My roommate pointed out I was buying the wrong kind of rice for a year

Ivan Hunt · 2026-04-03T21:50:06.625965+00:00

I'd been buying those small boxes of instant rice for about $2.50 each, thinking it was the cheap option. He showed me a 20-pound bag of long grain for $12 at the store, which works out to pennies per serving. Do you have a basic ingredient you were overpaying for without realizing?

singh.uma6mo ago

What about spices, same deal?

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hannaho526mo ago

Spices are a great example, but how do you even start figuring out the right place to buy them? I spent ages paying for those tiny glass jars at the regular grocery store. Did you find a good source, or did you just get lucky and stumble on a better option?

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andrewt415mo ago

Laughed out loud when I read this because my own rice revelation came from an Indian coworker. He saw me grabbing those little microwavable pouches one time and just shook his head. Next day he brought me a bag of basmati from some place I'd never heard of, way bigger than my head and probably cost like $8. I was too stubborn to switch for a few weeks but then I actually did the math and felt pretty dumb about it. Still buy the big bags but now I store them in those big plastic bins with the snap lids (you know the ones) because I had a mouse problem once and let me tell you, that was a whole other level of frustration.

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