Good idea really
5d 6h ago by reddthat.com/u/LadyButterfly in microblogmemes from reddthat.com
I miss radio shack... and frys, I don't need 100 5k ohm resistors, I need 3. Thank god Microcenter and EPO are still around. Shoutout to Mouser and McMaster Carr too but their shipping adds up for oddball stuff.
Yeah, they are just farther away from me vs Mouser and have the same problem with shipping. A 10 cent resistor costs $15 to ship.
It’s definitely going to depend on where you live, the shipping estimate gives me for one is eight dollars. To a certain extent I feel like Amazon has given us an unrealistic expectation of how much shipping things costs. Eight dollars even for a tiny resistor though isn’t that far out of what I expected it to be, a lot of other places I shop online have pretty similar shipping costs. I’m willing to pay it in many cases though because it means not supporting a company like Amazon.
Shipping costs business around $8 at the lowest end now. Retail shipping expect prices up at $12 for an ounce.
Thank the pedotus. They raised rates 4 times this year so far and another is coming next month.
That resistor better be made of solid gold lol
EPO in houston? i miss that place. and micro center. closest one to me is in san jose. wish they'd open one in seattle
Yep! They used to have a location down by NASA too but that closed in the early 00s.
Jameco is another good online vendor. They sell resistors by the tens.
I've never tried ordering just one small thing from them though, I make a list for a few different projects and then order it all at once to save on shipping, and I've got a bin for extra components to reduce the need for oddball orders.
Radio shack was awesome, it's a huge shame it's not around anymore.
The nice thing about living in a "not wealthy enough to become a corporate hellscape" country is that I can go down some random roads and get to the streets where independent vendors live, and buy any extremely spesific and small electronic component I want with individual pieces or handfulls for quite cheap.
I was honesrly a bit culture shocked visiting sri lanka and seeing the vendor to vendor next to each other lining themselves for 1-2 km. Couldnt imagine each of then surviving on the amount of money they are making.
Just the wonders of non-corporateism and not being car dependent.
Oh they are very car dependant lol.
Your village wont suffice for a day job and your daily meal.
But there werent the big corporate shops there outside of the metropolitan areas.
I miss microcenter. I'm sad and shocked it doesn't exist in the pnw and there's nothing close to it around here. I have to buy my tech when visiting family in ohio
That's already a thing.
Look for one of those hippie grocery stores that sells spices etc. in bulk, where you scoop however much you want into a baggie and pay for it by weight.
I've never seen a place selling fish sauce in particular that way, but the one near me does sell liquids like soap, honey, and various nut butters.
Yeah, and after the $60 membership fee, everything is twice as expensive and you might as well just go to the normal stores and throw half of it away.
The place by me that does this and doesn't require any membership fee and is fairly affordable. You walk in with your own mason jar or some canister, note the initial weight, fill up with what you want, and then at checkout do the final weigh and pay for the weight of what you filled up with.
The place by me doesn't require a membership either, although being a co-op, it certainly offers one. The prices are generally terrible -- think "even worse than Whole Foods" -- but the bulk spices are less outrageous. More importantly, you still come out way ahead buying only the little bit of some weird spice you need for that one dish instead of a whole jar, even if the price per pound is higher.
Or just buy a bunch of small containers and split normal size things with friends.
I'm legit thinking about doing this now, I have so many containers in my fridge that don't have to be anywhere near as large.
I don't need a big bottle of Worcestershire, and I like having a large selection of mustards.
Have considered Costco parking lot group buys but a lot of planning effort
But basically place orders on a spreadsheet, have a single person buy bulk, break into smaller quantities and pay accordingly just outside the store.
Lotta work though, also gotta get to the store (car often required yet so costly)… if you turn it into deliveries you probably erase all savings and then some
But it's fresher so you only use half as much.
But then it's so delicious you're cooking with exotic spices twice as often.
I doubt they'd have fish sauce because of the smell, but mine has soy sauce which is a good substitute.
Unironically, bulk barn lets you buy exactly how much you want.
Except for saffron.
I popped in to say Bulk Barn. I have friends from other countries that have told me that they can't believe such a place exists.
I had no idea they were Canadian, just assumed American
I love Bulk Barn - perfect when you want a small handful of different colours of sprinkles, or 1 teaspoon of a very specific spice.
Isn't that stuff more expensive than gold? I had a recipe which called for saffron, but it was an optional ingredient, and when I saw the price I put it back. I wanted to know whether or not I liked the recipe before I dropped $25 on a teaspoon of spice.
Once I saw a video of a chef that swears by putting fish sauce into his chili. I tried it and it tasted good. I no long have a fear of fish sauce. I put fish sauce in everything,
Ancient romans when they created garum:
Mmmm umami 🤤
If you don't like or don't have any fish sauce for some reason, adding some worcestershire sauce (technically a fish sauce of sorts, I guess) accomplishes the same thing.
Or even soy sauce, both of them were created to imitate fish sauce.
