Saturday, January 31, 2009

Another Thrifty Girl's Best Friend

So I know I've talked a lot about how awesome Goodwill is for finding kitchen stuff. I now want to disclose my other thrifty secrets: the Dollar Tree and my local Dollar General. I know what you're thinking -- The dollar store, really? But seriously Dollar Tree is a fantastic place to stock upon inexpensive staples and spices and Dollar General usually has a pretty good selection of cast iron cookware and other handy kitchen stuff.

Let me start with Dollar Tree -- this is the absolute best place to buy spices. The spice selection is almost as good as that of a regular supermarket and the spices are a fraction of the cost. For example, I cook with a lot of Cumin. I purchased my jar of cumin at Dollar Tree for $1, my boyfriend bought a smaller jar at the supermarket for close to $5. Even if you can't find some of the speciality spices, its great for Kosher salt, Italian seasoning, oregano, etc. (you know the basics)

Dollar Tree is also great for finding kitchen utensils and dishes (for that matter). They have a great variety of things like spatulas and wooden spoons and its actually really good quality. The same goes for their tableware section.

I find the same type of bargains at Dollar General. In fact this is my favorite place to purchase cast iron cookware -- there is ususally a pretty good selection and its the same stuff you'd find at a more expensive retailer but for a fraction of the price.

Hope this was helpful!

2 comments:

AmyT said...

I buy spices at my dollar generall ALL the time!!! They are the same as the one's at the grocery store - and WHY PAY MORE!!!

Katie said...

Exactly, spices are super expensive at the supermarket, even Wal-Mart. I try and buy as many of them as possible at the dollar store and even sometimes Big Lots (which also has a lot of food products for cheap)