible to compare mattresses models from different places. It turns out that they really only make one hardness variation in each line. So you can assume that a Plush Firm mattress in the “Classic” line, is the same as another Plush Firm in the Classic line, even if they have different names. was very helpful in figuring this out. We were able to understand which mattresses we saw and how they related to each other.
For example, the mattress we liked at Jordan’s was a product line better than the one we saw at Mattress Discounters, even though they came out to the same price! Clearly Jordan’s had the better deal, but US-Mattress had an even better deal. So I did something I never thought I could do, buy a mattress over the internet. I’m pretty sure it’s the same one we saw in the store and the free delivery and frame were a good deal. I’m sure that even if I’m getting it at half the price I saw it listed at elsewhere, they’re still making a decent profit on it. Anne and I agree that buying a mattress is worse than buying a car. While both have sketchy salespeople, when you buy a car, you can compare them on MPG, size, features, etc. Multiple dealers have the same models so you can compare prices and make an informed decision based on their invoice prices. There’s none of that when buying a mattress. Our mattress should arrive in a few weeks. Hopefully we’ll just find it comfortable enough to have to avoid going through buying a mattress again for at least another 11 years.