Thoughts for Thrifty Thursday:
I have been on the hunt for massive jars! Ones that will hold 10+ pounds of flour or sugar. I do a lot of baking and I buy everything in bulk from our local grocery store. I found myself filling bags of flour and sugar and other common ingredients each time I went to the grocery store… one day I got sick of looking at my cabinet full of bags of bulk items… I had over 15 bags of flour because I just could not access it easily and I put it in other places. So my mom and I decided to hit up local antique stores because I knew there were old glass pickle barrels of large proportions! I was so excited to find this baby and it was very well priced. It was $18 bucks, which may sound like a lot but I filled it to the very top and then had some left over because I had bought that much extra flour! I have found large jars at places like Walmart for about 10 bucks, but they really are about half the size of this guy. They are hard to come by but I hope I can find at least one more for the sugar and one for rice!
I just love the look of jars, they don’t have to match or be similar at all but I love storing dry goods in glass. I found this guy at Goodwill for $1,75!! Seriously, what a steal!! Currently it’s housing my powdered sugar.
On New Year’s our tradition is to make a pork roast and saurkraut in the crock pot with mashed potatoes… well after I emptied the good sized saurkraut jar I thought hmm, I could just start saving the ones that we empty from things we use like jelly, pickles, relish, some mustards, tomato sauce or sauces alike. I am not really sure why I never thought to do this before. I have started a good collection of jars to house things like chocolate chips, baking soda and powder, grains, herbs, all the things I buy in bulk that I can now easily see and access and not over purchase, which in turn has saved us a lot of money! So now when I am grocery shopping I constantly look for things we need that also come in class jars and hopefully I can soon have a huge pantry full of them that I can share with you. I am a little OCD so I have contemplated spray painting and color coordinating the lids and of course I have to use my label maker to label what each jar is… but that is a personal preference =)
So next time you are grocery shopping and pick up something like jelly and grab the easy squeeze or plastic bottle…. think twice about it not only because we all know by now the less plastics we use the better off we are but because if you buy the big glass jelly jar you can reuse it for baking ingredients or herbs or even things in the bathroom like cotton balls, qtips, or your toothbrushes (Which storing in a glass container that you can sanitize in the dishwasher is a really good idea anyway!). I love anything that has multiple uses so think about what you can reuse so you don’t have to go out and buy new containers, which by the way are ridiculously expensive! Personally I have saved over $100 just by reusing jars and not having to go out and buy them, with the exception of the mega monster jars at the thrift stores because our food and goods no longer come in awesome containers like that!
Who knows, you could even star your own fresh herb garden out of recycled jelly jars!
whiskingupperfection 