"smells like feet, tastes like meat"
-Adam Ragusea
ooh I'll have to try that! fish sauce brings an amazing flavor to many dishes
This is common in the Philippines for commonly needed things like shampoo etc. Downside is increased packaging litter
Could turn it to a no waste store. You can bring your own container and pay for what you fill
I could also see a store where you've got a running balance and get charged full price for a bottle of fish oil, bag of salt, whatever, but if you bring it back you get credited back most of what you spent based on the remaining weight.
At least until the one asshole comes along and cuts the cooking wine with vinegar or something to save a few cents.
I wouldn't worry about vinegar as much as I'd worry about piss.
That sounds ripe for contamination
In Korea there are Costco Club Clubs where lots of people come together and purchase stuff under one account that later on split in smaller amounts based on how much they need.
Does the leader of the Club wield a Costco Club Clubs club to display their dominance?
Never heard of it, how do I get in?
Move to Korea, befriend the frugal people, get invited into the club.
Octsoc. The individual items are small and cheap. But a hot dog is like $12
Fish sauce isn't going to go bad, no need to keep it in your fridge
LoL like seriously, just do a little research on how it's made
I thought I was the only one! So often I don’t get food I want because I don’t want to throw food away. Half of every loaf of bread I buy ends up in the trash.
The other day I went to Costco, and did my standard pacing of the bakery while lamenting I couldn’t buy anything, because if I did then I would eat all three dozen cookies or a party size cake. Then I saw a normal amount of danishes, and it was like the clouds broke and a single ray of light shone on the package.
As I was checking out the woman was like “These are 2 for 1, you can get a second package.” “No thank you, I’m good with one.” “It’s really no problem, I could send someone to go grab it.” “I will pay you more not to. I don’t need this temptation in my life.”
Bread can be frozen. Bring them back as toast, French toast, croutons, bread pudding, or breadcrumbs for anything that needs breadcrumbs.
Freeze or refrigerate your bread.
Gold star to you for knowing your limits.
bring them to work? or to people you like? better yet look up your local food pantry and donate em.
My grocery store started selling tiny bottles of sauce, it was like 3 for $5.
"Great!", I thought. "I can finally get only a few sandwiches worth of buffalo sauce, or try some weird new sauce I don't want to gamble on a whole bottle of!"
NOPE
SPECIAL ATTACK: 1000 GENERIC HOT SAUCE BEAM
Bulk Barn does that! A bunch of bins; you scoop what you need and pay by weight. Good for spices and other baking ingredients. No fish oil though.
You may notice by the domain's country code that Bulk Barn is only found in Canada.
You have been blocked
You are unable to access this website
Is the website also only available in Canada?
They just really dislike you. It worked for me
They might be blocking known or low-reputation VPN exits… I’m blocked as well. But I also came here to comment Bulk Barn, so 😎👍
Dollar General kinda already does this, and it makes food more expensive over all, as the packaging to product ratio is worse, and you end up paying a lot more for a lot less. Sometimes it's so extreme you pay more for less product than if you wentt to a regular grocery store.
You ask your neighbours if you want that little of something.
This is the way, but , at least where I live, no one knows there neighbors any more.
Fish sauce adds umami so you can throw it a lot of things. I always use some in my chili.
Straight up, it's an umami powerhouse. Also the fish smell is very heat sensitive, and disappears in everything from bolognese to wing marinade
Give me half a liter (about two cups) of milk. I can't count how often I have opened a liter pack of milk for something and then had it go bad because I didn't need it for anything else. There are a few premium brands that sell milk in smaller quantities but those are way more expensive than one liter of the cheap store brand.
Pop over the border; we've got 500ml cartons of milk in the Netherlands.
Consider ultrafiltered milk. It's higher in protein and lower in sugar, and lasts much longer.
I use it to make my morning coffee and even though I use a small amount every day, I always finish it before it comes close to going bad. The only issue is that it is more expensive, but I'm also not wasting any.
I noticed the grocery store near me started selling precut eggs by four instead of a dozen which is great since you usually only need like one or two eggs for baking stuff
Precut?
Like they cut the carton into four eggs instead of the dozen pack
Ah, that makes more sense. I thought it was the eggs that were cut, but then you start talking about baking with them and that stopped making sense.
One hint for anybody who is going to start buying eggs in smaller quantities... double-check to make sure they're not already hard-cooked.
I can get a pint of milk where I'm at. Only whole milk though. Great because we just have it on hand just in case the kid still gets some calories if they dont eat enough otherwise. And ofc the vit D/C.
Lot of small grocery co-ops have systems where you can buy spices and the like by weight.
That's basically what those meal delivery services are: you get exactly the ingredients you need to cook a meal, with no extra left over.
Isn't that just Doller General?
You couldn't pay me to buy fish sauce from dollar general. (Or any food for that matter.)
I don't want low quality slop loaded with fillers; I want the same high quality food you can get from Costco, just in smaller amounts.
