Sometimes convenience is cheaper!
I was making a pasta salad yesterday and decided to go all out… I bought sun-dried red bell peppers. (I know, I’m really living large here!) The salad was quite tasty, and the peppers were a delicious touch, so this morning I was thinking about the logistic of the peppers.
I have a dehydrator that doesn’t get used as much as it could, and while I imagine it wouldn’t be exactly the same as sun-drying, it seems like it would be a passable imitation. “Think how much money I’ll save by doing it myself!” I thought gleefully. Until I actually double-checked my receipt, that is!
Turns out that for me (at this time of year, at the store where I do most of my shopping), buying the sun-dried peppers is less expensive than buying fresh bell peppers and dehydrating them myself (not to mention the extra labor involved!). The sun-dried peppers were $1.50 for what appears to be about two peppers; the fresh were the same cost per pepper! Later in the season I expect that the fresh peppers will drop to about $.88 each, but it’s still cheaper to buy them already dried.
Just goes to show that the pricebook can reveal even the surprising deals!
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I tried dehydrating peppers before, and it really came out awful.
LOL! Well, now I’m really glad that pre-packaged is cheaper!
I’ve noticed this price difference when I started buying roasted red peppers in a jar. And having it on your shelf ready to go is so much easier. Probably the only way to do something to red peppers and have it cheaper than buying it prepared is to grow the peppers yourself.
As the saying goes, time is money, so it’s nice to be able to have some things done in this crazy, crunched world. I’ve spotlighted your post here — http://dontmesswithtaxes.typepad.com/dont_mess_with_taxes/2006/05/this_just_in_pf.html — for my readers to see, too.