fractalnavel

So here's my Martha Stewart moment, a new home economics money saving discovery for you. How much do you spend on Ketchup and Mustard? Its probably more than you think and if you have kids a lot more than you notice.

I was at Sams Club last month and realized I needed to buy some Ketchup and Mustard. Laughingly I looked at what they carried even though I knew it'd be way too much to deal with.  You know the monster tubs they have setup at the snack bar for hotdogs that have a pump on top? yeah, all they had were those great big wide mouthed 117 oz. plastic monsters. I'm laughing cause their brand name Heinz ketchup was priced UNDER $3 a tub. Food Kitty charges over $2.50 for a 64 oz (or smaller) squeeze bottle, so I got one of each (SUCH A DEAL eh). I got home and discovered that they don't come with the pump, just a big white wide-mouth screw-on top.

So I'm standing at the kitchen sink without a decent funnel, thinking how I'm gonna get this ketchup out of the wide mouth tub jar into my empty squeeze bottles (lucky I didn't throw them away yet). Even if I had a funnel, most would clog before filling a single bottle of ketchup while Carly Simon sings the "anticipation" song from the commercials over and over again. I needed a way to get the ketchup out of the wide mouth vat into the narrow mouth 32 or 64 oz. squeeze bottles. Hmm.

I rummaged up a $2 rubbermaid 32 oz. sports drink bottle with a wide mouth and a lid with a pull to open stream valve on top. The same kind of plastic valve you find on top of dish detergent bottles. So over the sink I filled it with very little mess by pouring ketchup from the vat right into it. I screwed on the cap, and squeezed a stream a ketchup out the top into the empty ketchup bottles. There was no mess! In two minutes I was able to refill a 64 oz and a 32 oz ketchup bottle and still had enough left in the tub for another 32 oz. bottle in the future. I screwed the air tight lid back on the vat and put the half empty tub back on the shelf. A week or two later I emptied the remainder into another 32 oz. bottle and there was no ill effect or bad ketchup in the tub which was not refrigerated after opening. It makes sense considering they leave these tubs out at hot dog stands etc. all day long.

I was able to get almost $8 worth of ketchup for under $3 and ten minutes of my time. Not bad eh? I washed out the rubbermaid sports bottle and filled it with mustard and used it to refill some mustard squeeze bottles. I still have some mustard in its air tight tub (3-4 weeks old now) in the pantry thats still good which I'll refill the big squeeze bottles with soon. Mustard is even more expensive per oz. in the stores than ketchup. My savings there should be even higher, maybe $10 to $12 overall.

It was an experiment, but seeing a retail bottle nearing $3, I just thought that even if I ended up throwing the rest away I'd break even on the first bottles worth.  Alternatively you could spend $3 on restaurant style condiment squeeze bottles and spend less time refilling them although you'd probably have to do it more often.
Either way you go this will cut your cost of K & M to one third which helps.

I also buy pickle chips (to put on hamburgers) at Sams or Wal Mart. You get a really big glass jar for about the same $3 cost as a small jar at the grocery store. You think its way more than you need but it goes pretty quickly when you can put 4 pickle chips on a burger. I take one of those small ziplock containers, the kind you get with premium lunchmeat, and fill one with pickles and juice. Then I put the big bottle on a lower shelf in the fridge and use the plastic container first. You get about 3 or 4 containers full out of the bottle without the hassle of having to manhandle a big gallon glass jar every day.

I have not bought any canned goods in those monster sizes. I don't plan to start to either but if you can figure out how to partition out and preserve or use up a 100+ oz. giant can of baked beans let me know. Short of opening a restaurant I don't see how to make those deals practical. Now I did notice that they are carrying more big bulk sacks of rice these days. The last time I went on a super cheap diet, I found I could make a lot of meals out of a 5 lb. bag of Indian wholegrain rice that cost me next to nothing to buy in the regular grocery store. Granted Sams looks to be carrying 25 lb bags (ugh!) but seal up the excess in an 18 gal. rubbermaid tub and you've got your year's worth supply of grain there. In fact those wide mouth ketchup & mustard vats would be real good for keeping a few pounds of grains, cereals and powders in the pantry for immediate access.