You know the dollar store sells the exact same brand of stuff as the big stores, right?
Eh… mine carries a ton of lower quality versions of foods. Like their ice cream sandwich cookies are fucking disgusting. You can not find something so low quality anywhere else. It’s literal slop.
Ours here in Canada carry full brand name stuff. I can get like the Knorr Sidekicks for a dollar there instead of two bucks at a grocery store. Same with lays chips, or the Old El Passo small cans of salsa for cheaper.
I believe that companies package products like this because it is easier to distribute. It is also easier for them to sell. They know it will likely expire before you use a quarter of it. That is all inbuilt into their model. Waste. They know you will throw it out, go back to the store, buy some more and waste it again. They don't care. They want that. There is no reason to not have smaller packages except profits.
Honestly, there's a lot that goes into it, logistics costs, packaging costs, average usage, apparent value, etc. are all taken into account. The manufacturing and distribution cost of a 100ml bottle isn't really much less than a 250ml one. If someone see's a 100ml and 250ml sitting next to each other, with the actual price difference, they are vastly more likely to buy the 250ml... even if they're only going to use 75ml. It seems like a "better deal" and thoughts of "what if I need it for something else? I'm not driving all the way back here for it!". Combine that with "there's a finite amount of shelf space" and the grocer isn't going to want to stock both if 90% of the time people just buy the 250ml.
Honestly, with the economics of scale, the cost of gas, the machinery to fill twice or three times as many 100ml bottles instead of 250ml's, it might actually be cheaper to make and sell the 250ml's.
It all comes down to "Companies aren't dumb. They're looking to maximize profits with minimal inputs." There's likely a few good reasons for the sizes they choose.
Smaller packages can be more wasteful. If you double the volume of a box you only need about 1.6 times more packaging. So assuming the same material was used for both packages, larger packages are more efficient.
I feel this way about some food places. Not all, but defintely some will charge a decent amount for something and then i get it and go wow thats a lot of food! Ill eat maybe half of it and its then 50/50 if i have the leftovers. I always think instead of charging me $15 for this why not give me the option of paying like $8 for half the amount. Especially these days, give me the cheaper option please! People are always looking for a cheap deal. Closest thing ive seen to this is a chain mexican place that offered exactly that, instead of the regular nachos they had a mini version and was still to big to eat it all. They also had a budget option for tacos as well that was great.
The cost of a meal is ingredients + labor + small portion of overhead (rent/electricity/etc.)
In most cases where meals are prepared individually the amount of labor is roughly the same for double or half the ingredients. That is why there is frequently why twice as much food is less than twice the price and a half portion is 2/3 the price.
1/8 tsp of turmeric.
Find your local hippie grocery store/co-op (or WinCo). They usually have a "bulk" section where you can buy all kinds of things this way, like spices, rice, nuts, beans, yeast, honey, peanut butter, liquid soap... I've never seen soy/fish sauce, but they might make it available if you ask. I'm gonna go refill my Dr Bronner's soap today!
Your Winco has Dr. Bronners in the bulk bins? :O
I don't live near a WinCo anymore, but no I don't think they had Doc B in bulk. At the time I would buy it from the local co-op.
Edit: today I refilled from a small local hippie/vegetarian grocery store.
Terrible example. I caught the 1L Red Boat fish sauce bottle at Costco, ran through it, and have never seen it since.
I kinda wish this for everything, Europe does it better but they still have stuff I just can't use all of before whatever it is expires.
✨ IT'S CALLED WINCO ✨
That's why I have 1162 square pyramid studs of various sizes. Only needed 8, but I don't know enough punks with notions.
I want to buy an individual regular onion, not the big ass Spanish onion that's as big as my head, not a white onion, not a red onion. A regular onion. The ones that come in 20 kilo bags.
I can buy individual fruit and vegetables from at least 6 different supermarkets/fruit shops where I live and it's a smallish town of ~20k people. Where are you living that you can only buy brown onions in bulk?
Yes, destroy it rather than find a use. Recipes are free on the internet.
Fish sauce and sugar (your choice) makes a bomb grilled chicken marinade.
For produce, a place with a salad bar is great for this.
That's basically traitor Joe
The dollar store! Not sure if that’s a thing outside of the US.
It’s not cost effective long term, but you might actually use up the small bottle haha
Please don’t support the dollar store. One of the worst companies in America.
Any of the other grocery chains aside from Costco are similar unfortunately.
Not really… the dollar store model is explicitly designed to completely take over small town mom and pop stores. Most other grocery chains can’t and don’t operate in those areas.
You don’t think Kroger and Albertson’s/Safeway didn’t do exactly the same thing to small town mom and pop stores?
At least in my corner of the US, the majority of mom and pop stores were shut down because of the larger chains.
Oh and happy cake day!
If it was reverse you'd be paying much more for said product. I mean, that's kinda how it already works....
Create a purchasing group.
Ngl I think this could work as a business model.
Its called a sari sari store