Saving money on seasonings

[oavani]

I use a ton of spices and herbs, as I make my own cosmetics as well as cook with them. Purchasing them at a mainstream grocery store in the US is not cost effective for me, so I've found another way. If you visit any Pakistani or Indian grocery (or find one online), you can buy spices in larger quantities at lower prices. Their spice and herb sections are usually pretty impressive. They're generally sold in plastic bags or boxes, so I recycle my empty liquor bottles and funnel the spice into the bottles.

It has saved me money in the long run. I wanted to pass this along, because spending 4 or 5 bucks on a 1.5 oz container of cardamom is just depressing when you find out you can get a 7 oz bag of it at the same price.

 

[ally79]

You are definitely right about the price of spices and the traditional grocery stores...it's ridiculous. I don't think we have any Pakistani or Indian grocery stores around here, but to our north we have something called the World Market. They have incredible deals on everything they sell. I get any kind of "exotic" (at least for the regular grocery stores) meat there and all of my spices for a much better deal.

 

[dazzlingblue]

I've definitely bought spices from the above-mentioned locations, but if I know I don't need a huge quantity of something, I usually head over to Trader Joe's. Oh, I recently realized that Amazon is a great place to obtain spices for a low cost.

 

[Tara]

Spices can be expensive. I buy my spices from Trader Joe's. There are reasonable price. When I don't need a lot of a certain spice, I will buy them from the bulk department at Sprouts. At Sprouts, I can only buy only the amount that I need.

 

[OhioTom76]

Ditto on this suggestion. There was a small middle eastern specialty store right up the street for me that I visited one day just to check it out. I was really surprised at the large bags of spices you could get, in some cases for less than what they would charge for a little container of them in the grocery stores. I still have big bags of chili powder and corriander seeds I haven't even gotten to yet because I haven't used up my other spices I got there. That is a great idea storing them in liquor bottles as well, I was fumbling around with zip loc bags but I will give that a try.