Comment by gottorf

No, you are not out of touch. Functionally everyone can afford a Costco membership and buy staples in bulk at a higher upfront but lower unit costs. The GP's comment about a family of four walking miles to a Little League game because they couldn't afford the bus fare is an extreme outlier.

There's a large overlap between people who cannot "afford" to shop at Costco and people who spend hundreds of dollars a month on scratch-offs. Whether or not someone shops at Costco is mostly a function of preferences and behavioral choices, not dollars.