I’ve been purchasing from Azure Standard now for about a year and half but have known about them much longer. The reasoning why I didn’t order from them when I first found out about them around 6 or 7 years ago is that the closest pickup was almost 2 hours away from my house and that was simply too far. Then, you know, life, and I totally forgot about the company that seemed to have good pricing on great products that was simply too far away from me to be of any help to my grocery budget.
Fast forward to the start of the dreaded lockdowns in 2020 and Azure started popping up more and more on the various homsteading YouTubers that I watch. Curious if there was a more local drop, I went to their website and found out that there’s now one that’s only about an hour away! Totally doable for us. 🙂 You see, if I want to go shopping anywhere other than Walmart or Harvey’s (both of which are almost 30 minutes from my house) I have to drive about an hour anyhow. If I want to go to a craft store – it’s a bit over an hour. Home Depot or Lowes – you guessed it – just over an hour away. Needless to say I try to plan days when I need to go shopping at those kind of places on my Azure pick up days. You know, 2 birds, 1 stone and all that stuff.
I can’t really complain about the drive. Here, come along with me!
Let’s see. It’s a 41 mile drive each way. I had to stop at a total of 3 stop signs and never even passed under a stop light to get there. My pickup time was the middle of the afternoon and I counted a whopping 27 vehicles and 2 tractors that we passed. 😉 I’d say we live a bit rurally, whatcha think?
Anywhoooo, onto this months haul.
Out of the 24 things I ordered only 1 was out of stock – that was a 4 pack of gallon glass jars. I already have a bunch but I’ve upped my vinegar making and currently don’t have an empty jar in the house that’s any larger than a quart. LOL Right now I have apple scrap vinegar and orange vinegar going in various stages of doneness. Plus some lemon peels soaking in store bought white vinegar that I use for cleaner. Of the remaining 23 items I ordered, 10 of them were vegetable and herb seeds for the garden and I’m not going to include them in the pricing comparisons. They all ranged from $2.47 to $3.25 which is about average for the quantity and quality of seeds I purchased. The remaining 13 items cost me a total of $118.05. Let’s dig in shall we?
First up is a Norpro magnetic lid wand used in canning. I like to keep 2 on hand and 1 of mine has mysteriously vanished. Unable to buy just the wand locally I turned to Amazon. I could buy a single one for $5.00 or a 4 pack for $5.99 making each one cost $1.50 but knowing me the remaining 3 would vanish before I needed them. So I got just 1 from Azure for $1.85.
Next I purchased a large roll of WaxWrap brand Beeswax Organic cotton food wrap. That brand is not available on Amazon but a similar size roll from another company would have cost $17.99. You can get them off the companies website, but there the same roll would cost you $27.11 plus shipping from the UK. Azure for the win for only $8.81!
Azure brand yellow cornmeal is next. In my house, EVERY Friday night is fish fry Friday and my hubby is the master at frying fish. He will ONLY use PLAIN YELLOW cornmeal. And, he’s very particular about it. It can NOT be self-rising because that’s not plain cornmeal… The problem is, it’s hard to find locally. So hard that I’m not even sure how much it costs. Our Walmart doesn’t carry any so we have to get it from Harvey’s and stock up when we see it. Anyhow, I bought a 5lb pack from Azure for $5.59 for him to try to see if it passes his approval. *fingers crossed*
I’ve decided to try my hand at sourdough again so I purchased a San Francisco starter by Cultures for Health for $10.87. It’s not available from Amazon but you can buy it through the company’s website for $10.99.
I love hot tea. I love coffee too but I’m one of those weird people that coffee and caffeine in general makes them sleepy, not energized. Soooo. Tea it is. I simply adore Clipper brand Strawberry Fields tea. Through Amazon they are $4.98 each but Azure has them for only $3.19. I bought 2 boxes. 🙂
On that same note, I also bought a box of Clipper brand Main Squeeze Lemon Ginger tea. This brand is not available locally, but I could get the Yogi brand lemon ginger tea for 16 tea bags for $3.98 whereas I got 20 for $3.17 and on Amazon they are $5.09 a box.
Also on the topic of tea, I bought a box of Equal Exchange Vanilla Rooibos tea bags for $4.57. I cannot even get anything comparable locally and the same box on Amazon would have cost me $5.17 IF I would have bought 3 boxes for $15.52.
Cheese. We love cheese. We LOOOOOOOVE this cheese in particular! Sierra Nevada Cheese Company’s Garlic Herb Jack that comes in 6oz wedges. You can get a 2 pack of them from Azure for $8.49. Unavailable from Amazon, you can buy them direct from the company for $6.99 for EACH 6oz wedge. I think I’ll stick with Azure. 😉
Next up is a 4oz package of Oregon’s Wild Harvest brand Echinacea Root cut and sifted for $14.93. Not available on Amazon you can get it direct from the company for $20.75.
Also under herbs, a 1 lb package of Ashwaghandha power from Organic India was $14.06 and available on Amazon for $18.99.
Our old farmhouse is very damp. I have to keep everything in sealed jars so Gamma Lids for 5 gallon pails to the rescue! On Amazon they’ll set you back at least $9.99 each. They are available locally from 1 place – Tractor Supply – for $10.99 each when you can find them there… Or you can get a 3 pack from Azure for $22.46 for the savings!
Last up is the big money saver. Quick Oats. 25lb bag. From Azure it costs $16.84. Locally I have 2 options – Walmart brand quick oats in 42oz containers for $2.33 each or Quaker Oats brand same size package for $3.60 each. For either of those I would need to buy 9.5 packs to equal 25 lbs for a total cost of $22.13 for Walmart brand or $34.20 for Quaker Oats brand. However, I don’t really feel that these are that comparable because the one I get from Azure is non-GMO. I can get the same exact product in the same size bag off Amazon for $56.95.
Those were my Azure purchases for this month at a cost of $118.05. Had I bought the items off Amazon (and the manufacturers websites for the things Amazon doesn’t carry) it would’ve cost me $206.33 for a 43% savings of $88.28!!! For the 3 kinda comparable things I might have been able to get locally, those would’ve cost me at least $59.08 instead of the $42.47 from Azure for a 28% savings of $16.61.
So, why I don’t do all my shopping from Azure, there’s definite savings to be had if you’re a savvy shopper. While I’m not sponsored by Azure at all, I’m sharing my affiliate links (anyone who purchases from them can have their own affiliate links as well) just in case you wanna go buy something. It doesn’t cost you a thing more, but if you do place an order that’s over $100 I get a one time referral bonus of $25. 🙂 In todays world ever bit helps.
With that I’m off! Bunches to do, much more that I want to do, and never enough time to do even part of it. LOL Have an awesome day!