by This Old Housewife
On a hot pursuit for bay leaves, I noticed an aisle section of the grocery store that's ripping us off royally. It's the spice section! A quick look at bay leaves in the regular spice aisle had them at $23.00/oz. (yep, no typo there--Hubby can confirm), while over in the international foods aisle (where they keep so-called "gourmet" stuff--actually Mexican, Jewish, and Asian stuff), bay leaves were in little packets priced at $2.76/oz. I bought all they had to refill my old bay leaf bottle at home.
Do I need to tell you that McCormick was the highway robber in this story? Simply by walking two aisles over and getting my bay leaves, I managed to save $20.24 without coupons, store discounts, or any other discount-seeking trickery. Try that, coupon queens!
Now I could grow my own bay leaves, but that would entail a laurel tree, which won't grow here.
Moral of the story: Need spices? Look anywhere but the spice aisle. Check out the ethnic/gourmet/international foods aisle, or even ethnic grocery stores. Don't be a victim of ripoff artist "Mickey C" (McCormick) or Schilling ever again!
If Sam's Club only carried bay leaves...
For those of you keeping track of "hourly rates" through savings, I made $1200 that day. If I were to add up all the savings I create in one year, plus the year-end tax return, then put an hourly rate to them, I'd probably pass out. It would be more than the highest lottery jackpot! Who says housewives are only worth the sum total of the wages of all their jobs performed?
Everyone is smart about something! That's why we have The Dollar Stretcher Guest Blog. If you have a story that could help save time or money, please send it by email to MyStory@Stretcher.com.
