When I stopped buying plastic to go green, I ended up slicing my grocery bill in half
I went from spending $70 at the grocery store each week to spending around $35 per week by shopping with zero- and low-waste alternatives.
Zero-waste shopping is so simple. I love not having to go all over the store to find something. Instead, zero-waste shopping revolves around refilling containers in three places: the bulk aisle, the produce section, and the meat counter.
And just so we're clear, when I say bulk section, I'm not talking about jumbo-sized items. I'm talking about the bins and dispensers where you can scoop or pour your own items.
That said, you need to have your own containers. I already had lots of glass jars and other containers at home, so it cost me pretty much nothing to start. That said, they don't need to be a new set of Mason jars — reuse pasta sauce, jelly jars, and more to be truly zero-waste.
Spices, granola, popcorn, and even coffee are all staples in my pantry.
I've found everything from peanut butter to olive oil available (and cheaper) in the bulk section.
One of my latest examples: Organic cocoa powder was $3 for about half a pound, where even the Hershey version retails for around $5 for the same amount.
If you love cooking like me, bring your own jars and hit the bulk spice aisle.
This week, I needed garam masala and turmeric for a recipe. The packaged spices would have cost me well over $12 for both. Instead, I brought my own containers and filled them for less than $6.
And ba king's never been so affordable.
Individual five-pound bags of flour go for as much as $6 per bag. I opted for a lower-waste option and bought a 25-pound bag at Costco for about $8 — saving on more than individual packaging.
You could pay about $7 for two pounds of oats...
Or, bring your own container and pay $1 per pound.
How much do you think you're paying for the actual oats, and how much for packaging?
I love mozzarella cheese sticks, but not paying for packaging.
Instead of buying individually wrapped cheese sticks, I buy blocks of cheese, then cut and stash them in the refrigerator for easy snacking. My block was about $3.75 and made around 24 cheese sticks. Buying 24 pre-packaged cheese sticks would be $10 or more.
Packaged snacks are out of my routine, too. A $2 pound of popcorn kernels from the bulk section will make months of popcorn for less than the price of one bag of pre-popped popcorn or a box of microwaveable popcorn bags. Popcorn is an easy, no-package snack and easily costs pennies per batch.
Bagels are pennies on the batch of what it would cost to buy them.
Bread loaves are ridiculously easy to make, too. In addition to that flour I mentioned above, I bought yeast for about $4 in bulk. Other ingredients commonly needed are oil and sugar, which are also available in bulk. Then, all you need to do is mix, knead, let it rise and bake. I make several batches at a time and freeze extra dough before the second rise. Then, all I have to do any time I want fresh bread is pull it out of the freezer and let it defrost and rise.
And the bread recipe I use costs about $0.60 per loaf.
Compare that to the $2 a loaf generally costs, and it's a pretty significant savings.
If the thought of having fresh-baked bread at the ready isn't enough, perhaps the fact that packaged bread commonly contains palm oil — a major cause of deforestation — will entice you to pull out your baker's cap.
Forget paying $4 to throw these out...
Because there's a bunch of towels already laying around in the kitchen.
These little guys will replace about 1,000 dryer sheets.
They haven't paid off yet, but these adorable dryer balls from Amazon are also way cuter than a bunch of dryer sheets.
These habits halved my grocery bill, and after trying it, I think it'll be hard to go back.
When I realized how much I was paying for packages I'd just end up tossing, I was astonished. I'm a bargain hunter, and while I also often buy store brand items and look for sales, I'd been missing out on the best deals all along.
While I'm far from truly being "zero-waste," shopping this way for even a month has completely changed the way I think about buying things in a store. It's not only halved my grocery budget, but it's also shown me just how much I used to spend on single-use packaging.
Find me in the bulk section from now on. I don't think I'll be buying much in packages ever again.
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