The Secret to Saving on Spices

I have a secret to save 50% or more on spices!   Buy them "loose" from the bulk spices section at HEB (and no, I'm not working with or affiliated with HEB...I just love their bulk herb section).

The bulk herb section of the HEB in Hewitt

It takes a few seconds more work but the savings are phenomenal.  All you do is grab a baggie, scoop yourself some spice, take note of the number on the jar, then go down the aisle to a scale, weight your baggies, type in the number, and print out a sticker with the price.

Above is some cumin I purchased--two small scoops.  Notice the price, 69 cents!   The bag doesn't look big, but it filled up the whole spice jar below.

And yes, that jar was EMPTY.   So $0.69 filled up a whole jar which usually costs around $6.  Now, that jar was organic*, and so might have been a little pricier than most.  But even compared to of the LOWEST priced jar I could find of bottled cumin ($1.99 for 1.7 oz of HEB generic cumin), my bag of cumin was 1/3 the cost!   Guess you pay a lot for that jar!

And yes, I've tried similar comparisons with other spices.  You get an even better deal with some bulk herbs (bay leaves ESPECIALLY).


*(SIDE NOTE:  If you are concerned about GMO, you should know that very few herbs have ever been genetically modified, probably because they tend to be naturally critter resistant.   The only ones I'm aware of are sugar cane, alfalfa, chicory, flax, eucalyptus, rose and chrysanthemum [edible flowers], and tobacco if you count that (and except for sugar, you would not find any of those on the HEB spice aisle anyways).  You could check back for changes on the GMO crops list on wikipedia or this list at the International Service for the Aquisition of Bio-Tech Applications.)



Linking up at Throwback Thursday.