31 Days: Day 14 - The Spice of Life

If this is your first visit I welcome you to my little corner of the world! You might want to start at the introduction of this series. It explains what 31 Days of Change is, and has links to each day's post as they occur. Just click on the 31 Days to Slash Your Budget Painlessly button at the top of my sidebar on the right.

Do you ever hold your breath when you pick up a jar of spice to check the price.  I think ounce for ounce some of it costs more than gold!  I recently ran out of poultry seasoning.  I waltzed into Walmart, picked up a little plastic jar of it, then quickly glanced at the price before I chucked it in the cart.  I think customers all over the store heard me shout, “HOLY COW!”  The Walmart police were closing in on me getting ready to say, “step away from the spices lady.”  That little jar of spice went right back on the shelf.

That teensy jar of poultry seasoning cost $3.78 for .65 ounces.  That’s over $93 per pound, people!  I waltzed myself over to my local Gordon Foods where I can buy spices in bulk containers.  Their big honking container cost $9.79 for 10 ounces.  There are about 5 ½  cups in the jar.  That comes out to  $15.67 a pound, which is a savings of over $77.  What a difference!

I can hear you say it.  “What in the blue blazes am I going to do with 10 ounces of poultry seasoning?  Well, it would take me more than 5 years to go through that much, so I split it with my mom and friends.  We all get spices super cheap that way.  You could freeze it and take out a little at a time too. 

Cinnamon runs around $6.00 I think, but they often have it on sale for $5 for 15 ounces.  That will run you $5.33 per pound as opposed to $17.42 at Walmart. I buy taco seasoning this way too.

This one is really hard to put a savings figure on.  It all depends on the spice and how much you use.  I'm going with a guesstimate (for myself) of a savings of about $6 a month or $72 a year.  Your savings will vary.

If you are benefiting from this series, I’d love it if you would grab my button from the top of my sidebar. I will be back with another money saving tip tomorrow. I will keep up a running tally of my savings at the bottom of each new post. Just scroll down to the bottom to see.  Come on back & keep the savings adding up!

My tally so far:

$1596.45/year
$133.04/month