Spices

If you do any cooking whatsoever, you are going to want to use spices at some point. Not just salt and pepper and sometimes oregano, but a vast array. Spices can turn a humdrum meal into something great. "But wait," you say, "spices are expensive!" At the grocery store, yes, they are expensive. For example, I've been trying my hand at making Indian food. The recipe I used calls for coriander, turmeric, cumin, garlic, ginger. I had everything but cumin seed. So on a trip to the grocery store, I check out the spice section and am horrified to discover that cumin seed is a whopping $4.69 an ounce. An ounce, people! It was insane! I quickly left the store and got in the car. The answer came to me. A health food store. They sell spices in bulk (along with many other things). So I price their cumin seed. $14 a pound. Sounds terrible until you divide it by ounces in a pound. It comes out to 87.5 cents an ounce. Let's see 87 cents versus $4.69. I think I know what to do. They were low on it so I bought what they had and only spent 13 cents. It was enough for the two dishes I was trying.
So the moral of the story is BUY BULK. Some of the other spices are even cheaper and do you know how much an ounce of oregano is? It's a lot. I keep things like that in old spaghetti sauce jars. Just don't forget to label what you have!